“I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.”

“The men upon whose shoulders rested the initial responsibility of Christianizing the world came to Jesus with one supreme request. They did not say, “Lord, teach us to preach”; “Lord, teach us to do miracles”; or “Lord, teach us to be wise” . . . but they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

“Some people think that going to church on Sunday and owning a dust-covered Bible makes a person a Christian. That is not true. A Christian is one in whom Christ dwells, and the person’s life will give evidence of this.”

“Mainly, though, the Democratic Party has become the party of reaction. In reaction to a war that is ill conceived, we appear suspicious of all military action. In reaction to those who proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market principles to tackle pressing problems. In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism, and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lost the courts and wait for a White House scandal. And increasingly we feel the need to match the Republican right in stridency and hardball tactics. The accepted wisdom that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists these days goes like this: The Republican Party has been able to consistently win elections not by expanding its base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing its right wing, and disciplining those who stray from the party line. If the Democrats ever want to get back into power, then they will have to take up the same approach. ...Ultimately, though, I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in "either/or" thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace "socialized medicine". It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics. ”

“If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's still worth it.”

“Message! With God's help you can change and take control of your life. You plus God equals enough.”

“what time can be more beautiful than the one in which the finest virtues, innocent cheerfulness and indefinable longing for love constitute the sole motives of your life?”

“Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later the man who wins, is the man who thinks he can.”

“When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you.”

“God’s response is simple. Anything that is made well is made slowly.”

“Life is just a schoolroom with a glorious opportunity to prepare us for eternity.”

“Each man is a little war.”

“I find something new in the Bible every time I read it . . . that can be the experience of everyone who comes to it wanting to discover more of God’s truth.”

“When you do well, you think it’s worth it. When you sacrifice so much and you finally do well, it feels really good.”

“So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what purpose he had been placed in the word.”