“Asking and hearing people’s opinions has a greater effect on them than telling them, ‘Good job.’ ”

“The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action.”

“Everything that God calls us to do, He will help us do.”

“It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.”

“Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be "just right.”

“I need Christ, not something that resembles Him.”

“Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves, and small people talk about others”

“Leadership is about inspiration with character, not manipulation with position!”

“Happiness is pleasure without regret”

“You are as close to God as you choose to be. ”

“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody”

“Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.”

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“I can do ALL THINGS through Christ who empowers, enriches, equips, enlightens, energizes, recreates, revives, promotes, strengthens, purifies, sponsors, and prepares me! Yes, I can... ALL THINGS, I can!”

“You wait a bit, wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling and touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor.”