The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the Laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

Prayer is often a temptation to bank on a miracle of God instead of on a moral issue, i.e., it is much easier to ask God to do my work than it is to do it myself. Until we are disciplined properly, we will always be inclined to bank on God's miracles and refuse to do the moral thing ourselves. It is our job, and it will never be done unless we do it.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment and learn again to exercise ... his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

Lord, make me chaste - but not yet.

Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

Do you really think... that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment... there is no weakness in that.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

The great wisdom of life is that we can be masters of the things that try to enslave us.

No matter how hard you might try, you can't escape the spiritual bond between you and your Maker. You can't drink it away. You can't smoke it away. You can't sex it away.

Israel's wandering in the wilderness wasn't just because [God] was angry with them. His continuous moving with them in the wilderness was because He wanted time to get out of them what their years of being slaves had put in them. And the best way to show anyone who you really are is to constantly be in their presence.

to weakness if you're fighting the wrong issue or the wrong person, or for the wrong reason.