“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

“Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possesed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimspes, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the things we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”

“You don’t think – not possibly – not as a mere hundredth chance – there might be things that are real though we can’t see them? … If there are souls, could there not be soul-houses?”

“Think outside the box; if possible, think as if there is no box. Aim high, above the ceilings; aim as if no ceiling can limit you. Dream big!”

“The Lord is not just our problem solver; He is our everything, and we need to relate to Him that way.

“That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.”

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

“The plain, inexorable fact was that any attempt of the America Negro to overthrow his oppressor with violence would not work...The courageous efforts of our own insurrectionist brothers, such as Denmark Vassey and Nat Turner, should be eternal reminders to us that a violent rebellion is doomed from the start. Anyone leading a violent rebellion must be willing to make an honest assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well-armed, wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that would delight in exterminating thousands of black men, women, and children.”

“Beware; satan visits you by the noises of negatively minded people. Hear, but don't act on it!”

“He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowdas a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”

“A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.”

“You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work.”

“A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.”

“This helps me ‘keep the main thing, the main thing,’ since I am so easily distracted.” You may want to do something similar,

“In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later.”