This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Mindfulness practices enhance the connection between our body, our mind and everything else that is around us. Mindful living is the key to understanding our struggles with weight and to empowering us to control our weight.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

I think a lot of people love to convolute what everyone else does in order to disempower women.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

You always want your people to be proud of what you have accomplished.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

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.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.

I don’t believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

I’m ugly.

My upbringing was solid because of the people I had around me.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.