Oh, you who believe! Fear Allah, and seek a means of access to Him, and struggle on His way; perhaps you will succeed! (Koran 5:35) Commentary: . . . God commands believers to practice the fear of Him. This corresponds to what is called . . . the "station of repentance" which is the basis of all progress on the Way and the key which permits one to arrive at the "station of realization". . . . After that God says to us: "And seek a means of access to Him" . . . There is absolute unanimity among the People of Allah on the fact that, in the Way toward Gnosis, a "means of access", that is to say, a master, is indispensable. However, at the beginning of the Way he can be satisfied with books which deal with pious behavior and with spiritual combat in its most general sense. "And struggle on His Way": this is an order to do battle after having found a master. It is a matter of a special holy war (jihad), which is carried out under the command of the master and according to the rules which he prescribes. One cannot have confidence in a spiritual combat carried on in the absence of the master, except in very exceptional cases. . . . The dispositions of beings are varied, their temperaments are very different one from another and something which is profitable for one can be harmful for another.

Ten Spiritual Tonics 1. Stop worrying. Worry kills life. 2. Begin each day with a prayer. It will arm your soul. 3. Control appetite. Over-indulgence clogs body and mind. 4. Accept your limitations . . . 5. Don't envy. It wastes time and energy. 6. Have faith in people. Cynicism sours the disposition. 7. Find a hobby. It will relax your nerves. 8. Read a book a week to stimulate imagination and broaden your views. 9. Spend some time alone for the peace of solitude and silence. 10. Try to want what you have, instead of spending your strength trying to get what you want.

In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.

The best gift God has given man is the Bible. It is by all odds the most influential book (or rather collection of books) in existence. The Old and New Testaments have held men together spiritually through the centuries. Three hundred and fifty years ago, in 1611, fifty four devoted English scholars and churchmen, assigned to the task by King James I , gave to the English speaking world a monument of noble prose, on which so many of us have been brought up. The Bible has been translated into more than 1,150 languages. In short, the Bible has had the most dramatic career of any book in the world.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time. Attributed to Abraham Lincoln. - Alexander K. McClure, "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, p. 184 (1904). Many quotation books have also attributed this to Lincoln, with a variety of sources given. According to Roy R Basler ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, p. 81 (1953), "Tradition has come to attribute to the Clinton [Illinois] speeches [September 2, 1858] one of Lincoln's most famous utterances - 'You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.'" But he goes on to say that the epigram and any references to it have not been located in Surviving Lincoln documents. This remark has also been attributed to P. T. Barnum.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. Josiah G. Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 23 (1866), and George Alfred Townsend, The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 6 (1867). According to the latter, Lincoln made this remark to his law partner, William Herndon. Lincoln's natural mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died when he was nine years old and his father remarried the following year. His stepmother, Sarah Bush (Johnston) Lincoln, was loved and respected by Lincoln throughout her life, as evidenced in the many biographical studies of Lincoln. Benjamin P. Thomas says in Abraham Lincoln, p. 12 (1952): "The boy Abraham adored her. Recollection of his own mother dimmed. And in later years he called this woman, who filled her place so well, 'my angel mother.'" The Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases, ed. Burton Stevenson, p. 1627 (1965), comments that the remark referred to Lincoln's stepmother. But the biographers of Lincoln's natural mother claim the remark referred to her: Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, Nancy Hanks, p. 105 (1899) and Charles Ludwig, Nancy Hanks: Mother of Lincoln, p. 84 (1965).

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.

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