“The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.”

“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.” 

“The state of convenience lies in the hands of proper planning. When you know this, you will become a good planner; and when you become a good planner, you save your life from stress!”

“The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him but the number of people he serves.”

“And so let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love...”

“Everybody looks at their poop.”

“There is no substitute for persistence. The person who makes persistence his watch-word, discovers that “Old Man Failure” finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with persistence.”

“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.”

“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of our world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.”

“There are some things that we can do something about, but there are a whole lot of things that we can't do anything about. If it is something we can't do anything about, then we need to let it go and keep our joy. We need to hold our peace - and our tongues - do what is right, and let God work on our behalf.”

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”

“the resilience they had both displayed, the same stubborn strength that had lifted them out of bad circumstances. Except in Auma I had also sensed a willingness to put the past behind her, a capacity to somehow forgive, if not necessarily forget.”

“Familiarity breeds complacency.”