The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

You will always have partial points of view, and you’ll always have the story behind the story that hasn’t come out yet. And any form of journalism you’re involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

If you look at space companies, they’ve failed either because they’ve had a technical solution where success was not a possible outcome, they were unable to attract a critical mass of talent, or they just ran out of money. The finish line is usually a lot further away than you think.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

Everything I’ve been thinking, every vision, even down to every shot I throw, it just ends up here in reality. Whether it was in a fight and how to react or whether it was in a stadium with screaming fans or whether I was in a fancy car or the best clothes ever, I always put myself somewhere.

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

You might say, ‚Can’t we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?‘ In this way we’d become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.

Everybody has their thing they like or don’t like to see. It’s all in your head. That’s why people take their own pictures, because it’s difficult for someone else to capture what you seek.

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that He’s his savior – that’s good enough for me.

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans – because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you have or don’t have, what you lack, or what you have too much of. But all you need to have is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do and what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to.

This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

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.

Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.

We’re in the last days, man – I truly, in my heart, believe that. It’s written. I could go on with biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it’s about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.