“you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today”

“Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way-in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. ...I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

“There are four simple steps which lead to the habit of persistence. They call for no great amount of intelligence, no particular amount of education, and but little time or effort. The necessary steps are:—       1.   A definite purpose backed by burning desire for its fulfillment.       2.   A definite plan, expressed in continuous action.       3.   A mind closed tightly against all negative and discouraging influences, including negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances.       4.   A friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage one to follow through with both plan and purpose.”

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow- witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

“The human spirit must prevail over technology.”

“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”

“I learned that what happened to me did not have to define who I was. My past could not control my future unless I allowed it to.”

“When someone is being particularly mean and nasty, I simply think to myself, he or she used to be a cute little baby, I wonder what happened?”

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

“If you focus on your problems or your frustrations, your attitude is going to be negative and defeated. But when you put your focus on God and His promises for your life, your attitude will immediately change.”

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” 

“Character is both developed and revealed by test and all of life is a test.”

“There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerers have been; how gloriously different are the saints. But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality; but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him...Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“Your mental make-ups are the contents of your everyday thinking; they carry a charge that can either transform, reform or destroy you. Watch your thoughts, they determine your life!”