“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.”

“The Daniel Plan is rooted in a very simple principle: Take the junk out and let the abundance in.”

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

“No man is ever whipped, until he quits— in his own mind.”

“God decided to love us before we even arrived on planet earth. The only thing that stands between us and God’s love is our being willing to believe Him and receive it.”

“You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.”

“Edmund, give a special goodbye to Trumpkin for me. He's been a brick.”

“the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. You’ve got to be your own best friend first.”

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

“I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.”

“When you allow what someone says or does to upset you, you’re allowing that person to control you.”

“Don't think. FEEL. It's like a finger pointing at the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory.”

“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.”

“The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

“You are what you think you are. Your self-concept determines your performance.”