“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”

“[I] know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems....”

“Why, then, grieve — tatra ka paridevana — asks Shri Krishna. This is the great mystery of God. As a magician creates the illusion of a tree and destroys it, so God sports in endless ways and does not let us know the beginning and the end of his play. Why grieve over it?”

“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of pleasure.”

“Many times in our lives, the circumstances we face or the decisions we make cause us to feel we have been dropped, crushed, or ground into the dirt. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, we will never lose our value in God’s eyes. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, we are still priceless to Him.”

“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”

“You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.”

“He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. PSALM 91:11 RSV A secret agent is one who seeks to protect his country, his king, or his president against evil forces that are opposed to the one he serves. The American Secret Service is charged with protecting the president of the United States. They do an excellent job, but even they will tell you that someone who is fiercely determined to assassinate the president could be successful. God has His own secret agents—the angels. Unseen and unrecognized by the world, they never fail in their appointed tasks. Much has been written recently about angels—often not based on the Bible but on popular legends. But angels are real, and God has commanded them to watch over us. Only in eternity will we know how many accidents they prevented or how often they kept Satan’s malicious spirits at bay. In the meantime, we can take comfort in their presence and thank God for the love He expresses for us through their service.

“If a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me - there is nothing between.”

“The greatest waste in all of our earth is our waste of the time God has given us each day.”

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” 

“Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals. ”

“Deep down inside I knew something was different . . . I wanted to tell others what had happened to me. I didn’t have any tears, I didn’t have any emotion, I didn’t hear any thunder, there was no lightning . . . but . . . I made my decision for Christ.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”