“One major way to avoid shifting blames unto other people is to accept and agree that the efforts that turn the loads of your self- improvement have to turn on your own pivot.”

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”

“Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive”

“If you really want to eat, keep climbing. The fruits are on the top of the tree. Stretch your hands and keep stretching them. Success is on the top, keep going.”

“The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.”

“The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book.

“DAY TWENTY I DECLARE that I am calm and peaceful. I will not let people or circumstances upset me. I will rise above every difficulty, knowing that God has given me the power to remain calm. I choose to live my life happy, bloom where I am planted, and let God fight my battles. This is my declaration.”

“understood more clearly in the light of the Gita teaching the implication of the word ‘trustee’.”

“The disease of philosophy. - Philosophy is itself the disease for which it pretends to be the cure: the wise man does not pursue wisdom but lives his life, and therein precisely does his wisdom lie.”

“Don't cry over the shots you've missed; weep over the ones you've not taken at all. The bitterest regrets are for things planned but left undone!”

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”

“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

“If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.”

“There is a great counterfeiter who adapts himself to every culture, even deceiving true believers at times. He doesn’t charge on the scene clothed in red and wearing a hideous mask but charms his way as an “angel of light.” This is how Satan operates.”