“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“Developing and having a positive outlook is never a coincidence; it’s a choice. You can choose to look horrible or admirable; that is no business of another person. The mind is the distillery, where all choices are brewed.”

“Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.”

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”

“Failure is success in progress”

“Fit yourself where you are before you fix yourself where you can be!”

“I cannot live without books.”

“What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.”

“The years with Barbara taught me a great lesson: how having a good relationship can enrich your life.”

“We bring God glory by loving other believers.”

“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

“Most people think confidence lies in an excessive rehearsal. It’s true that man has to prepare, plan and practice before projecting his purposes. But a time must definitely arrive when man has to put an end to learning and rehearsal and start practicing what he spent time learning.”

“The Bible is a living Book and can be trusted for its advice and direction and knowledge of God.”

“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else…a freak.”

“You can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.”