“it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error

“without knowing who I am and why I’m here it is impossible to live. Yet I cannot know that and therefore I cannot live”

“Once I started believing I was smart, I really didn’t care that much about what anybody else thought about me, and I became consumed with a desire to increase my learning far beyond that of my classmates. The more I read biographies about those who had made significant accomplishments in life, the more I wanted to emulate them. By the time I reached the seventh grade, I reveled in the fact that the same classmates who used to taunt me were now coming to me, asking how to solve problems or spell words. Once the joy of learning filled my heart, there was no stopping me.”

“No one could ride a horse if the horse discovered its real strength. The same thing is true for people.”

“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”

“Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.”

“You probably know that you are not the only man who has had to sacrifice immediate monetary remuneration for the sake of gathering knowledge, for in truth your experience has been that of every philosopher from the time of Socrates down to the present.”

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”

“Intellectual death is endemic in areas where people are unprepared to obtain new information for development. Learning is a way of staying alive.”

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

“When you train yourself, through repetition and practice, to overcome procrastination and get your most important tasks completed quickly, you will move yourself onto the fast track in your life and career and step on the accelerator.”

“Lord, what if I miss You? What if I miss You? What if I miss You? Oh, I'm so scared! God, what if I miss You? He answered simply, "Joyce, don't worry; if you miss Me, I will find you.”

“Take responsibility for your anger and learn to deal with it—process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure.”

“If we are to depend on prayer during tough times, we should be people of prayer before the crisis hits.”

“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. ”