“Kalau marah, berhitunglah sampai sepuluh sebelum berbicara, atau bahkan seratus kalau sedang marah sekali.” 

“What is the most difficult word for young people to pronounce? It’s the word no. When we say no [to what is against God], He will help us to stand by it. He will give us courage.”

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.”

“Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.”

“Stop waiting and start working. Stop wishing and start walking.”

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

“Sabrás que estás en proceso de maduración cuando empieces a ver la mano de Dios en las circunstancias más variadas, confusas y aparentemente vanas de la vida. Si estás enfrentando un problema ahora mismo, no preguntes: «¿Por qué a mí?». Pregunta en cambio: «¿Qué quieres que aprenda?». Después confía en Dios y sigue haciendo lo que es correcto. «Ustedes necesitan mantenerse firmes, permaneciendo en el plan de Dios para poder estar allí cuando tenga lugar la plenitud prometida».33 No te des por vencido: ¡Madura!”

“But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.”

“Universal military service may be compared to the efforts of a man to prop up his falling house who so surrounds it and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and scaffolding that he manages to keep the house standing only by making it impossible to live in it.”

“Never stop learning to be who you are meant to be just because you have found someone and decided to be like him/her.”

“The consequences of giving up on your dreams are bitter than the causes of your intentions to give up. Don’t give up!”

“The concept of leadership is abused by people who think a person becomes a leader when he grows grey hair, put into a position and expected to function. Everyone has a leadership potential carried within in a specific area of his or purpose. Leadership is universal and built on trust.”

“Be a victor, not a victim.”

“I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us, of proving that popular govenment is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the govenment whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”

“I had an unconscious, vague sort of understanding that God loved me, but the love of God is meant to be a powerful force in our lives, one that will take us through even the most difficult trials into victory.”