“With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.”

“A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian.”

“It doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him.”

“Self-confidence Formula”

“The Bible is God’s book of promises, and, unlike the books of men, it does not change or get out of date.”

“Your success in life will be in direct proportion to what you do after you do what you are expected to do.”

“Thoughts bear fruit. Think good thoughts, and the fruit in your life will be good. Think bad thoughts, and the fruit in your life will be bad.”

“The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system.”

“For us to respond in that way to hateful speech... we empower the worst of us .. to create chaos around the world.”

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”

“It is amazing the quality of human beings that are in this world if we can just get past people not dressing the way we want them to dress.”

“But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.”

“God usually meets us at our level of expectancy. That’s why, in many ways, your expectations will set the boundaries for your life. Jesus said, “According to your faith . . . be it done to you.”

“Among those Christians to whom hell means little, Calvary means less.”

“The Christian’s journey through life isn’t a sprint but a marathon.”