Autobiographers From The United States

"“Billy,” John said, “you are on your way to India, a country that has no conception of God. You will need a special approach to break into people’s thinking, because they know nothing of the Bible or God. Do you have such an approach in mind?” Admitting that I didn’t, I suggested that we make that issue a matter of concentrated prayer."

"“Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had just started to implement his policy of nonalignment in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Though India was a democratic nation, Nehru had been profoundly influenced by Fabian socialism and, in fact, was sympathetic to Marxism. His concept of “nonalignment” and “neutralism” made him unwilling to be a pawn of Washington against Moscow. India, however, was by far the most important of the nations of the “third world” (another Nehru coinage) that had not yet succumbed to Communist Party rule, and Delhi’s sympathy toward Moscow not only rankled Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, but also it frankly worried him. With Graham’s India crusade followed by just two months the triumphant visit to Delhi by Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, the religious event also had important implications for American diplomacy”. ... The book says, “This was but the first of many occasions US administrations found it useful to capitalize or piggyback on Graham’s evangelistic activities and indeed his prominence as a worldwide evangelist. In decades to come, not only did his crusades have the indirect effect of helping to bring down totalitarian regimes, but, on occasion, Graham served as an unofficial emissary for American presidents to world leaders with whom the US government was unable otherwise to have direct contact”."

"On one hand, because of Nagaland’s instability, very few foreigners were granted government permission to visit the area. On the other hand, Nagaland was home to one of the largest concentrations of Christians in India; at the time of our visit, more than half the population of 500,000 were Christians, almost all living in villages. November 1972 marked the hundredth anniversary of the coming of Baptist missionaries to Nagaland, and we were invited to Kohima as part of that celebration."

"Our purpose in going to India was to preach in Nagaland, an isolated area tucked in the mountainous, jungle-covered northeast corner of India near the Burmese border. The area was home to a dozen separate tribes, each with its own dialect and often with a history of headhunting. Tensions among Nagaland’s tribes, and an armed guerrilla movement bent on independence from India, made it a highly unstable area. During Akbar Abdul-Haqq’s crusade five years before in Nagaland’s largest town (and capital), Kohima, three people had been killed during an assassination attempt against the Indian government’s chief representative."

"Almost miraculously, the Indian government in New Delhi granted a permit for us to enter Nagaland in late November. This permission was in response to an appeal from a delegation headed by the Reverend Longri Ao and other church leaders from Nagaland. (Assisting them was a gifted young Indian clergyman named Robert Cunville, who was head of the North East India Christian Council and had been invited to be director of youth evangelism for the World Council of Churches; he later joined our Team as an evangelist and has had a wide ministry not only in India but in many other parts of the world as well.)"

"In 1972, Billy Graham returned to India. The Hindu on 24th November 1972 published a report that read as follows: The noted American evangelist, Dr. Billy Graham, to-night expressed the hope that his visit to this country would help improve relations between India and the United States. Dr. Graham, who was talking to newsmen at the airport here on his arrival from Kohima, was asked if he was carrying any message from President Nixon for Mrs. Indira Gandhi. “I am sorry, I can’t answer that,” he replied. Dr. Graham, a close friend of Mr. Nixon, is scheduled to meet Mrs. Gandhi on Monday. Dr Graham said the Indian Government had gone out of the way in permitting him to visit Nagaland. “I am grateful for this,” he added. During his stay in the capital, he will also call on the President, Mr. V.V. Giri. Earlier, talking to newsmen at Calcutta airport, Dr Graham said he had talks with Mr Nixon twice before he left for India. “I love India and I want the United States and India to become very close friends. This is necessary because we need each other for our mutual interests,” he said."

""What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?” a university student asked me several years ago. "Its brevity" I replied without hesitation. … Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). … Life is short, and every day is a gift from God."

"[S]ome people do hope God will reward them for their generosity (or for some other good deed they’ve done), either by blessing them right now or by granting them eternal life. Lurking in the back of their minds is the idea that at the last judgment, God will weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds, and if they have more good deeds than bad deeds then God will let them into heaven. This, however, is a serious misunderstanding of what the Bible actually teaches. The Bible says that God is absolutely holy and pure, and even one sin — just one — would be enough to keep us out of heaven."

"I don’t know the future, but I do know this: the best is yet to be! Heaven awaits us, and that will be far, far more glorious than anything we can ever imagine. I know that soon my life will be over. I thank God for it, and for all He has given me in this life. But I look forward to Heaven. I look forward to the reunion with friends and loved ones who have gone on before. I look forward to Heaven’s freedom from sorrow and pain. I also look forward to serving God in ways we can’t begin to imagine, for the Bible makes it clear that Heaven is not a place of idleness. And most of all, I look forward to seeing Christ and bowing before Him in praise and gratitude for all He has done for us, and for using me on this earth by His grace — just as I am."

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."

"In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day. If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life. A friend told me about stopping on a street corner in London and listening to a man play the bagpipes. He was playing "Amazing Grace" and smiling from ear to ear. My friend asked him if he was from Scotland, and he answered, “No sir, my home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”"

"Billy Graham details his 1972 trip to India and his meeting with Indira Gandhi during that trip in his autobiography. About his mandate to meet Indira Gandhi, Graham writes: President Nixon, at the request of the American consul in New Delhi, had personally asked me to seek an interview with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in part to find out from her what kind of ambassador she wanted from America. He asked me to notice every single thing about her—the movement of her hands, the expression on her face, how her eyes looked. “When you’ve finished the interview,” he said to me, “go to the American embassy and dictate your report to me.” And so, when I visited with Mrs. Gandhi in the Indian capital, I put the question to her. She told me she wanted someone who understood economics, who had the ear of the President, and who had influence in Congress. This I reported to the President. He later appointed Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Whether my report influenced the President’s decision, I never learned."

"God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with."

"Either communism must die or Christianity must die because it's actually a battle between Christ and anti-Christ."

"I have come out in favor of birth control but sterilization is a crippling of a vital body function."

"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened."

"Many Indians seem to have the idea that Christianity is a western religion. That is wrong. There were Christian churches in India before America was discovered."

"I feel sorry for the man who has never known the bracing thrill of taking a stand and sticking to it fearlessly. Moral courage has rewards that timidity can never imagine. Like a shot of adrenaline, it floods the spirit with vitality."

"Commitment to great causes makes great men."

"A bill recently approved by a Tennessee Senate committee would prohibit teachers in that state from discussing homosexuality in the classroom. The so-called "Don't Say Gay" law is premised on the misguided belief that by not talking about gay people, they can simply make us disappear. I'm here to tell Tennessee and all LGBT youth and teachers who would be affected by this law that I am here for you. In fact, I am lending my name to the cause. Anytime you need to say the word "gay", you can simply say "Takei". For example, you could safely proclaim you are a supporter of Takei marriage. If you're in a more festive mood, you can march in a Takei pride parade. Even homophobic slurs don't seem as hurtful if someone says "That is soooo Takei", and around the holidays, you can sing "Don we now our Takei apparel!"."

"He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn't belong there. And for him to say, slaves have dignity. I mean, doesn't he know that slaves were in chains? That they were whipped on the back. If he saw the movie 12 Years as a Slave, you know, they were raped. And he says they had dignity as slaves or— My parents lost everything that they worked for, in the middle of their lives, in their thirties. His business, my father's business, our home, our freedom and we're supposed to call that dignified? Marched out of our homes at gun point. I mean, this man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America."

"I've been working with Bill Shatner yea these 40-plus years. He never seems to get it right. I gave him, "It's Takei, as in way." I even said, "as in gay"… I told him, "It's Takei, rhymes with toupee." I thought that would do it."

"In the whole round of human affairs little is so fatal to peace as misunderstanding."

"Self complacency is fatal to progress."

"Mind does dominate body. We are superior to the house in which we dwell."

"On the day long after childhood when I suddenly heard of his death, the sky grew dark above my head. I was walking on a Southern highway, and a friend driving in a pony carriage passed me, stopped and said, "Have you heard that Charles Dickens is dead?" It was as if I had been robbed of one of the dearest of friends."

"Every child's birthright is a happy home."

"My own opinion is that youthfulness of feeling is retained, as is youthfulness of appearance, by constant use of the intellect."

"I would not, if I could, give up the memory of the joy I have had in books for any advantage that could be offered in other pursuits or occupations. Books have been to me what gold is to the miser, what new fields are to the explorer, what a new discovery is to the scientific student."

"Never yet was a spring-time, Late though lingered the snow, That the sap stirred not at the whisper Of the south wind, sweet and low; Never yet was a spring-time When the buds forgot to blow."

"I know,—yet my arms are empty, That fondly folded seven, And the mother heart within me Is almost starved for heaven."

"Fifteen takes its perplexities very seriously and grieves wihout restraint over its sorrows."

"One of the first things to be noted in business life is its imperialism. Business is exacting, engrossing, and inelastic."

"Let every birthday be a festival, a time when the gladness of the house finds expression in flowers, in gifts, in a little fête. Never should a birthday be passed over without note, or as if it were a common day, never should it cease to be a garlanded milestone in the road of life."

"We now live in a world where we are related by economics, politics, the environment, technology and human nature. We can no longer think of the people and problems in other parts of the world as “foreign” to us. David certainly understood this early in the game, and has been a tireless and inspirational advocate in this regard. He wears the badge of "proud internationalist" openly, as do I."

"For David Rockefeller, the Presidency of the United States would be a demotion."

"Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded, not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering a high morale and cummunity propose... The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history."

"But this present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for long. Already there are powerful forces at work that threaten to destroy all of our hopes and efforts to erect an enduring structure of global interdependence."

"Courting Peggy McGrath provided me with a very pleasant diversion and eventually with the most important relationship of my life."

"The unelected if indisputable chairman of the American Establishment ...one of the most powerful, influential and richest men in America ...[he] sits at the hub of a vast network of financiers, industrialists and politicians whose reach encircles the globe"

"If the disagreement was strong enough, we could end up pretty close to the borderline of incivility."

"I think that one of the things that is needed is the fact that I don't think enough people in high positions in our country accept the importance of our world role with sufficient gravity. In other words, I think the tendency, because of politics and getting elected, is to stress local issues; and of course, they are important. But, I would like to see more of the leaders of our country spend more time traveling for one thing, getting to know the world, and studying history. To me, one of the sad things about our country is that our leadership — to a greater extent than I would like — is more concerned about very domestic issues than they are about our relations in the world."

"There have been people — ever since I've had any kind of position in the world — who have accused me of being ruler of the world. I have to say that I think for the large part, I would have to decide to describe them as crack pots. It makes no sense whatsoever, and isn't true, and won't be true, and to raise it as a serious issue seems to me to be irresponsible."

"I think that that has to be related to the problems within our own country. I was reading in the papers today that there's a grave concern about what our role should be, how it should be handled, and how we should better manage our own domestic economy. And I think that this is becoming a serious issue. And it's gonna have to be addressed by any politicians who wish to be re-elected. They have to see that the issue of our economy and what influences it is better understood and more successfully addressed."

"I think that the best hope for peace and prosperity in the world is greater cooperation among nations, which in turn will be produced if both our governments and the people of our countries travel more and get to know each other better."

"I don't recall that I have said — and I don't think that I really feel — that we need a world government. We need governments of the world that work together and collaborate. But, I can't imagine that there would be any likelihood — or even that it would be desirable — to have a single government elected by the people of the world."

"Not armies, not nations, have advanced the race; but here and there, in the course of ages, an individual has stood up and cast his shadow over the world."

"Far from having an attachment to the past and to its codes, David Rockefeller, and really all the Rockefellers, were perpetually falling for everything that was new. They embraced every new educational theory, every new artistic style, every new architectural trend, every new business fad. And so when the 60's came along and seemed to represent yet another bright new future, many of the younger Rockefellers embraced that too, even if it meant the destruction of their place in society, and the older ones had nothing to say. … there never will be another person like David Rockefeller, a person who epitomized the Establishment and attracted conspiracy theories by the score. In the 60's, a new generation came up to destroy his world, and in response, he was willing to come pretty close to the borderline of incivility."

"I think without internationalists like you, the international system we have been trying to build, the international system we have today, wouldn't be here."

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. "Populists" believe in conspiracies and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of "conspirator in chief" from some of these people. Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted in our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and expansion of our political power without them."