“Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity, or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.”

In the wake of my spiritual experience there came a vision of a society of alcoholics.

AA is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.

We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.

We know that permanent sobriety can be attained only by a most revolutionary change in the life and outlook of the individual.

More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor

I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.

You are asking yourself, as all of us must: ‘Who am I?’ . . . ‘Where am I?’ . . . ‘Whence do I go?’ The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity.

If I judge others, I am probably judging myself. Whoever is upsetting me most is my best teacher. I have much to learn from him or her, and in my hearts, I should thank that person.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

In God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.

Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate utility of pain

When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion we can ever know.

Honesty with ourselves & others gets us sober, but it is tolerance that keeps us that way.

We lose the fear of making decisions, great and small; as we realize that should our choice prove wrong we can, if we will, learn from the experience.

No personal calamity is so crushing that something true and great can’t be made of it

Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.

We know by now how to photograph poor people. What we don’t know is how to photograph affluence – whose other face is poverty.

If anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single spiritual person who has been able to show either empirically or logicall.

All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.

Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race.

I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal.

The only real life is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction.

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement of another race altogether.