“Our actions are a direct result of our thoughts. If we have a negative mind, we will have a negative life.”

“A goal is a dream with a deadline” 

“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.”

“Grace is the power of God to help us in other areas in which we cannot help ourselves.” 

“when you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on”

“Failure is success in progress”

“As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have free hand.”

“Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act.”

“truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”

“A good ruler has to learn his world's language, and that's different for every world, the language you don't hear just with your ears.”

“Grief which is not dealt with properly can cause us to lose our perspective on life.”

“In a country ruled by laws, it seemed to me that nothing was more important than removing politics from the process of choosing judges. During previous administrations in California, governors had often handed out judgeships to friends and cronies like prizes at a company picnic. Not only had this produced a lot of inferior judges, it had placed a number of partisans on the bench who believed that putting on the black robes of a judge gave them a license to rewrite the laws. I wanted judges who would interpret the Constitution, not rewrite it.”

“La búsqueda del propósito de vivir ha intrigado a la gente por miles de años. Eso ocurre porque solemos empezar por el punto de partida errado: nosotros mismos. Nos hacemos preguntas egoístas como: ¿Qué quiero ser?, ¿Qué debo hacer con mi vida?, ¿Cuáles son mis metas, mis anhelos, mis sueños para el futuro? Enfocarnos en nosotros mismos nunca podrá revelarnos el propósito de nuestra vida. La Biblia dice: «En su mano está la vida de todo ser viviente»

“Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

“At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God's own love and concern.”