Quotes

"You'll have more fun and success by helping other people achieve their goals than you will by focusing on your own goals." ~ Dale Carnegie

Dwight Nelson said his daughter used to have this on her vanity when she was a little girl:  "Don't go to God and tell him you have a big problem.  Go to your problem and tell it you have a big God!"

[We live our lives before] the wild, dangerous, unfettered and free character of the living God. ~ Walter Bruggeman (as quoted in The Sacred Romance)
 
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" ~ T. S. Eliot
 
“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be.” ~ Socrates
 
'It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.'  Moliere

'One should examine one-self for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.'  Moliere

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use" (as quoted on MySpace by Mariana)

"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped" (as quoted on MySpace by Mariana)

 
A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
 
"I am too blessed to be stressed and too anointed to be disappointed!"  -- LU DLP student email signature
 
We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. ~ Stacie Tauscher
 
No task is too arduous, no problem is too difficult, no burden is too heavy for God's love. ~ Billy Graham (A JOURNEY OF PRAYER)
 
It's not how you look, it's how you see.
 
"Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil" (Dallas Willard)
 
We could learn a lot from crayons:
some are sharp, some are pretty,
some are dull, some have weird names,
and all are different colors ... but
they all exist very nicely in the same box. -- Ann Fisher, NAD Book Project
 
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~ Marcel Proust
 
"A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say" ~ Italo Calvino
 
"If you cannot write well, you cannot think well, and if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you." ~ George Orwell
 
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." ~ Thomas Paine
 
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." ~ (Narrator's observation in The Hobbit)
 
Are we not driven to the conclusion that of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most worthy, momentous and wonderful are the things called BOOKS? ~ Thomas Carlyle
 
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." ~ C. S. Lewis
 
Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will. ~ Valerie H. Tyree, LU-DLP-FA Advisor

When you're obliged to discover something for yourself, it makes a pathway through your mind that you can use again." ~ George Polya

"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention." ~ quoted in Liberty at Risk by Gary DeMar

Recently a historian commented on what he had observed of the Christian faith in America: "Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging." ~ Ibid.

"When you do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you command the attention of the world."  -- email forward about tiger mom with piglet kids!

 
"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so
love the people who treat you right,
forget about the ones who don't, and
believe that everything happens for a reason
If you get a chance, take it.
If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy,
they just promised it would be worth it."
----Harvey Mackay

"A friendly discussion is as stimulating as the sparks that fly when iron strikes iron." ~ Proverbs 27:17, TLB

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." (Vince Lombardi)
 

"the woman i desire to be

is only part grown not all

i still want to fly above the clouds

breathe under the sea

wish upon shooting stars

and live in my dreams

the woman i stand for

is strong and meek

finds purpose in a daily cup of coffee

puts a childs tears before money

sings at the top of her lungs

finds the little mistakes in life to be funny the woman i choose to be is only part grown not all she still wants to fly above the clouds breathe under the sea wish upon shooting stars and live in her dreams"

***

The following are what I call "catalog quotes"--that is, quotes that one may find on t-shirts, plaques and so forth in a catalog:

Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.
 
Here comes treble.
 
The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune. ~ Irish saying
 
Growing old is mandatory.  Growing up is optional.
 
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
 
A best friend is a sister that destiny forgot to give you.
 
Lord make me an instrument of thy peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love.  Where there is injury, Pardon.  Where there is error, Truth.  Where there is discord, Harmony.  Where there is doubt, Faith.  Where there is despair, Hope.  Where there is darkness, Light.  Where there is sorrow, Joy. ~ St. Francis of Assisi
 
Women who behave rarely make history. . .
 
Friendship is a promise made in the heart, unbreakable by distance, unchangeable by time.
 
Cousin to cousin we'll always be
Special friends from the same family tree.
 
If we live to be a hundred and three. . .
Best friends we still will be.
 
I made a wish and you came true.
 
Friends are flowers that never fade away.
 
I take life with a grain of salt, a wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.
 
I smile because you're my sister.  I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it.
 
Lord, keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth.
 
88 Keys - 10 Fingers
No Problem
 
Manure Occureth.
 
She knows just where I dream to go, Remembers where I've been, Accepts me just the way I am, and treats me like a friend.
 
I'm confused. . .wait, maybe I'm not.
 
Ask not for whom the dog barks.
It barks for thee.
 
This is not a joke.
If you ever want to see these people again, bring me a 5 lb. rib roast in a plain brown bag.
The Dog.
 
Patrolled by Dachshund K9 Unit.
Sniff searches performed.
 
Beware:  Dog can't hold its licker.
 
Cats are like potato chips. . .it's hard to have just one!
 
Life without horses. . .I don't think so!
 
Good friends are like angels.
You don't have to see them to know they are there.

***

Unicorn Quotes from Queen Hoda:

The unicorn was white, with hooves of silver and graceful horn of pearl... The glorious thing about him was his eye. There was a faint bluish furrow down each side of his nose, and this led to the eye sockets, and surrounded them in pensive shade. The eyes circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotions except love.

Now I will believe that there are unicorns.

As the tide comes in
we caress each other....
Many times have I
danced around mermaids
As they rose from the
depths and rested
Upon my crest to watch
the stars.

...no place is more enchanted than where a unicorn has been born.

O unicorn among the cedars

To whom no magic charm can lead us,
White childhood moving like a sigh
Through the green woods unharmed in thy
Sophisticated innocence...

Like a lion, without fear of the howling pack,

Like a gust of wind, never trapped in a snare,
Like a lotus blossom, never sprinkled by water,
Like me, like a unicorn, in solitude roam.

Here sits the unicorn;

...flowers that rise
From the velvet field
In which he lies...
Do not bind him there
In a kingdom where
He is unaware
of his wounds, of his snare.

To regard the unicorn as wholly fabulous and a product of fancy is an absurd and arbitrary position, and we do well to remember that if the elephant and giraffe and camel should once die out they too, on account of their strange forms, would be thought fabulous.

The shark is killed for its fin

The rhino is killed for its horn
The tiger is killed for its skin
What price the unicorn?

The unicorn stands alone
on a cliff above the ocean.
Waves crash upon the jaggered stones
they jut out like broken bones.
Lightning shreds apart the heavens
like claws of a dragon.
Yet in the midst of the storm
the unicorn remains composed.

***

From Liberty University's Thought for the Day on the Student Home Page:

Anonymous:  Condemnation without investigation is the height of true ignorance.
 
"The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them."
 
Aristotle:  "Excellence is not an act but a habit."
 
Benjamin Franklin:  "Well done is better than well said."
 
"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."
 
Brandt:  "Other people don't create your spirit, they only reveal it."
 
Brother Lawrence:  "You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we think."
 
C. Archie Danielson:  "Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."
 
C. S. Lewis:  "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
 
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell."
 
"Love is the great conqueror of lust."
 
"This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people."
 
"You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: everyone is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity."
 
"Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."
 
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."
 
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
 
"The safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
 
"The Son of God became man to enable men to become the sons of God."
 
"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"
 
"Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms."
 
"Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle."
 
"There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal, Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or ever lasting splendours."
 
Charles Dickens:  "Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
 
Chilo:  "Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity."
 
Colin Powell:  "Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence."
 
Confucius:  "The way of a superior man is three-fold: Virtuous, he is free from anxieties; wise, he is free from perplexities; bold, he is free from fear."
 
Dallas Willard:  "Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil."
 
David Starr Johnson:  "There is no real excellence in all this world which can be seperated from right living."
 
Douglas Mallock:  "Find your joy in something finished, and not a thousand things begun."
 
Elbert Hubbard:  "A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience."
 
Elizabeth Kubler Ross:  "People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."
 
Francis de Sales:  "Since little faults committed in the beginning of a project grow infinitely greater in its course and finally are almost irreparable, above all else you must know what the virtue of devotion is."
 
Frederick Spanheim:  "They are the true disciples of Christ, not who know most, but who love most."
 
G. A. Studdert Kennedy:  "Variety may be the spice of life, but it is not life itself. It is that bread of life, that peace of God which is the very staff of life itself, for which men's souls are starving in these days."
 
G. K. Chesterton:  "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and untried."
 
Gary Thomas:  "Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value."
 
George Horace Lorimer:  "It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy."
 
George Whitefield:  "The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down."
 
Harry Emerson Fosdick:  "A person completely wrapped up in himself makes a small package."
 
Henry Clay:  "Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character."
 
Henry Fielding:  "Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is an honest man."
 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:  "It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong."
 
Henry Ward Beecher:  "The first hour of waking is the rudder that guides the whole day."
 
"The church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones, a nursery for the care of weak ones, a hospital for the healing of those who need special care."
 
Igor Stravinsky:  "Just as an appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration."
 
James R. Cook:  "I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go."
 
J. G. Holland:  "A man may carry the whole scheme of Christian truth in his mind from boyhood to old age without the slightest effect upon his character and aims. It has had less influence than the multiplication table."
 
Jack Kinder:  "High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation."
 
Joel A. Barker:  "Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it."
 
John Holt:  "The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do."
 
John Owen:  "Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before."
 
John Piper:  "God is not looking for people to work for him, so much as he is looking for people who will let him work for them. The gospel is not a Help Wanted ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a Help Wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver."
 
"If you come to God dutifully offering him the reward of your fellowship instead of thirsting after the reward of his fellowship, then you exalt yourself above God as his benefactor and belittle him as a needy beneficiary-and that is evil."
 
"The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever."
 
John Wycliffe:  "I believe that in the end the truth will conquer."
 
L. P. Jacks:  "The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty."
 
Luis Palau:  "It's bad when you fail morally. It's worse when you don't repent."
 
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek:  "I used to pray that God would do this or that; now I pray that God will make His will known to me."
 
Margaret Thatcher:  "Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides."
 
Mark Twain:  "Heaven is based on grace, not merit. That is why you can go in, but your dog must remain outside. Were it the other way round, the dog would go in and you would stay outside."
 
Martin Luther King Jr.:  "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
 
"The time is always right to do what is right."
 
Mother Teresa:  "Be kind to each other; it is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness."
 
Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it."
 
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
 
Robert Louis Stevenson:  "The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you."
 
Roger Babson:  "Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but character, health, knowledge and good judgement will always be in demand under all conditions."
 
Samuel Butler:  "There's many a good tune played on an old fiddle."
 
Socrates:  "May the outward and inward man be at one."
 
St. Jerome:  "If an offense comes out of the truth, it is better that the offense come than that the truth be concealed."
 
Thomas a Kempis:  "Carefully avoid in yourself those things which disturb you in others."
 
"The loftier the building the deeper must the foundation be laid."
 
Thomas Merton:  "A man who has been killed by one enemy is just as dead as one who has been killed by a whole army. If you are friends with one habit of mortal sin you live in death, even though you may seem to have all the other virtues."
 
Vincent Van Gogh:  "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
 
William Barclay:  "If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach."
 
"It is not so very difficult to think of a God who will forgive the sinner who comes humbly and penitently back to him on his hands and knees; but no man outside Christianity had ever thought of a God who would deliberately go out and seek for the sinner until he found him and brought him home."
 
W. L. Hudson:  "The love of wealth makes bitter men; the love of God, better men."

***

"We shall never know what dangers, seen and unseen, we have been delivered from through the interposition of the angels until we shall see in the light of eternity the providences of God.  Then we shall better understand what God has done for us all the days of our life.  We shall know then that the whole heavenly family watched to see our course of action from day to day . . . The Lord Jesus is among men.  His angels walk among us unrecognized and unacknowledged.  We are saved from many snares and unseen dangers that through the machinations and hostility of our foe are placed in our path to destroy us.  O that our eyes might be open to discern the watchful solicitude and tender care of the messengers of light! . . . The ministry of these angels is especially essential now, for Satan is making his last desperate effort to secure the world."   In Heavenly Places, p. 101

"Weather forecasting and politics are the only fields in which a person can be often wrong and still keep his job!" ~Rick Rasberry

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1802

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." ~ A. Einstein

If we commit the keeping of our souls to God in the exercise of living faith, His promises will not fail us; for they have no limit but our faith. ~ E. G. White

***

These two quotes came together in an email, with the thought below:

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.
- Laila Ali
What is impossible with men is possible with God.
- Jesus (Luke 18:27)
 
Makes one think, in a fresh way, about the ancient reality of the Luke scripture!   Are there any "impossibles" in your life --- in mine --- that need to be disarmed?

***

"The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light -- although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted." ~ Saint Augustine

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