T. D. Jakes

“I think most people who get into their 50s reassess what made sense and what didn't make sense.”

“I think it is important that we rebuild an atmosphere of forgiveness and civility in every aspect of our lives.”

“I want to congratulate all the men out there who are working diligently to be good fathers whether they are stepfathers, or biological fathers or just spiritual fathers.”

“My father was a Methodist and my mother was a Baptist.”

“I actually grew up playing the piano in the church and was deeply involved in music ministry.”

“Resist your fear; fear will never lead to you a positive end. Go for your faith and what you believe.”

“Forgiveness is about empowering yourself, rather than empowering your past.”

“I raised five children. They all have different personalities. All of them have different issues, different levels of success. That was a learning experience for me.”

“We cannot embrace God's forgiveness if we are so busy clinging to past wounds and nursing old grudges.”

“Children are not unforgiving. You can punish them and they will hug you in a few minutes.”

“I think that my preaching style and many of my ideas and ideals about faith are based in both Pentecostal and Baptist background.”

“And another thing is that I think as a church whenever we become politically driven, we alienate at least 50 percent of the people that God called us to reach with our political orientations.”

“I don't think that you can let the storms of life overwhelm you. When you do that, you are no better than the craziness that caused you to be under attack.”

“When my father died, I had a real experience with Christ, a real conversion with Christ and I had it in a Oneness church.”

“We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it's absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive.”

“I like to see myself as a bridge builder, that is me building bridges between people, between races, between cultures, between politics, trying to find common ground.”

“Here is the amazing thing about Easter; the Resurrection Sunday for Christians is this, that Christ in the dying moments on the cross gives us the greatest illustration of forgiveness possible.”

“My first church had seven members in it, and I have to remember, the rent was $225 a month and I worked for Union Carbide and took the check I made from work to pay for the rent to keep the church open.”

“We develop our propensity to forgive or not to forgive by what we see illustrated at the early ages of our development.”

“I was raised in the Baptist church... but I didn't really have a real committed experience with Christ until my father died.”