“The value of your Creator should cause you to reconsider your own worth and value.”

“You can always tell God how you feel and ask for His help and strength, but talking about negative feelings just to be talking does no good at all. The Bible instructs us not to speak with idle (inoperative, nonworking) words (see Matt. 12:36). If negative feelings persist, asking for prayer or seeking advice is a good thing, but once again I want to stress that talking just to be talking is useless.”

“If you can't be the change, you can set an example for change. If you can't set an example for change, you can go and sleep! By all means, you can do something!”

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

“I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future.”

“Never REJECT yourself due to the sins you have committed. REGRET will do nothing; REPENT and do something!”

“If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow -- you are not understanding yourself.”

“You Can’t Tell Everybody One of the saddest realities we must face about life is that everybody is not going to be happy when we prosper. People haters can’t stand your dreaming of a better life, despise your happiness, turn their nose up at you because you take extra care in your speech and appearance. They get angry when you find a better job or a new love. They stop speaking to you when you give up negative behaviors.”

“We did live in dire poverty. And one of the things that I hated was poverty. Some people hate spiders. Some people hate snakes. I hated poverty. I couldn't stand it. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school, and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to get her young sons to understand the importance of developing their minds so that they control their own lives? God gave her the wisdom. At least in her opinion. My brother and I didn't think it was that wise. Turn off the TV, let us watch only two or three TV programs during the week. And with all that spare time read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Libraries and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read but we didn't know that. I just hated this. My friends were out having a good time. Her friends would criticize her. My mother didn't care. But after a while I actually began to enjoy reading those books. Because we were very poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere. I could be anybody. I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. And as I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny. And at that point I didn't hate poverty anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. I knew I could change that. It was incredibly liberating for me. Made all the difference.” 

“If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable.”

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

“Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

“Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”

“The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.”

“Crime must be brought under control... Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.”