I was in my late thirties when my eyes were opened to truth in God’s Word that showed me I wasn’t living the abundant life Jesus died for me to have. I had a very negative mindset and was miserable most of the time because of the abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

I like pushing boundaries.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

I can tell you from experience that God’s help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.

What is common sense isn’t common practice.

It has been hard for me to find it, but I have found love.

What you are comes to you.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

There’s plenty about God that I don’t understand and can’t explain. But I come back to my core belief that God is good, that He’s for us.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

I’m going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

God is speaking to us. But are we listening to Him? When our conscience begins to nudge us for whatever reason, we might have this low-level misery or uneasiness about whatever it is we’ve done or we’re about to do. At times like this, it’s wise to prayerfully consider whether we’re offending God with our actions.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

Character is power.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

The greatest gift is the ability to forget – to forget the bad things and focus on the good.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

My belief as a Christian is when we receive Christ as salvation, that that gives us a guarantee for Heaven.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

People always tell you, ‚Be humble. Be humble.‘ When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be great! Be awesome! Be awesome!

A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and ‚superlive,‘ as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.

I believe in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.