“Prince Andrei was one of the best dancers of his day. Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their satin dancing shoes performed their role swiftly, lightly, as if they had wings, while her face was radiant and ecstatic with happiness.”

“Learn to be happy through the good fortunes and joys of your friends and not through senseless quarrels. If you allow these natural feelings to blossom within you, your every burden will seem lighter or more bearable to you, you will find your own way through patience, and you will spread joy everywhere.”

“Boredom: the desire for desires.”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

“Brighten the corner where you are. You don’t blame God for placing you in a dark corner… You rather have to thank him for giving you the light to make it bright!”

“This is what Paul told Timothy in the Bible: “Stir up the gift, fan the flame.” When you stir up the passion, your faith will allow God to do amazing things.”

“Christianity is not a white man’s religion and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people; he belongs to the whole world.”

“Our supremacy on Caladan,” the Duke said, “depended on sea and air power. Here, we must develop something I choose to call desert power.

“You’ve got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize.”

“Don’t be impatient. It’s not over until God says it’s over.”

“Knowing your purpose focuses your life.”

“Then the minute the first symptoms show up, they say, “I thought the Lord healed me. I guess He didn’t.” And when they say that, they open the door to the devil. Instead of rising up and meeting the devil with the Word of God and commanding his power to be broken, they yield. Why? Because they have no foundation of God’s Word in their lives. They are depending on others to carry them on their prayers and faith.”

“I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.”

“One of the devil’s methods is to attack everyone . . . He knows that the Word of God is powerful, and he will try to keep you from it.”

“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.”