“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.”

“Learn wider, grow wiser!”

“Stay focused instead of getting offended or off track by others.”

“Every twenty-four hours God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.”

“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. Africans of my generation—and even today—generally have both an English and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why she bestowed this particular name upon me I have no idea. Perhaps it had something to do with the great British sea captain Lord Nelson, but that would be only a guess.”

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

“Pursue your dreams as if you will live forever, and consider your legacy as if this will be your final day.”

“Do you know what nearly all the sociologists say today in their study of young people? The greatest problem facing young people today is not sex—it is boredom.”

“Don’t wait to “feel” like doing a thing to do it. Live by decision, not emotion.”

“God has never been impressed with strength or self-sufficiency. In fact, he is drawn to people who are weak and admit it.”

“Researchers have found that peer pressure exerted within a clique has caused every one of its members to experiment with drugs, to engage in murderous gang fights, to steal autos, and to violate the seventh commandment.”

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

“We all have a terminal disease far worse than cancer that will kill us morally and spiritually. It’s called sin.”

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free. Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”