Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.

When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can’t budge you from believing God, he won’t know what to do with you anymore.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.

I’m not a bad person.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

I hate to be smart.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

God has entrusted me with myself.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

When granted many years of life, growing old in age is natural, but growing old with grace is a choice. Growing older with grace is possible for all who will set their hearts and minds on the Giver of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

I don’t think anyone ever plans to change line-ups, but it’s something that comes with being in bands. I was in a band once and there were always problems – members come and go – and some of the world’s biggest bands have changed line-ups loads!

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.