“To know if someone can speak offensively or politely, don’t give him poem to recite; don’t give him a song to sing. Just engage him in an argument and you will know it for yourself who he is.”

“Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everyone is standing around reloading”

“One of these days I'm going to put my body where my mind is.”

“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”

“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.”

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”

“While wisdom dictates the need for education, education does not necessarily make one wise. I remember a man when I was growing up who was extremely well educated and had two master’s degrees. He could wax eloquently on many subjects but had a very difficult time sustaining himself economically. In fact, he would frequently mooch off of anyone who would take pity on him. On the other hand, many of the greatest achievers in our society never finished college. That includes Bill Gates Jr., Steve Jobs, and Dan Snyder, who is the owner of the Washington Redskins. This does not mean that higher education isn’t highly desirable and beneficial, but it does indicate that the wise use of knowledge is more important than knowledge itself.”

“Long after you and I are gone, God will still be at work—and many of the things we prayed for will finally come to pass.”

“A born-again Christian should no more think of going back to the old life than an adult to his childhood.”

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.”

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.”