“There isn’t anybody in the world who isn’t worth something,” I say. “If you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you. The same people you meet on the way up are the same kind of people you meet on the way down. Besides that, every person you meet is one of God’s children.”

“mother instilled in me a deep respect for the potential of the human brain, and that respect has deepened over the years to an attitude I can only describe as awe. Every time I open a child’s head and see a brain, I marvel at the mystery: This is what makes every one of us who we are. This is what holds all our memories, all our thoughts, all our dreams. This is what makes us different from each other in millions of ways. And yet if I could expose my brain and your brain and place them side by side, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference—even though we might be very different people. That still amazes me. Inside each human brain are billions and billions of complex interconnections, neurons and synapses, which science has only barely begun to understand. When you add to that the mystery of mind”

“As a Christian, I am not the least bit offended by the beliefs of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and so forth. In fact, I am delighted to know that they believe in something that is more likely to make them into a reasonable human being, as long as they don’t allow the religion to be distorted by those seeking power and wealth.”

“Successful people don’t have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”

“It’s not what you know but the kind of job you do that makes the difference.”

“As individuals, we can educate ourselves and our children, cultivate the art of compromise, pray for wisdom, and hold our representatives accountable. Each of us can positively affect our nation just by making ourselves (and those in our spheres of influence ) aware of the fact that we are being used as pawns by those who try to tell us what we should think as opposed to using our own common sense.”

“When I was young, I thought classical music was only the background noise for cartoons.”

“Thomas Paine wrote the first of his “American Crisis” articles in 1776. On Christmas Eve, Washington ordered that Paine’s words be read to the troops to inspire them as they prepared to attack a much larger troop of enemy forces. The message was effective; the next day, the four thousand American soldiers surprised the twenty thousand Hessian fighters and won a victory that restored American morale. Paine’s words were written nearly 240 years ago, but they are just as compelling today as they were then: These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: ’tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods, and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.3 Fellow Americans, our nation faces a new crisis today. Once again, our freedom will come at the price of courage, strength, and faith. The future is in our hands.”

“By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.”

“nation also felt they were victims of injustice, but they”

“GROWING UP changes one’s definition of what is fun — maturation does that, thankfully — so I hate to admit now that as a boy I thoroughly enjoyed throwing rocks at cars. It was a thrill to wait in hiding, ambush the car driving by, and then make our escape. Occasionally, a driver would stop their vehicle and get out to yell at us. But if we were really fortunate, they would chase us. We would run just far enough ahead to encourage them, but when they got close, we would turn on the afterburners of youth, leaving them far behind while we laughed hysterically. Once in a while, the police would come by — usually in unmarked cars — and the chase would be much more dramatic until we reached the ten-foot-tall fences at the end of the neighborhood field. To the police, it must have appeared as if they had us trapped. They had no idea, however, how practiced we were at vaulting those fences. We treated it like an Olympic event, running at full speed toward the fence and then leaping high into the air, grabbing the chain links, and allowing the momentum of our feet to swing us over the top and down on the other side. We would laugh at the police as we ran off, knowing there was no way they would follow us. Today I have great admiration for the police, who risk their lives on a daily basis to protect our lives, freedom, and property.”

“Worst of all, we seem to have lost our ability to discuss important issues respectfully and courteously and cannot come together enough to begin to solve our problems.”

“Wisdom is essentially the same thing as common sense, the slight difference is that common sense provides the ability to react appropriately, while wisdom is frequently more proactive and additionally encourages the shaping of the environment.”

“Compassion, however, should mean providing a mechanism to escape poverty rather than simply maintaining people in an impoverished state by supplying handouts. By doing this we give them an opportunity to elevate their personal situations, which eventually decreases our need to take care of them and empowers them to be able to exercise compassion toward others.”

“Some historical revisionists have also attempted to diminish the role of God and religion in our nation’s past. A careful examination of the records, however, makes it quite clear that religion was a very important factor in the development of our nation. In 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to try to unravel the secrets to the success of a fledgling nation that was already competing with the powers of Europe on virtually every level, he discovered that we had a fantastic public educational system that rendered anyone who had finished the second grade completely literate. He was more astonished to discover that the Bible was an important tool used to teach moral principles in our public schools. No particular religious denomination was revered, but rather commonly accepted biblical truths became the backbone of our social structure.”