“Society has put before you the ideal of a 'perfect man'. No matter in which culture you were born, you have scriptural doctrines and traditions handed down to you to tell you how to behave. You are told that through due practice you can even eventually come into the state attained by the sages, saints and saviors of mankind. And so you try to control your behavior, to control your thoughts, to be something unnatural.”

“The ideal of self-control is supreme. This life is a test—is a test—is a test. You have not passed until you have endured to the end and are dead. You will be tried every day of your life, whether you know it or not. Today, we are all bombarded by stimuli toward the loosening of moral controls. The provocation is enormous. You must practice self-control and have a strong repertoire of such abilities, so that when stress comes, you can cope. Mercifully, the Lord permits us small doses of evil to practice our controls on before we are hit with real temptation, but then it comes.”

“You can only fight what you are for so long. Eventually the hand that nature has dealt you will make you become what you were meant to be. You have no control over it.”

“Particularity leads to peculiarity and then to pathological behavior. The three Ps. It is very insidious. You would eventually end up in a box. If you try to control your environment, it will control you. And everyone else around you will always have to be making adjustments to your maddening idiosyncracies...You are beginning to enslave yourself with your fussiness.”

“You can control yourself if you really want to. I'll tell you how I know you can control yourself. If you were in a full fledged emotional temper tantrum in your house and I knocked on your front door..... Come on! Let me tell you what, you would get control of yourself, and it would only take a few seconds.”

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.”