Ben Carson

"In our culture, security has become an obsession."

"Surrendering to fear and allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by peril isn't something most of us can afford to do."

"Being nice always comes back to repay us in the long run."

"“Why risk?” I responded. “It should be, why not to risk?”"

"But no matter what safety steps we take or what security precautions we adopt, our risk of death is not approximately – but exactly – 100 percent. There is no margin of error on the statistic."

"The more we think about risk, the more risk seem to be."

"Anyone with a normal brain has the capacity to do almost anything, but when one has special gifts or talents (and everyone has) and takes advantage of and develops these talents – that person is likely to excel."

"God don't make no junk."

"In-depth learning means learning as much about a topic as possible – learning for the sake of knowledge and understanding itself as opposed to learning for the sake of passing a test with high grades or trying to impress people."

"We do not have to compare our achievements with those of others. We need only to ask ourselves one question: Have I given my best?"

"After all my thinking and praying, my decision came down to the fact that I felt obligated to do everything I could to help."

"It's a failure only if you don't get anything out of it, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work; yet we have lights today."

"How did we become so intrigued by risk – and so worried about it at the same time?"

"Rather than reacting to every risk we hear and see, we should make an effort to discern which ones we can do something about."

"If we allow ourselves to dwell on negatives, on hurts, on mistreatments, we will be negative thinkers. So be open to positive thinking, THINK BIG!"

"It is not a matter of competing with someone else. Essentially, it is accepting our own special abilities as special – and then developing them."

"Although we all make mistakes in life, the problems occur when we try to hide our mistakes, to cover them up rather than to learn from them and allow other people to learn from them."

"Not prejudge others – not decide their value before knowing them."

"You never know how useful even seemingly insignificant knowledge can be."

"The mind, once stretched by an idea, never returns to its original dimension."

"As I continue to develop my relationship with Him, I have discovered that God is a nice guy."

"We are still able to grow as long as we are alive."

"God would grant all of us wisdom, calm, and peace, that his presence would be in the operating room, and that his will might be done."

"Whenever I face a hard decision or a risky situation in life (personally or professionally), all my thinking, all my analysis, all my planning can be boiled down to four simple questions: 1. What is the best thing that can happen if I do this? 2. What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this? 3. What is the best thing that can happen if I don't do it? 4. What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't do it?"

"I now had enough faith not only to believe there were answer, but to feel certain that those answers would become apparent at some point in the future."

"I was confident that something good would come out of yet another difficult and disappointing case."

"Say your prayers. And I'll say mine. Because I really think it helps."

"If someone in going to die anyway without an operation, then you have nothing to lose by trying."

"Like an adventure who was asked why he climbed the mountain and answered, “Because it's there!” I think our culture has developed this intense love-hate relationship with risk, in part because it's always there."

"The truth is that everything is risky; life itself is risky."

"Use PMA: Positive Mental Attitude."

"You are what you think."

"THINK BIG means opening our horizons, reaching for new possibilities in our lives, being open to whatever God has in store for us on the road ahead. T=TALENT : If you recognize your talents, use them appropriately, and choose a field that uses those talents, you will rise to the top of your field. H=HONEST : If we live by the rule of honesty and accept our problems, we can go far down the road of achievement. I=INSIGHT : If we observe and reflect and commit ourselves to giving our best, we will come out on top. N=NICE : If we are nice to others, other respond to us in the same way, and we can give our best for each other. K=KNOWLEDGE : If we make every attempt to increase our knowledge in order to use it for human go, it will make a difference in us and in our world. B=BOOKS : If we commit ourselves to reading thus increasing our knowledge, only God limits how far we can go in this world. I=IN-DEPTH LEARNING : If we develop in-depth knowledge, it will enable us to give our best to others and help to make a better world. G=GOD : If we acknowledge our need for God , he will help us."

"God has given to every one of us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Now why would God give us such a complex organ system unless He expects us to use it?"

"What a wonderful thing is to be able to contribute to the restoration of someone's health. It's not only a feeling that I'm worth something, but that I have something to contribute."

"I'm convinced that we all harvest the fruits of our labors."

"It is not where we have come from but where we are going that counts!"

"Be nice to every-body. You meet the same people going up as you meet going down."

"Not only we can say that we cannot overload our brain, but we also know that our brain retains everything. The difficulty does not come with the input of information, but in getting it out."

"Knowledge makes people special. Knowledge enriches life itself."

"Knowledge make us valuable. When we have knowledge that other people do not readily have, somebody need us. It does not matter what we look like, or where we came from, if we have something that others have a need for."

"Knowledge is the key that unlocks all the doors. You can be green-skinned with yellow polka dots and come from Mars, but if you have knowledge that people need, instead of beating you, they'll beat a path to your door."

"We cannot allow ourselves to be prejudiced against a subject, based upon what someone else has said or just upon the difficulty we encounter in learning."

"It is important to call on God to intervene in our life, especially when we reach the point where we ourselves have become helpless."

"Do your best and let God do the rest."

"What is important – what I consider success – is that we make a contribution to our world."

"I've never known a case yet where worry helped."

"So I'm going to say my prayers tonight before I go to sleep. I hope you'll do the same. I believe if we do that, we'll all have less to worry about tomorrow."

"If things do go badly, will I wonder for the rest of my life what I might have done to help?"

"The greatest and most valuable resources we have for making crucial decision are knowledge and the amazing brainpower God gave human beings when he created us. That's certainly true for deciding our best response to any risk we ever face."