“In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life — natural life — has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?”

“Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 1 PETER 3:8”

“He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others.”

“Strive to make every person feel special. After all, every person you meet is made in the image of God.”

“Most of the dreams that have suffered to death were murdered by their own owners.”

“The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that some day our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace.”

“Be Original.”

“The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.”

“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”

“If they won't write the kind of books we like to read we shall have to write them ourselves.”

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free. Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”

“Leaders create influence with the clays of criticism others throw at them. They don't take offence; they take corrections.”

“The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is.”

“Jesus had much to say to the Pharisees of His day. They had a polished performance, kept the laws, followed all the rules and regulations, and were proud of it. They also had a judgmental attitude toward others, did not walk in love, and showed no mercy. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones (Matthew 23:27).” 

“It is not about reading the Word. It is about obeying the Word.”