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“AA has taught me that being ‘a small part of the great whole’ carries with it a responsibility and that there is always something that I can do to contribute to ‘our common welfare.’”

“There have been many times when I’ve felt inadequate to meet life’s demands, but AA and the Twelve Steps have always helped me find a way.”

“As a child, hearing my first symphony, I was lifted up into its indescribable harmony, though I knew little of how or whence it came. So today, when I listen for God's music of the spheres, I can now and again hear those divine chords by which I am told that the great composer loves me -- and that I love Him.”

“If the day comes that I do drink again, it will not be because I had no alternative. It will be because I had an alternative, provided by a loving God, but was unwilling to use it.”

“I have an AA friend, a good and gentle soul. He recently joined one of the great religious orders, one in which the friars spend many hours a day in contemplation. So my friend has plenty of time to take his inventory. The more he looks, the more unconscious self-deception he finds. And the more astonished he becomes at the elaborate and devious excuse-making machinery by which he had been justifying himself. He has already come to the conclusion that the prideful righteousness of ‘good people’ may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good. So he daily looks inward upon himself and then upward toward God, the better to discover just where he stands in this matter of honesty. Out of each of his meditations there always emerges one dead certainty, and this is the fact that he still has a long way to go.”

“We shall often miscalculate the future in whole or in part. But even so, this will be far better than to refuse to think at all.”

“True morality has its inevitable compensations, for when we benefit someone we increase our own happiness.”

“Rigorous action coupled with conscious reflection and human compassion will gain me new opportunities for greater hope and harmony with all those I deal with -- even ones with whom I disagree.”

“When finally my household went quite broke, I woke up to the fact that I hadn't been able to face the prospect of going back to work. So I returned to Wall Street after all. And I have ever since been glad that I did ... Indeed, there was one colossal dividend that resulted directly from my grudging decision to reenter the market place. It was a Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, in 1935, that first brought me face to face with Dr. Bob -- AA's co-founder-to-be. So the birth of AA itself actually hinged on the fact that I had been trying to meet my bread-and-butter responsibilities.”