“Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.”

“I do not mean to imply that outside circumstances or other people do not play a role in our lives. Certainly, many factors influence the conditions we experience. But if we focus our attention solely upon those factors, we feed a spirit of fear and uncertainty regarding our future.”

“When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.”

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book.”

“We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”

“Our witness is only as strong as our freedom is real. We can have the most noble convictions in the world, but if we are snarky and impatient when we don't get our way, those things will interfere with our influence. If we gossip more than we pray, those misspoken words will demolish our influence. If our addictions get in the way of living out our convictions, we'll have mostly a negative influence.”