“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.”

“How shall we live in order to be happy?” Your ability to ask and answer that question correctly for yourself—and then to follow where your answer leads you—will largely determine whether you achieve your own happiness, and how soon.”

“People like you and me never grow old. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”

“A healthy, dose of guilt never hurt anybody. It’s what civilization was built on, guilt. A highly underrated emotion.”

“God, our Heavenly Father, loves us, His children—and one of our greatest privileges is coming to Him in prayer. And because He already knows our needs, we can be confident His answer will be best. If He didn’t know our needs, why bother to pray? But He does, and this should give us confidence in prayer. Thank God that He knows your needs and wants you to come to Him in prayer. Remember: His Son gave His life “that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).”

“Knowing and loving God is our greatest privilege, and being known and loved is God’s greatest pleasure.”

“And whatever you ask for in prayer, having faith and [really] believing, you will receive. MATTHEW 21:22”

“Close friends and relatives, while not meaning to do so, often handicap one through “opinions” and sometimes through ridicule, which is meant to be humorous. Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes with them all through life, because some well-meaning, but ignorant person destroyed their confidence through “opinions” or ridicule.”

“There is a difference in a person’s “who” and their “do.” God may not always be happy with what you do, but He is always pleased with who you are.”

“Nobody has a perfect life and it's entirely possible that if you want someone else's life they are busy wanting someone else's too–maybe even yours.”

“They did nothing wrong their time here has ended”

“The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.”

“Self-esteem is the garden in which passion bears success flowers. Most people can’t stand out to stand for what supposed to belong to them just because; they feel it can’t be theirs, so it’s not theirs.”

“Jesus demonstrated the importance of prayer by His own example. His whole ministry was saturated with prayer.”

“You must reject common thinking if you want to accomplish uncommon results.”