There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.

Society is our extended mind and body.

The physical body has its own memory. Intimacy without commitment leads to disorganization of the human being, and in turn to disorganization of society.

Sankalpa (determination) is very important. You cannot change your circumstances, the world, or society to suit you. If you have strength and determination, you can go through the procession of life very successfully.

The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state.

One of the most difficult things is not to change society - but to change yourself.

The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.

I do not think that I was brought up in a unique society with unique features about giving.

Those that have an attitude of service towards others are the beauty of society.

It is only when the individual is good that society will progress. When the society and the nation is based on the observance of human values.

Don’t accumulate if you do not need. The excess of wealth in your hands is for society, and you are the trustee for the same.

It's beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social commitments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical.

It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing; but that is not living...To live is to find out for yourself what is true.

We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity — a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

No form of violence can ever be excused in a society that wishes to call itself decent.

It is the inner peace that can bring peace in our family, in society and ultimately, in the world.

If we are able to meet these two requirements - regularity in meditation and leading a good life in society, day-to-day a good life - then nothing would be unattainable by us.

And as we are - the world is. That is, if we are greedy, envious, competitive, our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war. The State is what we are.

I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive it (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.

In modern society most of us don't want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book - we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us.

One of the expressions of Western over-reliance on technology can be seen in the lack of patience in industrial society. When you deal with technology, everything happens at the touch of a button. This conditions you to become so impatient that when you have an emotional or personal crisis, you don't allow time for the solution to take effect. This leads to all sorts of rash responses, like quarrels, fights and so on.