“I have found that most young people really want us to spell out a moral code. They may not accept it or believe it, but they want to hear it, clearly and without compromise.”

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free. Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”

“All of us perform better and more willingly when we know why we're doing what we have been told or asked to do.”

“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

“Every destructive emotion bears its own harvest, but anger’s fruit is the most bitter of all.”

“Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he’s shown his colors, run the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test.”

“In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later. Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to figure out that nothing matters more.”

“Power is defined as an ability to do qualitative work with a quantitative passion, backed by a compelling conviction, directed by a propelling purpose, fulfilling a divine destiny. That is power!”

“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

“The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.”

“Many things--such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly--are done worst when we try hardest to do them.”

“Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.”

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, no culture comparable to that of the garden...But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”