“Whom to Invite to Your Table As you bring people to your table to share ideas, be selective about whom you pick. Choose people who Understand the value of questions Desire the success of others Add value to others’ thoughts Are not threatened by others’ strengths Can emotionally handle quick changes in the conversation Understand their place of value at the table Bring out the best thinking in the people around them Have experienced success in the area under discussion Leave the table with a “we” attitude, not a “me” attitude”

“This is the process of “systematic desensitization.” By confronting your fear, and by repeatedly doing the thing you fear, the fear eventually disappears.”

“Knowledge is knowing a basket, wisdom is not putting water into it.”

“to weakness if you’re fighting the wrong issue or the wrong person, or for the wrong reason.”

“If you are accused of being a Christian, there should be enough evidence to convict you.”

“Your thoughts about your circumstances have you down. On the other hand, you can be in one of the biggest battles of your life, and still be filled with joy and peace and victory - if you simply learn how to choose the right thought. It’s time to think about what you’re thinking about.”

“We must lift ourselves up, dust ourselfs off and begin the work of remaking America.”

“While those around you are filling their minds with the bad news about man in their daily papers, steep yourself in the good news about God in His precious Word!”

“A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost.

“But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.”

“Tone, inflection, timing, volume, pacing—everything you do with your voice communicates something and has the potential to help you connect to or disconnect from others when you speak.”

“They’ve also sent some incidental things—jewelry for the Lady Jessica, spice liquor, candy, medicinals. My men are processing the lot right now.”

“The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal. These few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Edisons.”

“It Doesn’t Matter Where You Came From. All That Matters Is Where You Are Going”

“A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.”