Some of My Favourite Quotes     Bible   Both/And   Calling and Mission   Challenges   Critics   Humility   Justice   Leadership   Learning   Love   Risk   Truth   Vision   Uncategorized

 

Bible:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. 'My God,' you will say, 'if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?' Here in lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” 

                    - Soren Kierkegard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. Charles E. Moore (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002), p.201.

Both/And:

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.” - James Dean

 

“Work as if you were to live 100 years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.” - Benjamin Franklin

 

Calling and Mission:

"Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” - C.T. Studd

 

“Give me 100 men who hate sin and nothing else, and love God and nothing else, and I will change the world.” – John Wesley (Wesley worked with 140 leaders and transformed English culture in his lifetime.)

 

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world." - unknown

 

We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is, “Where does my little life fall into the great story of God’s mission?” - Christopher J.H. Wright

 

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone make the difference." - Calvin Coolidge

 

“One who fears God is not at liberty to give up.” – William Wilberforce

 “First it is impossible,

  Then it is difficult,

  Then it is done.”  - J. Hudson Taylor, missionary to China

 

“Are you indifferent to everything, but God’s will?” - Steve Brooks

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead, anthropologist

 

Challenges:

 

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...it's about learning to dance in the rain.” - unknown

 

"When things get tough, always remember...Faith doesn't get you around trouble, it gets you through it!" – a recent widow

 

"God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain, but without stain."  - C.S. Lewis

 

Critics:

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something in your life." - Winston Churchill

 

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly…who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spend himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known either victory or defeat.” – Teddy Roosevelt

 

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910) 

 

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." – Voltaire

 

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

 

Humility:

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men. "  - Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

 

Justice:

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. - unknown

 

Leadership:

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more - you are a leader." ~ John Quincy Adams

“A leader is a dealer in hope.” - Napoleon

 

“A vision without an action plan is simply an hallucination.” – Gerry Seale

 

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” - Winston Churchill

 

Learning from the Heart:

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so" - Douglas Adams

 

"When the student is ready the teachers will appear"

 

Love:

"We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." - Mother Teresa

 

Risk:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off your bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

 

Truth:

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."

“It ain’t what people don’t know that causes the most trouble; it’s what they know that ain’t so.” - Mark Twain

Vision:

“If your vision doesn’t scare you, then both your vision and your God are too small”- Brother Andrew

“Start by doing what’s necessary;
Then do what’s possible;
And suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - Francis of Assisi

 

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”- Chinese Proverb

 

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” - Japanese Proverb

 

Uncategorized:

"Every saint has a past, every sinner a future." - Paul Dzubinski

 

"Food for thought for those who like to think." – Chris Moerman

 

  “You may gain by taking
   You may gain by giving
   But what you gain by giving can never be taken away.”- Janis Reinis (Latvian poet, died c. 1947)

 

RISK more than others think is safe.
CARE more than others think is wise.
DREAM more than others think is practical.
EXPECT more than others think is possible.
     -Cadet maxim, West Point Military Academy

  

“The level of thinking that will get us out of our predicament must be of a different kind than the level of thinking that got us into our predicament.” – Einstein

 

“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as a barrier to your life.” – Anne Morris

 

"God is dead"--Neitzche

"Neitzche is dead"--God

 

“It’s easy to do God’s work but difficult be a man or woman of God” – Dick Hillis

 

“A people that values its privileges about its principles soon loses both.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis)

 

“As any seafarer knows, from galley slave to admiral, running a tight ship is immensely preferable to going down with it.” - unknown

 

"I asked God for strength, that I might achieve, I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey ... I asked for health, that I might do greater things, I was given infirmity, that I might do better things ... I asked for riches, that I might be happy, I was given poverty, that I might be wise ... I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men, I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God ... I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life, I was given life, that I might enjoy all things ... I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am among all men, most richly blessed." - Anonymous Confederate Soldier. 

 

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. "  - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

 

"It’s not the words of your enemies that hurt you, but the silence of your friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“Obstacles are the things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.” – unknown

 

 “There comes a time when every great plan degenerates into work.” - any great leader :-)

 

“Life is what happens to you while you are making and implementing your plans” – Art Linkletter

 

Television personality Art Linkletter was in a nursing home where a elderly woman in a wheelchair came up to him and began chatting. After a few moments of small-talk Art asked, “Do you know who I am?” “No,” she replied, “But don't worry, if you go to the front-desk they tell you.”

 

“You never really know that Christ is all you need, till Christ is all you have.” – Plaque on a wall in the Philippines

 

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” - Max De Pree

 

"He who has God and everything, has no more than he who has God alone" - C.S. Lewis

 

"Life is not a journey to the grave with  the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid  in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- WOW--What a Ride!" - unknown

 
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes." - Marcel Proust

 

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes real happiness. It is not obtained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." - Helen Keller

 

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig.

But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity I would give anything I have. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

“We must make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Einstein