“Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats, especially after struggling in the snow drift, a cold shiver ran down his back on realizing that he must really spend the night where they were.”

“Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission”

“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

“The Lord is not just our problem solver; He is our everything, and we need to relate to Him that way.

“Every divorce represents a broken dream, a shattered hope, a ruined expectation.”

“If you are to become more sensitive, you must be willing to take a risk. Take the initiative to find a need and take action.”

“You don’t have to be bound by the barriers of the past. God wants you to go further than your parents. I’m sure your parents were fine, hardworking people, but don’t fall into that trap of just sitting back and accepting the status”

“Positive thinkers use sentences like “I can do it”; “I am qualified for it”; they think of things as possible.”

“It was too perfect to last,' so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic - as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He stopped it ('None of that here!'). As if He were like the Hostess at the sherry-party who separates two guests the moment they show signs of having got into a real conversation. But it could also mean 'This had reached its proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would not be prolonged.' As if God said, 'Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next.”

“Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.”

“Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition. Love is not a good part of your life; it’s the most important part. The Bible says, “Let love be your greatest aim.”

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”

“Choose to stop fighting and trust God to fight for you. That is how to win a battle.”

“Hundreds of passages point to a time of judgment for every person who has ever lived—none will escape. If you took all the references to judgment out of the Bible, you would have little Bible left.”

“Most of us know about God, but that is quite different from knowing God.”