“I will not say that we may not sooner or later be compelled to meet force by force; but the time has not yet come, and if we are true to ourselves, may never come. Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Therefore let the legions of slavery use bullets; but let us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at them in return; and by that peaceful policy, I believe we shall ultimately win.”

“At different times in our journeys, if we’re paying attention, we get to sing the song we’re meant to sing in the perfect key of life.”

“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why.”

“No one is satisfied with his fortune,and everyone is satisfied with his wit.”

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.” 

“Millions of young people are shifting from one side to the other. They are like unguided missiles filled with energy and ambition and yet somehow not “fitting in.” Peer pressure leads them astray . . . [and] in thousands of churches they are led astray theologically.”

“Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question "What on earth is he up to now?" will intrude. It lays one's devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, "I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others . . . it is the only thing.”

“Don’t ever say, “I just cannot go on.” Instead, say, “I can do whatever I need to do through Christ who strengthens me. I will never quit, because God is on my side.”

“No man has a chance to enjoy permanent success until he begins to look in a mirror for the real cause of all his mistakes

“As long as the constitution of my country is not amended to cut down the sizes of the dreams of its citizens, I have the freedom to dream extra largest dreams. I am even dreaming over-size dreams now.”

“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.”

“Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all cases of passion admit reason to govern.”

“He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.”

“When I treat other people with kindness and love, it is part of my way of paying my debt to God and the world for the privilege of living on this planet.”