Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders says that faith and religion are guiding principles in his life, adding that he would not even be running for the presidency if he did not have a strong religious and spiritual understanding.

"You know, everybody practices religion in a different way," he told CNN. "I believe that, as a human being, the pain that one person feels, if we have children who are hungry in America, if we have elderly people who can't afford their prescription drugs, you know what, that impacts you, that impacts me."

Sanders, labelled as a "democratic socialist," said he gets worried when society claims to be spiritual but then remains indifferent to social issues. "I worry very much about a society where some people spiritually say, it doesn't matter to me, I got it, I don't care about other people. So my spirituality is that we are all in this together and that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me. That's my very strong spiritual feeling," he said.

His opponent Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, also discussed her faith, saying that she feels fortunate she has it to turn to whenever she has to struggle with issues such as "ambition and humility, about service and self-gratification."

"I have had to come to grips with how much more difficult it often is for me to talk about myself than to talk about what I want to do for other people... So I'm constantly trying to balance how do I assume the mantle of a position as essentially august as president of the United States not lose track of who I am, what I believe in and what I want to do to serve? I have that dialogue at least, you know, once a day in some setting or another," she said.