“To live, pray. To learn, read. To love, give. To listen, pay attention. But to be wise, apply all that you have acquired”

“The low-grade plagiarism of popularity will never lead you to true contentment.” 

“One thing other nations can learn from Hawaii, he says, is the willingness of races to work together toward common development, something he has found whites elsewhere too often unwilling to do.

“Whether you flounder or flourish is always in your hands—you are the single biggest influence in your life. Your journey begins with a choice to get up, step out, and live fully.”

“To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”

“Success for the leader is a single victory. However, when the protégé experiences success, it becomes a double win.”

“The most important personal-growth phrase you will ever hear a good leader say to you is “follow me.”

“All life is energy and we are transmitting it at every moment. We are all little beaming little signals like radio frequencies, and the world is responding in kind.”

“Much of the world believes little or nothing. People are broad but shallow. Agnosticism, anxiety, emptiness, and meaninglessness have gripped much of the world—and even the church . . . By contrast, our Pilgrim forebears stand as shining examples of men who were narrow but deep, certain of what they believed, unswerving in their loyalty,  and passionately dedicated to the God they trusted, and for whom they would willingly have died.”

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. --February 22, 1861”

“We often bring problems on ourselves by our own faulty decisions, poor choices, bad judgments, and sins.”

“If we’re free to dare – and we are – if we’re free to give – and we are – then we’re free to shape the future and have within our grasp all that we dream the future will be.”

“This election is about the past vs. the future. It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity. There are those who will continue to tell us that we can't do this, that we can't have what we're looking for, that we can't have what we want, that we're peddling false hopes. But here is what I know. I know that when people say we can't overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside the envelope. So don't tell us change isn't possible. That woman knows change is possible. When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can't join together and work together, I'm reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with and stood with and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don't tell us change can't happen. When I hear that we'll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who is now devoted to educating inner city-children and who went out into the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don't tell me we can't change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future. And as we leave this great state with a new wind at our backs and we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we carry from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast, the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we will hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can.”

“Self-leaders do not look for followers because they are busily pursuing their influencial dreams that followers will trace and ask for. Followers look for influence and that can be obtained from self-leaders.”

“Gratitude asks, “Why me? Why do I get all that I have?” David modeled this kind of gratitude when he prayed, “Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?”15 Years later, his son would write, “It is better to be satisfied with what you have than to be always wanting something else.”