“Above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books.”

I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.

To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.

It was the special purpose of Christ’s appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.

Be a great speaker, become a leader.

Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.

Thus situated, the perilous experiment must be made. Let me make it with full deliberations, and be prepared for the consequences.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Virtue is not always amiable.

No man is entirely free from weakness and imperfection in this life.

We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.

If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong.

A politician in this country must be the man of a party. I would fain be the man of my whole country.

Go on and improve in everything worthy.

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.

In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.

Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children’s books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.

I finished a big book the other day. 421 pages. That’s a lot of coloring when you think about it.

Good books are as friends, willing to give to us if we are willing to make a little effort.

God has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, he depends more on circumstances to make us like Jesus than he depends on our reading the Bible.

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

I don’t want people to think that they can attain realization simply by listening to others or by reading books. They must practice what they read and hear.

The covers of this book are too far apart.