“You cannot be my friend and use the N- word around me. I feel strongly about it… I always think of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree.”

“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.”

“Life is strange, and often imponderable!”

“Maya Angelou observed you cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Sadly,too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be climate in which new ways of thinking,perceiving, questioning are encouraged.”

“A positive mind finds a way it can be done. A negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.”

“You must be the change you want for the world.”

“If you have been harboring anger or bitterness or jealousy in your heart toward someone—a parent, an ex-spouse, a boss—hand it over to Christ, and ask Him to help you let it go.”

“The Bible will always be the center of controversy.”

“The leader who listens is the one society needs most. They don’t force their commands on people. They pay attention to their demands and set the pace for the change that society truly needs.”

“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

“Fear teaches you to be cautious, careful, and conscientious. It also forces you to be creative, compassionate, and calculating.”

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” 

“Ours may be the heritage of the withheld promises. We have been blessed through the endurance and faithfulness of those who have suffered in the past; the people around us, or those who will succeed us, may be blessed through our trials and suffering and how we react to them.”

“If you want to be used by God, you must care about what God cares about;” 

“Aqueles que negam liberdade aos outros não merecem para si mesmos.”