“thoughts are things," and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”

“The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.”

“Every stage of life has its own temptations and dangers, and Satan will do all he can to exploit them . . .the time to prepare is now, not when it arrives.”

“Si el vendedor se siente atemorizado o abrumado por el posible cliente, llevar a cabo una presentación eficaz es tremendamente difícil. El vendedor que piensa: ¿Quién soy yo para decirle a esta persona que mis productos o servicios le van a ayudar?, no conseguirá el nivel de entusiasmo, fuerza y confianza necesarios para triunfar.”

“The comfort zone is the greatest enemy of human potential.”

“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.”

“Though no one would want to be sold as a slave, it is perhaps even more galling to be a sort of utility slave whom no one will buy.”

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

“For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”

“But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.”

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

“All of us are not born with equal opportunities. But over a period of time, regardless of our parentage, place of birth, prospects in our communities, or education, the day comes when we have to make the choice to let our past teach us—or beat us.”

“If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.”

“The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese and Spanish explorer”

“Don’t be so sure you know where to draw the line,” he said. “We carry our past with us. And, mother mine, there’s a thing you don’t know and should—we are Harkonnens.”