To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me – spiritually and financially.

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

I’m afraid to fail again.

Silence is a source of great strength.

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

It is a hard thing to let go of mistakes we’ve made and sins. God wants us to do that because He knows the guilt and the condemnation will keep us from becoming who He has created us to be.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

Choose people who lift you up.

You’ll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Meditation is difficult for many people because their thoughts are always on some distant object or place. One form of meditation is to label the thought as it appears and then choose to let it go.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

Solitude is independence.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

I’m not afraid to make mistakes.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

I’ve learned that we all change constantly. It’s rare to find that person who is growing with you in the same way at the same time, who encourages you to grow.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.

My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.