“When we multitask and split up our mind into a million directions, we are actually creating our own suffering, because these habits strengthen strong emotional reactivity and discursive thought.”

“We create our fate every day… most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.”

“Our nerves are strong, and we do not base our policy on emotions.”

“In private prayer we have a far greater advantage as so the exercise of our own gifts and graces and parts that we have in public…in public duties we are more passive, but in private duties we are more active. Now, the more our gifts and parts and graces are exercised, the more they are strengthened and increased. All acts strengthen habits. The more sin is acted, the more it is strengthened. And so it is with our gifts and graces; the more they are acted, the more they are strengthened.”

“A central thesis of this book is that the connection between thought and practice is most intimately and fully realized only when our minds are addressed to our own affairs—the concerns of humanity. When we direct our thoughts to nature, even if to see ourselves as fixtures of nature, we loosen the connection between thought and practice. When we loosen it, we are tempted to assume the posture I earlier called naturalism. We survey both the human and the nonhuman worlds from a supposedly godlike distance. We treat the achievement of such distance as the realization of our longing for transcendence.”

“When we hold our thoughts up against God's standards of what is true and what is real, we can recognize and, with His help, learn to release many of our negative emotions, damaging thoughts, and destructive attitudes.”

“Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds”

“It is only as we fixate our eyes—our thoughts—on our future hope in heaven that we will be strengthened and enable to live wisely in this life.”

“All that we refer to as being ours – our body, our mind, our emotions – is not what we are, essentially.”

“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate.”