“The glass is not half empty; it is half full.”

“You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to him employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which h allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.”

“Levin had often noticed in arguments between even the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, an enormous number of logical subtleties and words, the arguers would finally come to the awareness that what they had spent so long struggling to prove to each other had been known to them long, long before, from the beginning of the argument, but that they loved different things and therefore did not want to name what they loved, so as not to be challenged. He had often felt that sometimes during an argument you would understand what your opponent loves, and suddenly come to love the same thing yourself, and agree all at once, and then all reasonings would fall away as superfluous; and sometimes it was the other way round: you would finally say what you yourself love, for the sake of which you are inventing your reasonings, and if you happened to say it well and sincerely, the opponent would suddenly agree and stop arguing. That was the very thing he wanted to say.

“GROWING UP changes one’s definition of what is fun — maturation does that, thankfully — so I hate to admit now that as a boy I thoroughly enjoyed throwing rocks at cars. It was a thrill to wait in hiding, ambush the car driving by, and then make our escape. Occasionally, a driver would stop their vehicle and get out to yell at us. But if we were really fortunate, they would chase us. We would run just far enough ahead to encourage them, but when they got close, we would turn on the afterburners of youth, leaving them far behind while we laughed hysterically. Once in a while, the police would come by — usually in unmarked cars — and the chase would be much more dramatic until we reached the ten-foot-tall fences at the end of the neighborhood field. To the police, it must have appeared as if they had us trapped. They had no idea, however, how practiced we were at vaulting those fences. We treated it like an Olympic event, running at full speed toward the fence and then leaping high into the air, grabbing the chain links, and allowing the momentum of our feet to swing us over the top and down on the other side. We would laugh at the police as we ran off, knowing there was no way they would follow us. Today I have great admiration for the police, who risk their lives on a daily basis to protect our lives, freedom, and property.”

“God doesn't ask that we succeed in everything, but that we are faithful. However beautiful our work may be, let us not become attached to it. Always remain prepared to give it up, without losing your peace.” 

“The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.”

“Where love is, there God is also.”

“The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.”

“Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.”

“Fear can banish faith, but faith can banish fear.”

“I need Christ, not something that resembles Him.”

“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”

“Satan didn’t lose any of his beguiling ways when he became the fallen prince. He took his charm, his subtleties, and his clever plots to use on us.”

“[Jesus] had only three years of public ministry, but He was never too hurried to spend hours in prayer . . . No day began or closed in which He was not in communion with His Father.”