“If Americans simply choose to vote for the person who has a D or an R by their name, we will get what we deserve, which is what we have now.”

“Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.”

“How many people are trapped in their everyday habits: part numb, part frightened, part indifferent? To have a better life we must keep choosing how we're living.”

“War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the human will.”

“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.”

“One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.' 'But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything...' 'Life won't leave one alone as it is.”

“There is a special way that you can accelerate your progress toward becoming the highly productive, effective, efficient person that you want to be.”

“Parkinson’s Law: If you have only one letter to write, it will take all day to do it. If you have twenty letters to write, you’ll get them done in one day.”

“We are made for this moment, and we will seize it-so long as we seize it together.”

“Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way-in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. ...I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

“If at First You Do Succeed, Try Something Harder”

“Share your ideas with people of like-mind and get motivated by their encouragements and experiences.”

“You can’t decide to value your child sometimes, and then put a game of Farmville, or golf, or a scrapbooking session before kids on other days. Values are non-negotiable like that.”

“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to happen”

“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them.”