“But when you say, “I am beautiful,” not only does beauty, youth, and freshness start coming your way, but on the inside your spirit also comes alive. Your self-image begins to improve, and you’ll start carrying yourself like you’re someone special. You won’t drag through the day feeling less than or inferior. You’ll have that spring in your step, that “You go, girl!” attitude. Beauty is not in how thin or tall you are, how perfect you look. Beauty is in being who God made you to be with confidence. If you’re a size 4, great. If you’re a size 24, great. Take what you have and make the most of it.”

“Her face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness; it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night.”

“Those whom God wishes to destroy he drives mad.”

“Christ did not die by accident. He died voluntarily in our place.”

“Your only limitation is the one you set up in your own mind!”

“The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.”

“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.”

“DESIRE—knowing what you want.”

“If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way.”

“Full moon calls thee--  Shai-hulud shall thou see;  Red the night, dusky sky,  Bloody death didst thou die.  We pray to a moon: she is round--  Luck with us will then abound,  What we seek for shall be found  In the land of solid ground.”

“Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence ... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor...”

“The mind that opens to a new idea never comes back to its original size.”

“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!”

“One big blow can hit and destroy any strong door in front of you. As for the 1000 feeble blows, they can’t even remove the cobwebs. Courage is the key.”

“Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.”