“You don't say how slim the odds are but rather how you can improve the odds.”

“Pure gold does not rust. Only gold alloys do so. You may have golden dreams. But if you go in the company of toxic people, your become "a gold alloy" and what that means is that you can rust at any time!”

“The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be a myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.”

“Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”

“Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had been the friend and companion of his early youth. They were fond of one another in spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another who have been together in early youth. But in spite of this, each of them—as is often the way with men who have selected careers of different kinds—though in discussion he would even justify the other's career, in his heart despised it. It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he had seen him come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as every one did, laughed complacently and good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without complacency and sometimes angrily.”

“Loneliness is the leprosy of the modern world.”

“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”

“You've got to follow your passion. You've got to figure out what it is you love--who you really are. And have the courage to do that. I believe that the only courage anybody ever needs is the courage to follow your own dreams.”

“So, our weapons are the Word used in various ways. We can pray the word, speak the word, sing the word, and study the word. As Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, our weapons are not carnal (fleshly) weapons; they are spiritual. We need spiritual weapons because we are fighting master spirits, yes, even the devil himself. Even Jesus used the weapon of the Word in the wilderness to defeat the devil. (See Luke 4:1-13.) Each time the devil lied to Him, Jesus responded with, “It is written,” and quoted him the Word.”

“We cannot walk alone.”

“You must do right before you feel good.” 

“One major way to avoid shifting blames unto other people is to accept and agree that the efforts that turn the loads of your self- improvement have to turn on your own pivot.”

“We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years.”

“Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”

“How to prepare someone for leadership: I do it. I do it and you watch. You do it and I watch. You do it. You do it and someone else watches.”