“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“Be the change you want to see in the world”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.”

“She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty, old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his fact and hands, with hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! --she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the Lady of the Wood.”

“Jesus worked all His life. But the greatest work that Jesus did was not in the carpenter’s shop . . .His greatest work was achieved in those three dark hours on Calvary . . . dying for us.”

“Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

“They say, 'The coward dies many times'; so does the beloved. Didn't the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?”

“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.”

“A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree. PROVERBS 11:28”

“Before you can positively and passionately pursue what your heart love to do, you must first be grateful to the one who gave you such a heart to love such a thing!”

“But the judgment of God is not only an event that may take place some day in history when war or conflict might bring death to millions. His judgment is more than death—it is eternal banishment from the presence of God (2 Thessalonians 1:6–10; Revelation 20:11–15).”

“The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation, because she never cackles until the egg is laid.”

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”