“Humans are amphibians...half spirit and half animal...as spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation--the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”

“introduction, the opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard”

“When you are committed to doing what’s right, you are sowing seeds for God’s blessings. You will never go wrong by taking the high road and doing more that is required.”

“To be a great achiever, you must first discover your main purpose of existing through feasible communication mode with your maker, the source of your destiny. This brings you a conviction to work with.”

“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.....”

“Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”

“Paul sat down where Hawat had been, straightened the papers. One more day here, he thought. He looked around the room. We’re leaving. The idea of departure was suddenly more real to him than it had ever been before. He recalled another thing the old woman had said about a world being the sum of many things—the people, the dirt, the growing things, the moons, the tides, the suns—the unknown sum called nature, a vague summation without any sense of the now. And he wondered: What is the now?” 

“If all be true that I do think, there are five reasons we should drink. Good friends, good times, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why”

“Do you know what nearly all the sociologists say today in their study of young people? The greatest problem facing young people today is not sex—it is boredom.”

“You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.”

“The founders feared that the central government, once it had united the states, would become too powerful and would impose its will upon the people—or the individual states—without regard to their wishes. This “government knows best” model was one that they were quite familiar with from their extensive studies of other governmental models as well as from their personal experience with the British monarchy. They felt that their best defense against a tyrannical government was to divide the power three ways, with each branch of government having the power to check the other two. They also listed the powers that the federal government would have, being sure to leave the balance of power in the hands of the states and the people. They wisely concluded that the states would not be eager to give additional power to the federal government and limited its power accordingly. Unfortunately, the founders did not realize that the time would come when the federal government would approve a federal taxation system that could control the states by giving or withholding financial resources. Such an arrangement significantly upsets the balance of power between the states and the federal government. As a result, today there are numerous social issues, such as the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, and welfare reform, that could probably be more efficiently handled at the state level but with which the federal government keeps interfering. The states, instead of standing up for their rights, comply with the interference because they want federal funds. It will require noble leaders at the federal level and courageous leaders at the state level to restore the balance of power, but it is essential that such balance be restored for the sake of the people.”

“Character is both developed and revealed by test and all of life is a test.”

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

“Scatter her enemies, And make them fall; Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks.”

“When you abbreviate your learning, you abbreviate your growth. Expand your knowledge and you keep growing taller and fatter than your limitations.”