education
Education, in the broadest of truest sense, will make an
individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of
color, regardless of condition.
George Washington Carver
(1864-1943, American Scientist)
=============================
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the
lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny
ripple of hope.
Robert F. Kennedy
(1925-1968, American Attorney General, Senator)
============================================
Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and
he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty
to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even
our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual
tranquility under every circumstance.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your
duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead wins the race.
Andrew Carnegie
(1835-1919, American Industrialist, Philanthropist)
============================================
Christian freedom, in my opinion, consists of three parts.
The first: that the consciences of believers, in seeking
assurance of their justification before God, should rise above
and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness...
The second part, dependent upon the first, is that consciences
observe the law, not as if constrained by the necessity of the
law, but that freed from the law's yoke they willingly obey
God's will... The third part of Christian freedom lies in
this: regarding outward things that are of themselves
"indifferent", we are not bound before God by any religious
obligation preventing us from sometimes using them and other
times not using them, indifferently... Accordingly, it is
perversely interpreted both by those who allege it as an excuse
for their desires that they may abuse God's good gifts to their
own lust and by those who think that freedom does not exist
unless it is used before men, and consequently, in using it
have no regard for weaker brethren... Nothing is plainer than
this rule: that we should use our freedom if it results in the
edification of our neighbor, but if it does not help our
neighbor, then we should forego it.
... John Calvin (1509-1564),
The Institutes of the Christian Religion [1559]
_______________________________________________________________
Continue to love each other with true brotherly love. Don't
forget to be kind to strangers, for some who have done this have
entertained angels without realizing it!
Bible, Hebrews 13:1
============================================
All things are possible until they are proved impossible - and
even the impossible may only be so, as of now.
Pearl S. Buck
(1892-1973, American Novelist)
============================================
Count not thyself to have found true peace, if thou hast
felt no grief; nor that then all is well if thou hast no
adversary; nor that this is perfect, if all things fall out
according to thy desire.
... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
_______________________________________________________________
All the gold in the world has no significance. That which is
lasting are the thoughtful acts which we do for our fellow man.
Adolfo Prieto
(1867-1945, Humanitarian)
============================================
Adversity not only draws people together but brings forth that
beautiful inward friendship, just as the cold winter forms ice-figures
on
the window panes which the warmth of the sun effaces.
Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855, Danish Philosopher, Writer)
============================================
A meal, however simple, is a moment of intersection. It is at
once the most basic, the most fundamental, of our life's activities,
maintaining the life of our bodies; shared with others it can be an
occasion of joy and communion, uniting people deeply.
Elise Boulding
============================================
Do you think that the work God gives us to do is never
easy? Jesus says that His yoke is easy, His burden is light.
People sometimes refuse to do God's work just because it is
easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy
work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it...
Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a
hand. But however easy any work may be, it cannot be well done
without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of
taking thought about their work, generally take thought about
the morrow -- in which no work can be done, any more than in
yesterday.
... George Macdonald (1824-1905), The Seaboard Parish [1868]
_______________________________________________________________
Friendship renders prosperity more brilliant, while it lightens
adversity by sharing it and making its burden common.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
( c. 106-43 BC, Great Roman Orator, Politician)
============================================
A satisfying prayer life elevates and purifies every act of
body and mind and integrates the entire personality into a
single spiritual unit. In the long pull we pray only as well
as we live.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
Always demanding the best of oneself, living with honor, devoting
one's talents and gifts to the benefits of others - these are the
measures
of success that endure when material things have passed away.
Gerald R. Ford
(1913-, Thirty-eighth President of the USA)
============================================
It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see
God, for only the pure in heart want to.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
_______________________________________________________________
As, then, a consummate master teaches both by example and
by precept, so Christ taught the obedience, which good men are
to render even at the cost of death, by Himself first dying in
rendering it.
... Rufinus (345?-410)
_______________________________________________________________
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness
destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?
Jane Austen
(1775-1817, British Novelist)
============================================
If I wanted to become a tramp, I would seek information and
advice from the most successful tramp I could find. If I wanted to
become a failure, I would seek advice from people who have never succeeded. If
I wanted to succeed in all things, I would look around me for those who
are succeeding, and do as they have done.
Joseph Marshall Wade
============================================
Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being
cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It
is
self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes
with having proved you can meet life.
Ann Landers
(1918-, American Advice Columnist)
============================================
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to
persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
Christopher Reeve
(1952-, American Actor, Motivational Speaker (who became paralyzed from
the neck down after a freak horseback-riding accident))
============================================
In your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go
and sheltered so may thrive and grow.
Louise Driscoll
============================================
Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not
incite us to have them.
John Updike
============================================
Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes
rich.
Sarah Bernhardt
(1844-1923, French Actress)
============================================
Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every
problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually.
Eileen Caddy
(American Spiritual Writer)
============================================
What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.
Theodore Roethke
============================================
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to
achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Charles F. Kettering
(1876-1958, American Engineer, Inventor)
============================================
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Newbigin: atomization
Western European civilization has witnessed a sort of
atomizing process, in which the individual is more and more set
free from his natural setting in family and neighborhood, and
becomes a sort of replaceable unit in the social machine. His
nearest neighbors may not even know his name. He is free to
move from place to place, from job to job, from acquaintance to
acquaintance, and -- if he has attained a high degree of
emancipation -- from wife to wife. He is in every context a
more and more anonymous and replaceable part, the perfect
incarnation of the rationalist conception of man. Wherever
western civilization has spread in the past one hundred years,
it has carried this atomizing process with it. Its
characteristic product in Calcutta, Shanghai, or Johannesburg,
is the modern city into which myriads of human beings, loosened
from their old ties in village or tribe or caste, like grains
of sand fretted by water from an ancient block of sandstone,
are ceaselessly churned around in the whirlpool of the city --
anonymous, identical, replaceable units. In such a situation,
it is natural that men should long for some sort of real
community, for men cannot be human without it. It is
especially natural that Christians should reach out after that
part of Christian doctrine which speaks of the true, God-given
community, the Church of Jesus Christ. We have witnessed the
appalling results of trying to go back to some sort of
primitive collectivity based on the total control of the
individual, down to the depths of his spirit, by an
all-powerful group. Yet we know that we cannot condemn this
solution to the problem of man's loneliness if we have no other
to offer. It is natural that men should ask with a greater
eagerness than ever before, such questions as these: "Is there
in truth a family of God on earth to which I can belong, a
place where all men can be truly at home? If so, where is it
to be found, what are its marks, and how is it related to, and
distinguished from, the known communities of family, nation,
and culture? What are its boundaries, its structure, its terms
of membership? And how comes it that those who claim to be the
spokesmen of that one holy fellowship are themselves at war
with one another as to the fundamentals of its nature, and
unable to agree to live together in unity and concord?" The
breakdown of Christendom has forced such questions as these to
the front. I think that there is no more urgent theological
task than to try to give them plain and credible answers.
... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God [1953]
_______________________________________________________________
Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost
faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of
their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming
now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at
the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and
division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the
followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and
polite unbelief are gone forever.
... John Neville Figgis (1866-1919)
_______________________________________________________________
A simple rule, to be followed whether one is in the light
or not, gives backbone to one's spiritual life, as nothing else
can.
... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
_______________________________________________________________
A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a
cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.
Benjamin Spock
(1903-, American Pediatrician)
============================================
Here's the Quotation for Friday, November 28, 2003
Apparent failure may hold in its rough shell the germs of a
success that will blossom in time, and bear fruit throughout eternity.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
============================================
When you give away a little piece of your heart, you're giving
away the only thing you can give away, which, after you do, you got
more
left than you had before you gave some of it away.
Don Hutson
(American Sales Trainer)
============================================
At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed
one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more
deal.
You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a
parent.
Barbara Bush
(1925-, American First Lady, Wife of President George Bush)
============================================
Be generous! Give to those you love; give to those who love you;
give to the fortunate; give to the unfortunate - yes, give especially
to
those you don't want to give. You will receive abundance for your
giving.
The more you give, the more you will have!
W. Clement Stone
(1902-, American Businessman, Author)
============================================
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to
delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?
Rose F. Kennedy
(1890-1995, Mother of President John F. Kennedy)
============================================
Christians seeking social justice have a special
responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of
aid to people who are homeless and in need, and contributing to
their support. There are real dangers to be faced. It must
never be allowed to appear that charity is dispensed to the
unfortunate by superior beings... Much greater care must be
taken to identify the giver with those whom he comes to serve.
... A. C. MacInnes
_______________________________________________________________
What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as
he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge
of Him, is His servant -- the man who makes Christ a teacher of
his intelligence and the guide of his soul -- the man who obeys
Christ as far as he has been able to understand him... I would
know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a
Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus
Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers
even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the
most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was
and of what He could do.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), The Law of Growth [1902]
_______________________________________________________________
Western European civilization has witnessed a sort of
atomizing process, in which the individual is more and more set
free from his natural setting in family and neighborhood, and
becomes a sort of replaceable unit in the social machine. His
nearest neighbors may not even know his name. He is free to
move from place to place, from job to job, from acquaintance to
acquaintance, and -- if he has attained a high degree of
emancipation -- from wife to wife. He is in every context a
more and more anonymous and replaceable part, the perfect
incarnation of the rationalist conception of man. Wherever
western civilization has spread in the past one hundred years,
it has carried this atomizing process with it. Its
characteristic product in Calcutta, Shanghai, or Johannesburg,
is the modern city into which myriads of human beings, loosened
from their old ties in village or tribe or caste, like grains
of sand fretted by water from an ancient block of sandstone,
are ceaselessly churned around in the whirlpool of the city --
anonymous, identical, replaceable units. In such a situation,
it is natural that men should long for some sort of real
community, for men cannot be human without it. It is
especially natural that Christians should reach out after that
part of Christian doctrine which speaks of the true, God-given
community, the Church of Jesus Christ. We have witnessed the
appalling results of trying to go back to some sort of
primitive collectivity based on the total control of the
individual, down to the depths of his spirit, by an
all-powerful group. Yet we know that we cannot condemn this
solution to the problem of man's loneliness if we have no other
to offer. It is natural that men should ask with a greater
eagerness than ever before, such questions as these: "Is there
in truth a family of God on earth to which I can belong, a
place where all men can be truly at home? If so, where is it
to be found, what are its marks, and how is it related to, and
distinguished from, the known communities of family, nation,
and culture? What are its boundaries, its structure, its terms
of membership? And how comes it that those who claim to be the
spokesmen of that one holy fellowship are themselves at war
with one another as to the fundamentals of its nature, and
unable to agree to live together in unity and concord?" The
breakdown of Christendom has forced such questions as these to
the front. I think that there is no more urgent theological
task than to try to give them plain and credible answers.
... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God [1953]
_______________________________________________________________
Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost
faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of
their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming
now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at
the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and
division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the
followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and
polite unbelief are gone forever.
... John Neville Figgis (1866-1919)
_______________________________________________________________
A simple rule, to be followed whether one is in the light
or not, gives backbone to one's spiritual life, as nothing else
can.
... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
_______________________________________________________________
A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a
cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.
Benjamin Spock
(1903-, American Pediatrician)
============================================
Here's the Quotation for Friday, November 28, 2003
Apparent failure may hold in its rough shell the germs of a
success that will blossom in time, and bear fruit throughout eternity.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
============================================
When you give away a little piece of your heart, you're giving
away the only thing you can give away, which, after you do, you got
more
left than you had before you gave some of it away.
Don Hutson
(American Sales Trainer)
============================================
At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed
one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more
deal.
You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a
parent.
Barbara Bush
(1925-, American First Lady, Wife of President George Bush)
============================================
Be generous! Give to those you love; give to those who love you;
give to the fortunate; give to the unfortunate - yes, give especially
to
those you don't want to give. You will receive abundance for your
giving.
The more you give, the more you will have!
W. Clement Stone
(1902-, American Businessman, Author)
============================================
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to
delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?
Rose F. Kennedy
(1890-1995, Mother of President John F. Kennedy)
============================================
Christians seeking social justice have a special
responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of
aid to people who are homeless and in need, and contributing to
their support. There are real dangers to be faced. It must
never be allowed to appear that charity is dispensed to the
unfortunate by superior beings... Much greater care must be
taken to identify the giver with those whom he comes to serve.
... A. C. MacInnes
_______________________________________________________________
What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as
he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge
of Him, is His servant -- the man who makes Christ a teacher of
his intelligence and the guide of his soul -- the man who obeys
Christ as far as he has been able to understand him... I would
know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a
Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus
Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers
even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the
most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was
and of what He could do.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), The Law of Growth [1902]
_______________________________________________________________
-----------------------------
A hero is a man who does what he can.
-- Roman Rollard
-----------------------------
I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but
the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort.
-- Elizabeth T. King
-----------------------------
Faith that the thing can be done is essential to any great
achievement.
-- Thomas N. Carruther
-----------------------------
One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the
most beautiful.
-- Sigmund Freud
-----------------------------
The most important thing I have learned over the years is the
difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self
seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
-- Margaret Fontey
-----------------------------
Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far
better than mere giving.
-- Henry Ford (1863-1947) American Industrialist
-----------------------------
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it but what
he becomes by it.
-- John Ruskin (1819-1900)
-----------------------------
Don't wait for your "ship to come in" and feel angry and cheated when
it doesn't. Get going with something small.
-- Irene Kassorla
-----------------------------
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor
without having victims.
-- Harriet Woods (1927-) American Politician
-----------------------------
Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings
have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic
expectations, patience, and perseverance.
-- John C. Bogle (1929-) American Investor
-----------------------------
Attitude determines altitude.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
All high achievers plan their work and work their plan, for they are
keenly aware that "luck" is most often being prepared to take
advantage of a situation.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
The greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every
time we fall.
-- Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher
-----------------------------
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long
enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
-- Longfellow
-----------------------------
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to
do.
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
-----------------------------
Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and obeys
it.
-- Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) French Scientist
-----------------------------
He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds
are not found in polished stones. They are made.
-- Henry B. Wilson
-----------------------------
A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm,
that after they have lost all they are sure to lose in mixing with
the world, enough may still remain to prompt and support them through
great actions.
-- Julius C. Hare (1795-1855) English Cleric
-----------------------------
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If
you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever
increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires
effort. This is one of the things that discipline - training - is
about.
-- James Clavell, in his novel "Shogun"
-----------------------------
It is a glorious achievement to master one's own temper.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of
the shore for a very long time.
-- Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Writer
-----------------------------
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I
don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and
good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being
helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop
-----------------------------
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet
-----------------------------
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write,
if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be,
he must be.
-- Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) American Psychologist
-----------------------------
The nearest way to glory -- a shortcut, as it were -- is to strive to
be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC.
-- Socrates (469-399 BC) Greek Philosopher
-----------------------------
The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to
extraordinary success.
-- Vauvenargues
-----------------------------
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any
other fragile and precious thing.
-- Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918) American Writer
-----------------------------
When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into
them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.
-- Arland Gilbert
-----------------------------
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at the Sun."
We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the
ground.
-- Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960) American Writer
-----------------------------
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for
you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this
thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying
down.
-- Mary Pickford (1893-1979) Canadian Actress
-----------------------------
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.
-- Nelson Mandela
-----------------------------
Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of
honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the
goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.
-- Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English Novelist
-----------------------------
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior
teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
-- William Arthur Ward
-----------------------------
Activity and sadness are incompatible.
-- Christian Bovee
-----------------------------
Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life,
misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which
have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than
illustrious heroes.
-- Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French Writer
-----------------------------
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they
will surprise you with their ingenuity.
-- General George S. Patton
-----------------------------
When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced
courses of action you should take - choose the bolder.
-- W.J. Slim
-----------------------------
I praise loudly; I blame softly.
-- Catherine the Second
-----------------------------
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those
who can do nothing for them or to them.
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American Publisher
-----------------------------
Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is
evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.
-- Calvin Coolidge
-----------------------------
I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend
against its force....My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun
whose rays soften the coldest day.
-- Og Mandino
-----------------------------
Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman.
-- Peter Mayle
-----------------------------
Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody
believes he got the biggest piece.
-- Sherry Rothfield
-----------------------------
If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.
-- David Viscott
-----------------------------
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly
smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration
that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him
and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-----------------------------
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
-- Lao Tzu
A hero is a man who does what he can.
-- Roman Rollard
-----------------------------
I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but
the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort.
-- Elizabeth T. King
-----------------------------
Faith that the thing can be done is essential to any great
achievement.
-- Thomas N. Carruther
-----------------------------
One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the
most beautiful.
-- Sigmund Freud
-----------------------------
The most important thing I have learned over the years is the
difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self
seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
-- Margaret Fontey
-----------------------------
Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far
better than mere giving.
-- Henry Ford (1863-1947) American Industrialist
-----------------------------
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it but what
he becomes by it.
-- John Ruskin (1819-1900)
-----------------------------
Don't wait for your "ship to come in" and feel angry and cheated when
it doesn't. Get going with something small.
-- Irene Kassorla
-----------------------------
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor
without having victims.
-- Harriet Woods (1927-) American Politician
-----------------------------
Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings
have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic
expectations, patience, and perseverance.
-- John C. Bogle (1929-) American Investor
-----------------------------
Attitude determines altitude.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
All high achievers plan their work and work their plan, for they are
keenly aware that "luck" is most often being prepared to take
advantage of a situation.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
The greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every
time we fall.
-- Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher
-----------------------------
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long
enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
-- Longfellow
-----------------------------
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to
do.
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
-----------------------------
Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and obeys
it.
-- Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) French Scientist
-----------------------------
He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds
are not found in polished stones. They are made.
-- Henry B. Wilson
-----------------------------
A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm,
that after they have lost all they are sure to lose in mixing with
the world, enough may still remain to prompt and support them through
great actions.
-- Julius C. Hare (1795-1855) English Cleric
-----------------------------
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If
you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever
increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires
effort. This is one of the things that discipline - training - is
about.
-- James Clavell, in his novel "Shogun"
-----------------------------
It is a glorious achievement to master one's own temper.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of
the shore for a very long time.
-- Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Writer
-----------------------------
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I
don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and
good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being
helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop
-----------------------------
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet
-----------------------------
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write,
if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be,
he must be.
-- Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) American Psychologist
-----------------------------
The nearest way to glory -- a shortcut, as it were -- is to strive to
be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC.
-- Socrates (469-399 BC) Greek Philosopher
-----------------------------
The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to
extraordinary success.
-- Vauvenargues
-----------------------------
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any
other fragile and precious thing.
-- Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918) American Writer
-----------------------------
When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into
them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.
-- Arland Gilbert
-----------------------------
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at the Sun."
We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the
ground.
-- Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960) American Writer
-----------------------------
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for
you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this
thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying
down.
-- Mary Pickford (1893-1979) Canadian Actress
-----------------------------
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.
-- Nelson Mandela
-----------------------------
Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of
honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the
goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.
-- Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English Novelist
-----------------------------
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior
teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
-- William Arthur Ward
-----------------------------
Activity and sadness are incompatible.
-- Christian Bovee
-----------------------------
Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life,
misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which
have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than
illustrious heroes.
-- Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French Writer
-----------------------------
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they
will surprise you with their ingenuity.
-- General George S. Patton
-----------------------------
When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced
courses of action you should take - choose the bolder.
-- W.J. Slim
-----------------------------
I praise loudly; I blame softly.
-- Catherine the Second
-----------------------------
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those
who can do nothing for them or to them.
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American Publisher
-----------------------------
Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is
evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.
-- Calvin Coolidge
-----------------------------
I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend
against its force....My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun
whose rays soften the coldest day.
-- Og Mandino
-----------------------------
Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman.
-- Peter Mayle
-----------------------------
Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody
believes he got the biggest piece.
-- Sherry Rothfield
-----------------------------
If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.
-- David Viscott
-----------------------------
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly
smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration
that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him
and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-----------------------------
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
-- Lao Tzu
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Never does a man portray his character more vividly than his
proclaiming the character of another.
Winston Churchill
(1874-1965, British Prime Minister)
==================================
It is better to deserve an honor and not receive it, than to
receive one, and not deserve it!
Mark Twain
(1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer)
========================================
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot
today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didnt get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die;
so, let us all be thankful.
Buddha
===========================================
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900, German Philosopher)
============================================
In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life;
it goes on!
Leo Buscaglia
(American Expert on Love, Lecturer, Author)
============================================
We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin
with God. We are right when, and only when, we stand in a
right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so
long as we stand in any other position.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.
Joe E. Lewis
============================================
The Christian clearly understands that Jesus does not
reveal all that is signified by the word "God", but only as
much as could be revealed through a perfect human personality
living in absolute obedience to God's will. The knowledge of
God that men have by virtue of Jesus' revelation is quite
enough for men to live by in this life, and to live gloriously
and thankfully by, Christians maintain -- the knowledge that
God the Creator, the Almighty and Eternal, the Lord of history,
is man's Heavenly Father, and that love might well be, and
indeed is, the ultimate meaning of human existence.
... Frederick Ward Kates (1920- ),
A Moment Between Two Eternities [1965]
_______________________________________________________________
A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit
and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or
retard him.
... Lyof N. Tolstoy (1828-1910)
_______________________________________________________________
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain
why you did it wrong.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1819-1892, American Poet)
============================================
You have your season, and you have but your season; neither
can you lie down in peace, until you have some persuasion that
your work as well as your life is at an end.
... John Owen (1616-1683)
_______________________________________________________________
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch
him do it.
Clarence Buddinton Kelland
============================================
The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it
is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and
found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.
... John Baillie (1886-1960)
_______________________________________________________________
It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist)
============================================
The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open
one.
Malcomb S. Forbes
(1919-1990, American Publisher, Businessman)
============================================
In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
(1879-1955, German-born American Physicist)
============================================
The blessed and inviting truth is that God is the most
winsome of all beings and in our worship of Him we should
find unspeakable pleasure.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
There was no point of controversy between Jesus and the
Jews; Jesus brought no new doctrine unto them. Jesus said, What
the masters in Israel teach, what the Pharisees and the Scribes
teach, is perfectly correct. There was no dogma which was the
cause of controversy between Jesus and the nation; there was no
new custom that Jesus introduced: He went into the Temple... He
observed the ordinances and festivals of Israel. What was the
subject of dispute and controversy between Jesus and the Jews?
It was no doctrine, it was no innovation, it was Jesus Himself
whom they rejected. There was an antipathy in them to the
person of Jesus: it was the Lord Himself whom they hated,
because they hated the Father... But Jesus knew... that it was
because He was one with the Father, because He was the express
image of His being, because He was the perfect manifestation of
the character of God, that they hated Him; and therefore Jesus
was pained, not because they hated Him, but because they hated
in Him the Father.
... Adolph Saphir (1831-1891), Christ and Israel [1911]
_______________________________________________________________
That God loves us in spite of our sin is the Gospel truth;
but this truth can only be shared by words, since good deeds
are easily [taken to show] the opposite -- that we love God.
Faith is not understood when [it is] only demonstrated by life.
The more sanctified a life without the verbal witness, the
greater the danger of the Christian's goodness getting in the
way. Should a person by the grace of God become easier to live
with, he doesn't need to call attention to it: it will speak
for itself. He can instead seek to balance the reverse effect
of the good image by occasionally speaking of the unfavorable
realities within, those parts that are still changing. In this
way, his external behavior by contrast can point to the power
of God, rather than to the effort of man. When we decrease, He
can increase, but not until.
... Paul G. Johnson (1931- ), Buried Alive [1968]
_______________________________________________________________
[God desires] not that He may say to them, "Look how mighty
I am, and go down upon your knees and worship", for power alone
was never yet worthy of prayer; but that He may say thus:
"Look, my children, you will never be strong but with my
strength. I have no other to give you. And that you can get
only by trusting in me. I can not give it you any other way.
There is no other way."
... George Macdonald (1824-1905),
Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood [1866]
_______________________________________________________________
What is Christ's joy in us, but that He deigns to rejoice
on our account? And what is our Joy, which He says shall be
full, but to have fellowship with Him? He had perfect joy on
our account, when He rejoiced in foreknowing and predestinating
us; but that joy was not in us, because we did not then exist;
it began to be in us, when He called us. And this joy we
rightly call our own, this joy wherewith we shall be blessed;
which is begun in the faith of them who are born again, and
shall be fulfilled in the reward of them who rise again.
... St. Augustine (354-430), The City of God [426]
_______________________________________________________________
Where, then, does happiness lie? In forgetfulness, not
indulgence, of the self. In escape from sensual appetites, not
in their satisfaction. We live in a dark, self-enclosed
prison, which is all we see or know if our glance is fixed ever
downward. To lift it upward, becoming aware of the wide,
luminous universe outside -- this alone is happiness. At its
highest level, such happiness is the ecstasy that mystics have
inadequately described. At more humdrum levels, it is human
love; the delights and beauties of our dear earth, its colors
and shapes and sounds; the enchantment of understanding and
laughing, and all other exercise of such faculties as we
possess; the marvel of the meaning of everything, fitfully
glimpsed, inadequately expounded, but ever present.
... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus Rediscovered [1969]
_______________________________________________________________
proclaiming the character of another.
Winston Churchill
(1874-1965, British Prime Minister)
==================================
It is better to deserve an honor and not receive it, than to
receive one, and not deserve it!
Mark Twain
(1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer)
========================================
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot
today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didnt get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die;
so, let us all be thankful.
Buddha
===========================================
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900, German Philosopher)
============================================
In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life;
it goes on!
Leo Buscaglia
(American Expert on Love, Lecturer, Author)
============================================
We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin
with God. We are right when, and only when, we stand in a
right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so
long as we stand in any other position.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.
Joe E. Lewis
============================================
The Christian clearly understands that Jesus does not
reveal all that is signified by the word "God", but only as
much as could be revealed through a perfect human personality
living in absolute obedience to God's will. The knowledge of
God that men have by virtue of Jesus' revelation is quite
enough for men to live by in this life, and to live gloriously
and thankfully by, Christians maintain -- the knowledge that
God the Creator, the Almighty and Eternal, the Lord of history,
is man's Heavenly Father, and that love might well be, and
indeed is, the ultimate meaning of human existence.
... Frederick Ward Kates (1920- ),
A Moment Between Two Eternities [1965]
_______________________________________________________________
A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit
and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or
retard him.
... Lyof N. Tolstoy (1828-1910)
_______________________________________________________________
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain
why you did it wrong.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1819-1892, American Poet)
============================================
You have your season, and you have but your season; neither
can you lie down in peace, until you have some persuasion that
your work as well as your life is at an end.
... John Owen (1616-1683)
_______________________________________________________________
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch
him do it.
Clarence Buddinton Kelland
============================================
The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it
is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and
found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.
... John Baillie (1886-1960)
_______________________________________________________________
It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist)
============================================
The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open
one.
Malcomb S. Forbes
(1919-1990, American Publisher, Businessman)
============================================
In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
(1879-1955, German-born American Physicist)
============================================
The blessed and inviting truth is that God is the most
winsome of all beings and in our worship of Him we should
find unspeakable pleasure.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
_______________________________________________________________
There was no point of controversy between Jesus and the
Jews; Jesus brought no new doctrine unto them. Jesus said, What
the masters in Israel teach, what the Pharisees and the Scribes
teach, is perfectly correct. There was no dogma which was the
cause of controversy between Jesus and the nation; there was no
new custom that Jesus introduced: He went into the Temple... He
observed the ordinances and festivals of Israel. What was the
subject of dispute and controversy between Jesus and the Jews?
It was no doctrine, it was no innovation, it was Jesus Himself
whom they rejected. There was an antipathy in them to the
person of Jesus: it was the Lord Himself whom they hated,
because they hated the Father... But Jesus knew... that it was
because He was one with the Father, because He was the express
image of His being, because He was the perfect manifestation of
the character of God, that they hated Him; and therefore Jesus
was pained, not because they hated Him, but because they hated
in Him the Father.
... Adolph Saphir (1831-1891), Christ and Israel [1911]
_______________________________________________________________
That God loves us in spite of our sin is the Gospel truth;
but this truth can only be shared by words, since good deeds
are easily [taken to show] the opposite -- that we love God.
Faith is not understood when [it is] only demonstrated by life.
The more sanctified a life without the verbal witness, the
greater the danger of the Christian's goodness getting in the
way. Should a person by the grace of God become easier to live
with, he doesn't need to call attention to it: it will speak
for itself. He can instead seek to balance the reverse effect
of the good image by occasionally speaking of the unfavorable
realities within, those parts that are still changing. In this
way, his external behavior by contrast can point to the power
of God, rather than to the effort of man. When we decrease, He
can increase, but not until.
... Paul G. Johnson (1931- ), Buried Alive [1968]
_______________________________________________________________
[God desires] not that He may say to them, "Look how mighty
I am, and go down upon your knees and worship", for power alone
was never yet worthy of prayer; but that He may say thus:
"Look, my children, you will never be strong but with my
strength. I have no other to give you. And that you can get
only by trusting in me. I can not give it you any other way.
There is no other way."
... George Macdonald (1824-1905),
Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood [1866]
_______________________________________________________________
What is Christ's joy in us, but that He deigns to rejoice
on our account? And what is our Joy, which He says shall be
full, but to have fellowship with Him? He had perfect joy on
our account, when He rejoiced in foreknowing and predestinating
us; but that joy was not in us, because we did not then exist;
it began to be in us, when He called us. And this joy we
rightly call our own, this joy wherewith we shall be blessed;
which is begun in the faith of them who are born again, and
shall be fulfilled in the reward of them who rise again.
... St. Augustine (354-430), The City of God [426]
_______________________________________________________________
Where, then, does happiness lie? In forgetfulness, not
indulgence, of the self. In escape from sensual appetites, not
in their satisfaction. We live in a dark, self-enclosed
prison, which is all we see or know if our glance is fixed ever
downward. To lift it upward, becoming aware of the wide,
luminous universe outside -- this alone is happiness. At its
highest level, such happiness is the ecstasy that mystics have
inadequately described. At more humdrum levels, it is human
love; the delights and beauties of our dear earth, its colors
and shapes and sounds; the enchantment of understanding and
laughing, and all other exercise of such faculties as we
possess; the marvel of the meaning of everything, fitfully
glimpsed, inadequately expounded, but ever present.
... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus Rediscovered [1969]
_______________________________________________________________
Sunday, November 16, 2003
The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your
courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble
image of yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
It is a good thing to be rich, it is a good thing to be strong, but
it is a better thing to be beloved of many friends.
-- Euripides (480-406 BC) Greek Playwright
-----------------------------
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
-- Beverly Sills (1929-) American Opera Singer
-----------------------------
The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you
have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which
comes with a sort of mastery.
-- Janet Erskine Stuart
-----------------------------
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done
without hope and confidence.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
-- Bishop W.C. Magee (1821-1891)
-----------------------------
The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your
convictions.
-- William F. Scolavino
-----------------------------
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the
success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult
task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy
in overcoming obstacles.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is
firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his
principles unto death.
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British-American Writer
-----------------------------
Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches"
ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
-- Herbert Kaufman
-----------------------------
The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart.
-- Mencius (371-291 B.C.)
-----------------------------
There are many ways to measure success; not the least of which is the
way your child describes you when talking to a friend.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never
were; and I say "Why not?"
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the
requisites for success.
-- Alonzo Newton Benn
-----------------------------
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person
doing it.
-- Chinese proverb
-----------------------------
Man has never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.
-- Bernard Williams (1929-) English Philosopher
-----------------------------
Pain is temporary, pride is forever.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength
from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British-American Writer
-----------------------------
If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on
walking.
-- Buddhist Proverb
-----------------------------
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why
you did it wrong.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
-----------------------------
Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in
the end because they've stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and
commitments.
-- Kevin Costner, Actor
-----------------------------
The best leaders collect information widely, listen to everybody, and
then decide by themselves.
-- Edwin Bearss, Civil War Historian
-----------------------------
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She
said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and
worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being
praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying.
Always aim for achievement and forget about success.
-- Helen Hayes
-----------------------------
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity;
but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their
dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
-- Lawrence of Arabia
-----------------------------
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel 1907-1972
-----------------------------
The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty
than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in
disguise.
-- George Santayana,
-----------------------------
If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he
acts when he loses money.
-- New England Proverb
-----------------------------
I'm not happy, I'm cheerful. There's a difference. A happy woman has
no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to
deal with them.
-- Beverly Sills
-----------------------------
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it
will be too late.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
-----------------------------
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.
-- Robert Brault
-----------------------------
As long as a person doesn't admit he is defeated, he is not defeated
-- he's just a little behind and isn't through fighting.
-- Darrell Royal, Texas football coach
-----------------------------
Those who turn good (organizations) into great (organizations) are
motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer
unadulterated excellence for its own sake.
-- Jim Collins, "Good to Great"
-----------------------------
We are fallible. We certainly haven't attained perfection. But we
can strive for it, and the virtue is in the striving.
-- Carlos P. Romulo
-----------------------------
The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others
to be vicious.
-- Cicero
-----------------------------
The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-- William Wordsworth
-----------------------------
Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he
more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the
Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears
dishonor more than death.
-- Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet
-----------------------------
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected
of him.
-- John Steinbeck
-----------------------------
The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is
going.
-- David Starr Jordan
-----------------------------
The measure of a man is what happens when nothing works and you got
the guts to go on.
-- Tex Cobb, boxer and actor.
-----------------------------
I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what
has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the
best you can you can't do any better.
-- Harry S. Truman
-----------------------------
Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person,
at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for
the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task,
but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right
person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right
manner, and at the right time.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger
you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
-----------------------------
One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of
possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world --
making the most of one's best.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
-----------------------------
Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad
experience.
-- Robert Packwood
-----------------------------
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional
glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful
scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point.
-- Harold B. Melchart
-----------------------------
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one
heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but
because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice
what we are for what we could become.
-- Charles Du Bos
-----------------------------
Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first
be overcome.
-- Samuel Johnson
-----------------------------
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can
see.
-- Mark Twain
-----------------------------
A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite
like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a
lifetime faces us.
-- Maltbie Babcock
-----------------------------
Pa, he always said a man had to look spry for himself, because nobody
else would do it for him; your opportunities didn't come knocking
around, you had to hunt them up and hog-tie them.
-- Louis L'Amour, author
-----------------------------
One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the
most beautiful.
-- Sigmund Freud
-----------------------------
The most important thing I have learned over the years is the
difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self
seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
-- Margaret Fontey
-----------------------------
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron
is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
-- Charles Caleb Colton
-----------------------------
To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be
more fun?
-- Katherine Graham
-----------------------------
Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team
work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
-- Vince Lombardi, American Football Coach
-----------------------------
Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do. But I think you have
to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that
makes you a winner right there.
-- Venus Williams US tennis champion
-----------------------------
No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do
your own work.
-- Mother Teresa
-----------------------------
Don't wait for your "ship to come in" and feel angry and cheated when
it doesn't. Get going with something small.
-- Irene Kassorla
-----------------------------
Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the
impossible.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to
half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness
for fear of what might happen.
-- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) Greek Historian
-----------------------------
The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are;
first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common
sense.
-- Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American Inventor
courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble
image of yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
It is a good thing to be rich, it is a good thing to be strong, but
it is a better thing to be beloved of many friends.
-- Euripides (480-406 BC) Greek Playwright
-----------------------------
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
-- Beverly Sills (1929-) American Opera Singer
-----------------------------
The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you
have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which
comes with a sort of mastery.
-- Janet Erskine Stuart
-----------------------------
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done
without hope and confidence.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
-- Bishop W.C. Magee (1821-1891)
-----------------------------
The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your
convictions.
-- William F. Scolavino
-----------------------------
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the
success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult
task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy
in overcoming obstacles.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
-----------------------------
Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is
firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his
principles unto death.
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British-American Writer
-----------------------------
Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches"
ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
-- Herbert Kaufman
-----------------------------
The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart.
-- Mencius (371-291 B.C.)
-----------------------------
There are many ways to measure success; not the least of which is the
way your child describes you when talking to a friend.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never
were; and I say "Why not?"
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish Playwright
-----------------------------
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the
requisites for success.
-- Alonzo Newton Benn
-----------------------------
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person
doing it.
-- Chinese proverb
-----------------------------
Man has never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.
-- Bernard Williams (1929-) English Philosopher
-----------------------------
Pain is temporary, pride is forever.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength
from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British-American Writer
-----------------------------
If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on
walking.
-- Buddhist Proverb
-----------------------------
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why
you did it wrong.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
-----------------------------
Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in
the end because they've stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and
commitments.
-- Kevin Costner, Actor
-----------------------------
The best leaders collect information widely, listen to everybody, and
then decide by themselves.
-- Edwin Bearss, Civil War Historian
-----------------------------
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She
said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and
worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being
praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying.
Always aim for achievement and forget about success.
-- Helen Hayes
-----------------------------
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity;
but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their
dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
-- Lawrence of Arabia
-----------------------------
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel 1907-1972
-----------------------------
The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty
than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in
disguise.
-- George Santayana,
-----------------------------
If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he
acts when he loses money.
-- New England Proverb
-----------------------------
I'm not happy, I'm cheerful. There's a difference. A happy woman has
no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to
deal with them.
-- Beverly Sills
-----------------------------
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it
will be too late.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
-----------------------------
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.
-- Robert Brault
-----------------------------
As long as a person doesn't admit he is defeated, he is not defeated
-- he's just a little behind and isn't through fighting.
-- Darrell Royal, Texas football coach
-----------------------------
Those who turn good (organizations) into great (organizations) are
motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer
unadulterated excellence for its own sake.
-- Jim Collins, "Good to Great"
-----------------------------
We are fallible. We certainly haven't attained perfection. But we
can strive for it, and the virtue is in the striving.
-- Carlos P. Romulo
-----------------------------
The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others
to be vicious.
-- Cicero
-----------------------------
The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-- William Wordsworth
-----------------------------
Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he
more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the
Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears
dishonor more than death.
-- Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet
-----------------------------
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected
of him.
-- John Steinbeck
-----------------------------
The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is
going.
-- David Starr Jordan
-----------------------------
The measure of a man is what happens when nothing works and you got
the guts to go on.
-- Tex Cobb, boxer and actor.
-----------------------------
I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what
has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the
best you can you can't do any better.
-- Harry S. Truman
-----------------------------
Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person,
at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for
the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task,
but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right
person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right
manner, and at the right time.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger
you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
-----------------------------
One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of
possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world --
making the most of one's best.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
-----------------------------
Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad
experience.
-- Robert Packwood
-----------------------------
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional
glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful
scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point.
-- Harold B. Melchart
-----------------------------
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one
heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but
because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice
what we are for what we could become.
-- Charles Du Bos
-----------------------------
Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first
be overcome.
-- Samuel Johnson
-----------------------------
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can
see.
-- Mark Twain
-----------------------------
A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite
like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a
lifetime faces us.
-- Maltbie Babcock
-----------------------------
Pa, he always said a man had to look spry for himself, because nobody
else would do it for him; your opportunities didn't come knocking
around, you had to hunt them up and hog-tie them.
-- Louis L'Amour, author
-----------------------------
One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the
most beautiful.
-- Sigmund Freud
-----------------------------
The most important thing I have learned over the years is the
difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self
seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
-- Margaret Fontey
-----------------------------
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron
is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
-- Charles Caleb Colton
-----------------------------
To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be
more fun?
-- Katherine Graham
-----------------------------
Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team
work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
-- Vince Lombardi, American Football Coach
-----------------------------
Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do. But I think you have
to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that
makes you a winner right there.
-- Venus Williams US tennis champion
-----------------------------
No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do
your own work.
-- Mother Teresa
-----------------------------
Don't wait for your "ship to come in" and feel angry and cheated when
it doesn't. Get going with something small.
-- Irene Kassorla
-----------------------------
Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the
impossible.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to
half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness
for fear of what might happen.
-- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) Greek Historian
-----------------------------
The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are;
first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common
sense.
-- Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American Inventor
Friday, November 07, 2003
purpose of life
I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be
honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to
count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you
lived at all.
-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer
-------------------------------------
learning
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
-- Confucius (Chinese Philosopher) 551-479 B.C.
----------------------------------------------------------
learning
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more
to patient attention than to any other talent.
-- Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English Scientist
-----------------------------
contentment
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but
rejoices in what he has.
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
-----------------------------
appreciate
People call me an optimist, but I'm really an appreciator....When I
was six years old and had scarlet fever, the first of the miracle
drugs, sulfanilamide, saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and
photocopiers...I appreciate where we've come from.
-- Julian Simon (1933-1998) American Academic
-----------------------------
fear
Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step
would carry us clear through them.
-- Brendan Francis [Behan] (1923-1964) Irish Author
-----------------------------
use of your opportunities
To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred
obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities.
-- Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) American Author
-----------------------------
childlike
A childlike man is not a man whose development has been arrested;
on
the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of
continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves
in the cocoon of middle aged habit and convention.
-- Aldous Huxley
-----------------------------
influence
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
-----------------------------------
courage
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without
losing heart.
-- R.G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)
-----------------------------
Nothing is more endangered in the modern world than the powerful
combination of hard work toward meaningful goals joined with an
exuberant embrace of the present moment.
-- Tom Morris
-----------------------------
True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
-- Louis Nizer (1902-1994) American Lawyer
-----------------------------
character
Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in
the small ones.
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop
-----------------------------
enthusiasm
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be
aroused
by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm;
and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into
action.
-- Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)
-----------------------------
wealth
The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you
lost all your money.
-- Bernard Meltzer (1914-) American Law Professor
-----------------------------
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an
experiment.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-----------------------------
All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about
themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to
try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your
own terms.
-- Harrison Ford (1942-) American Actor
-----------------------------
Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide
forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
-- Elizabeth Stone
-----------------------------
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the
success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult
task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy
in overcoming obstacles.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be
honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to
count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you
lived at all.
-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer
-------------------------------------
learning
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
-- Confucius (Chinese Philosopher) 551-479 B.C.
----------------------------------------------------------
learning
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more
to patient attention than to any other talent.
-- Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English Scientist
-----------------------------
contentment
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but
rejoices in what he has.
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
-----------------------------
appreciate
People call me an optimist, but I'm really an appreciator....When I
was six years old and had scarlet fever, the first of the miracle
drugs, sulfanilamide, saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and
photocopiers...I appreciate where we've come from.
-- Julian Simon (1933-1998) American Academic
-----------------------------
fear
Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step
would carry us clear through them.
-- Brendan Francis [Behan] (1923-1964) Irish Author
-----------------------------
use of your opportunities
To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred
obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities.
-- Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) American Author
-----------------------------
childlike
A childlike man is not a man whose development has been arrested;
on
the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of
continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves
in the cocoon of middle aged habit and convention.
-- Aldous Huxley
-----------------------------
influence
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
-----------------------------------
courage
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without
losing heart.
-- R.G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)
-----------------------------
Nothing is more endangered in the modern world than the powerful
combination of hard work toward meaningful goals joined with an
exuberant embrace of the present moment.
-- Tom Morris
-----------------------------
True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
-- Louis Nizer (1902-1994) American Lawyer
-----------------------------
character
Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in
the small ones.
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop
-----------------------------
enthusiasm
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be
aroused
by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm;
and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into
action.
-- Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)
-----------------------------
wealth
The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you
lost all your money.
-- Bernard Meltzer (1914-) American Law Professor
-----------------------------
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an
experiment.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-----------------------------
All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about
themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to
try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your
own terms.
-- Harrison Ford (1942-) American Actor
-----------------------------
Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide
forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
-- Elizabeth Stone
-----------------------------
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the
success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult
task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy
in overcoming obstacles.
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. --Dietrich Bonhoeffer [from Oscar Ragus]
***********************
Eckhart: knowing Him everywhere
A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware
of God, or he may be in Church and be aware of God; but if he
is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is
his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in
all things and places, and is willing to give Himself
everywhere so far as lies in Him... He knows God rightly who
knows Him everywhere.
... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?)
******************************
Obedience:
Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from
grace.
... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
*******************************
Practical Atheism:
It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our
fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on the inheritance of
victories of faith: not enough to build the sepulchres of those
who were martyred by men unwilling, in their day of trial as we
may be in our own, to hear new voices of a living God. Our
duty is to see whether God is with us; whether we expect great
things from Him; whether we do not practically place Him far
off, forgetting that, if He is, He is about us, speaking to us
words that have not been heard before, guiding us to paths on
which earlier generations have not been able to enter. There
is -- most terrible thought! -- a practical atheism, orthodox
in language, reverent in bearing, which can enter a Christian
church and charm the conscience to rest with shadowy
traditions; an atheism which grows incessantly within us if we
separate what cannot be separated with impunity, the secular
from the divine, the past and the future from the present,
earth from heaven, the things of Caesar from the things of God.
... Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901)
******************************
ends or means:
Doubt, rather than faith, is high among the causes of the
religious boom. And the church's response to this current
situation will reveal, better than anything else, our faith in
God -- or our faithlessness. If we churchmen interpret such
pervasive doubt as a threat, then we will do as the church has
done so often in the past: we will substitute the church for
God, and make our church-centered activities into an ersatz
kingdom of God. Our faithlessness will be evident in the easy
paraphrase of the hard truth of the gospel, and in the lapse
from the critical loyalty that God requires of us, into the
vague and corrupting sentimentalism that has so marred American
Protestantism. Or the church can interpret the present
religious situation as a promise, as God's recall of His people
to a new reformation. Our faithfulness to God-in-Christ will
be manifest in the willingness to be honest with ourselves and
with the gospel. Then we may view the church, not as an end in
itself, but as the point of departure into the world for which
the Son of God died. Which will it be?
... Carl R. Smith & Robert W. Lynn, "Experiment in Suburbia"
********************************
little things:
If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from
Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made
up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little
sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession.
The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the
body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of
Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous
acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far
up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman;
showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his
heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a
tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of
followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday
afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire
and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast
waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of
fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you
see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of
God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in
what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.
... Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842-1933)
*****************************
Love of the Lord:
The commandment of God is, that we love Our Lord in all our
heart, in all our soul, in all our thought. In all our heart;
that is, in all our understanding without erring. In all our
soul; that is, in all our will without gainsaying. In all our
thought; that is, that we think on Him without forgetting. In
this manner is very love and true, that is work of man's will.
For love is a willful stirring of our thoughts unto God, so
that it receive nothing that is against the love of Jesus
Christ, and therewith that it be lasting in sweetness of
devotion; and that is the perfection of this life.
... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), The Commandments
**********************************
on sharing God's word:
The preacher and the writer may seem to have an... easy
task. At first sight, it may seem that they have only to
proclaim and declare; but in fact, if their words are to enter
men's hearts and bear fruit, they must be the right words,
shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently
and effectually within their minds. This means, in practice,
turning a face of flint toward the easy cliche, the well-worn
religious cant and phraseology -- dear, no doubt, to the
faithful, but utterly meaningless to those outside the fold.
It means learning how people are thinking and how they are
feeling; it means learning with patience, imagination and
ingenuity the way to pierce apathy or blank lack of
understanding. I sometimes wonder what hours of prayer and
thought lie behind the apparently simple and spontaneous
parables of the Gospel.
... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole [1952]
***********************************
devotions:
Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He
therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own
will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will
of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in
everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts
of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under
such rules as are conformable to His glory.
... William Law (1686-1761),
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728]
**********************************
on the Bible's authority:
Christ is the Master; the Scriptures are only the servant.
The true way to test all the Books is to see whether they work
the will of Christ or not. No Book which does not preach
Christ can be apostolic, though Peter or Paul were its author.
And no Book which does preach Christ can fail to be apostolic,
although Judas, Ananias, Pilate, or Herod were its author.
... Martin Luther (1483-1546),
Introduction to the New Testament
*****************************
Right spirit:
There is a great difference between a lofty spirit and a
right spirit. A lofty spirit excites admiration by its
profoundness; but only a right spirit achieves salvation and
happiness by its stability and integrity. Do not conform your
ideas to those of the world. Scorn the "intellectual" as much
as the world esteems it. What men consider intellectual is a
certain facility to produce brilliant thoughts. Nothing is
more vain. We make an idol of our intellect as a woman who
believes herself beautiful worships her face. We take pride in
our own thoughts. We must reject not only human cleverness,
but also human prudence, which seems so important and so
profitable. Then we may enter -- like little children, with
candor and innocence of worldly ways -- into the simplicity of
faith; and with humility and a horror of sin we may enter into
the holy passion of the cross.
... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Meditation
*************************************
worship:
To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of
God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the
heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose
of God.
... William Temple (1881-1944)
**************************************
prayers:
We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because
they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the
earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our
welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For
love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a
surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any
handling of material substance.
... R. A. Torrey (1856-1928)
*************************************
trivial matters:
Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other
people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions -- which
often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly
through our ignorance of their motives.
... St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
***********************************
ultimate disaster:
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come
to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.
... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990
***********************************
simplicity:
The Lord called me by the way of simplicity and humility,
and this way He hath shown me in truth for me and those who
will believe and imitate me. And therefore I would that ye
name not to me any rule, neither of St. Augustine, nor St.
Benedict, nor of Bernard, nor any way or form of living, but
that which was mercifully shown and given me by the Lord.
... St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226),
The Mirror of Perfection [c. 1280]
************************************
love and nails:
Nails were not enough to hold God-and-man nailed and
fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there.
... Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
***************************************
belongingness:
In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order,
nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs,
nor a code of action -- you are attached primarily to a Person,
and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to
get to heaven, to do good, or to be good -- you are called to
belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and
the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging.
The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a
Person.
... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion [1959]
******************************************
prayer:
Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your
daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were
in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.
... François Fénelon (1651-1715)
*****************************************
love:
Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love
says: I need you because I love you.
Erich Fromm
(1900-1980, American Psychologist)
***************************************
winning friend:
If you want to win a man to your cause, first convince him that
you are his sincere friend.
Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA)
*****************************************
forgiviness:
If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive.
Bhagavad-Gita
(c. BC 400-, Sanskrit Poem Incorporated Into the Mahabharata)
*****************************************
finishing:
If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and
quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you
all the time.
Chogyam Trungpa
**************************************
patience:
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid one
hundred days of sorrow.
Chinese Proverb
*****************************************
If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own
natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to
love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more
tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our
neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the
injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.
Carl Jung
(1875-1961, Swiss Psychiatrist)
***********************
Eckhart: knowing Him everywhere
A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware
of God, or he may be in Church and be aware of God; but if he
is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is
his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in
all things and places, and is willing to give Himself
everywhere so far as lies in Him... He knows God rightly who
knows Him everywhere.
... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?)
******************************
Obedience:
Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from
grace.
... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
*******************************
Practical Atheism:
It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our
fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on the inheritance of
victories of faith: not enough to build the sepulchres of those
who were martyred by men unwilling, in their day of trial as we
may be in our own, to hear new voices of a living God. Our
duty is to see whether God is with us; whether we expect great
things from Him; whether we do not practically place Him far
off, forgetting that, if He is, He is about us, speaking to us
words that have not been heard before, guiding us to paths on
which earlier generations have not been able to enter. There
is -- most terrible thought! -- a practical atheism, orthodox
in language, reverent in bearing, which can enter a Christian
church and charm the conscience to rest with shadowy
traditions; an atheism which grows incessantly within us if we
separate what cannot be separated with impunity, the secular
from the divine, the past and the future from the present,
earth from heaven, the things of Caesar from the things of God.
... Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901)
******************************
ends or means:
Doubt, rather than faith, is high among the causes of the
religious boom. And the church's response to this current
situation will reveal, better than anything else, our faith in
God -- or our faithlessness. If we churchmen interpret such
pervasive doubt as a threat, then we will do as the church has
done so often in the past: we will substitute the church for
God, and make our church-centered activities into an ersatz
kingdom of God. Our faithlessness will be evident in the easy
paraphrase of the hard truth of the gospel, and in the lapse
from the critical loyalty that God requires of us, into the
vague and corrupting sentimentalism that has so marred American
Protestantism. Or the church can interpret the present
religious situation as a promise, as God's recall of His people
to a new reformation. Our faithfulness to God-in-Christ will
be manifest in the willingness to be honest with ourselves and
with the gospel. Then we may view the church, not as an end in
itself, but as the point of departure into the world for which
the Son of God died. Which will it be?
... Carl R. Smith & Robert W. Lynn, "Experiment in Suburbia"
********************************
little things:
If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from
Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made
up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little
sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession.
The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the
body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of
Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous
acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far
up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman;
showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his
heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a
tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of
followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday
afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire
and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast
waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of
fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you
see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of
God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in
what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.
... Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842-1933)
*****************************
Love of the Lord:
The commandment of God is, that we love Our Lord in all our
heart, in all our soul, in all our thought. In all our heart;
that is, in all our understanding without erring. In all our
soul; that is, in all our will without gainsaying. In all our
thought; that is, that we think on Him without forgetting. In
this manner is very love and true, that is work of man's will.
For love is a willful stirring of our thoughts unto God, so
that it receive nothing that is against the love of Jesus
Christ, and therewith that it be lasting in sweetness of
devotion; and that is the perfection of this life.
... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), The Commandments
**********************************
on sharing God's word:
The preacher and the writer may seem to have an... easy
task. At first sight, it may seem that they have only to
proclaim and declare; but in fact, if their words are to enter
men's hearts and bear fruit, they must be the right words,
shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently
and effectually within their minds. This means, in practice,
turning a face of flint toward the easy cliche, the well-worn
religious cant and phraseology -- dear, no doubt, to the
faithful, but utterly meaningless to those outside the fold.
It means learning how people are thinking and how they are
feeling; it means learning with patience, imagination and
ingenuity the way to pierce apathy or blank lack of
understanding. I sometimes wonder what hours of prayer and
thought lie behind the apparently simple and spontaneous
parables of the Gospel.
... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole [1952]
***********************************
devotions:
Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He
therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own
will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will
of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in
everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts
of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under
such rules as are conformable to His glory.
... William Law (1686-1761),
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728]
**********************************
on the Bible's authority:
Christ is the Master; the Scriptures are only the servant.
The true way to test all the Books is to see whether they work
the will of Christ or not. No Book which does not preach
Christ can be apostolic, though Peter or Paul were its author.
And no Book which does preach Christ can fail to be apostolic,
although Judas, Ananias, Pilate, or Herod were its author.
... Martin Luther (1483-1546),
Introduction to the New Testament
*****************************
Right spirit:
There is a great difference between a lofty spirit and a
right spirit. A lofty spirit excites admiration by its
profoundness; but only a right spirit achieves salvation and
happiness by its stability and integrity. Do not conform your
ideas to those of the world. Scorn the "intellectual" as much
as the world esteems it. What men consider intellectual is a
certain facility to produce brilliant thoughts. Nothing is
more vain. We make an idol of our intellect as a woman who
believes herself beautiful worships her face. We take pride in
our own thoughts. We must reject not only human cleverness,
but also human prudence, which seems so important and so
profitable. Then we may enter -- like little children, with
candor and innocence of worldly ways -- into the simplicity of
faith; and with humility and a horror of sin we may enter into
the holy passion of the cross.
... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Meditation
*************************************
worship:
To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of
God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the
heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose
of God.
... William Temple (1881-1944)
**************************************
prayers:
We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because
they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the
earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our
welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For
love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a
surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any
handling of material substance.
... R. A. Torrey (1856-1928)
*************************************
trivial matters:
Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other
people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions -- which
often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly
through our ignorance of their motives.
... St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
***********************************
ultimate disaster:
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come
to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.
... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990
***********************************
simplicity:
The Lord called me by the way of simplicity and humility,
and this way He hath shown me in truth for me and those who
will believe and imitate me. And therefore I would that ye
name not to me any rule, neither of St. Augustine, nor St.
Benedict, nor of Bernard, nor any way or form of living, but
that which was mercifully shown and given me by the Lord.
... St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226),
The Mirror of Perfection [c. 1280]
************************************
love and nails:
Nails were not enough to hold God-and-man nailed and
fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there.
... Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
***************************************
belongingness:
In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order,
nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs,
nor a code of action -- you are attached primarily to a Person,
and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to
get to heaven, to do good, or to be good -- you are called to
belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and
the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging.
The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a
Person.
... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion [1959]
******************************************
prayer:
Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your
daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were
in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.
... François Fénelon (1651-1715)
*****************************************
love:
Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love
says: I need you because I love you.
Erich Fromm
(1900-1980, American Psychologist)
***************************************
winning friend:
If you want to win a man to your cause, first convince him that
you are his sincere friend.
Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA)
*****************************************
forgiviness:
If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive.
Bhagavad-Gita
(c. BC 400-, Sanskrit Poem Incorporated Into the Mahabharata)
*****************************************
finishing:
If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and
quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you
all the time.
Chogyam Trungpa
**************************************
patience:
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid one
hundred days of sorrow.
Chinese Proverb
*****************************************
If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own
natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to
love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more
tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our
neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the
injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.
Carl Jung
(1875-1961, Swiss Psychiatrist)
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
-----------------------------
sticking to your guns!
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at
once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.
-- William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English Essayist
-----------------------------
maturity
The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control emotions
by the application of reason.
-- Marya Mannes (1904-1990) American Journalist
-----------------------------
Work
Man is happy only as he finds work worth doing -- and does it well.
-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973) American Writer
-----------------------------
Money
There is nothing so comfortable as money, - but nothing so defiling
if it be come by unworthily; nothing so comfortable, but nothing so
noxious if the mind be allowed to dwell upon it constantly. If a man
have enough, let him spend it freely. If he wants it,let him earn it
honestly.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
Greatness
A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
trials
What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing
for this, I was training for this.
-----------------------------
Tact
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
-- Howard W. Newton
-----------------------------
get your ideas across
To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short
sentences.
-- John Henry Patterson
-----------------------------
growth
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your
envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
-- Glenn Clark
-----------------------------
Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American Publisher
-----------------------------
Patience is passion tamed.
-- Lyman Abbott
-----------------------------
The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone
in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will
become.
-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author
-----------------------------
Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but
they die young.
-- A.W. Pinero
-----------------------------
Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's
superiority to all that befalls him.
-- Romain Gary (1914-1980) French Writer
-----------------------------
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight
and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
-- Tillotson
-----------------------------
Men can be stimulated to show off their good qualities to the leader
who seems to think they have good qualities.
-- John Richelsen
-----------------------------
Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks,
breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
-- Mary Lou Cook
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
sticking to your guns!
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at
once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.
-- William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English Essayist
-----------------------------
maturity
The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control emotions
by the application of reason.
-- Marya Mannes (1904-1990) American Journalist
-----------------------------
Work
Man is happy only as he finds work worth doing -- and does it well.
-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973) American Writer
-----------------------------
Money
There is nothing so comfortable as money, - but nothing so defiling
if it be come by unworthily; nothing so comfortable, but nothing so
noxious if the mind be allowed to dwell upon it constantly. If a man
have enough, let him spend it freely. If he wants it,let him earn it
honestly.
-- Anonymous
-----------------------------
Greatness
A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live.
-- Unknown
-----------------------------
trials
What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing
for this, I was training for this.
-----------------------------
Tact
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
-- Howard W. Newton
-----------------------------
get your ideas across
To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short
sentences.
-- John Henry Patterson
-----------------------------
growth
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your
envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
-- Glenn Clark
-----------------------------
Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American Publisher
-----------------------------
Patience is passion tamed.
-- Lyman Abbott
-----------------------------
The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone
in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will
become.
-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925) American Author
-----------------------------
Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but
they die young.
-- A.W. Pinero
-----------------------------
Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's
superiority to all that befalls him.
-- Romain Gary (1914-1980) French Writer
-----------------------------
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight
and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
-- Tillotson
-----------------------------
Men can be stimulated to show off their good qualities to the leader
who seems to think they have good qualities.
-- John Richelsen
-----------------------------
Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks,
breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
-- Mary Lou Cook
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Roman Philosopher
Monday, April 14, 2003
selective belief
If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what
you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
... St. Augustine (354-430)
nearness of God
The nearness of God may inspire awareness of his activity,
mystery and order in the most ordinary and "non-sacred" places.
Therefore, Christians working in any kind of college must pray
for and cultivate delicate sensitivity to God's unexpected
disclosures in the ordinary and even in the profane areas of
life. The temptation of those who exalt the unrestricted
activity of God in any and all places is that they may become
overly diffuse in their outlook, seeing him where he does not
deign to disclose himself or scorning the customary or
conventional places of public worship. These, strangely
enough, are the places where the very distance of God leads us.
(Continued tomorrow)
... Wallace Gray, "Philosophy and Worship"
ON WORSHIP
Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all
tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?
They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but
to another standard to which each one must individually bow.
So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking
away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they
could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and
turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.
The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The
whole church of God gains when the members that compose it
begin to seek a better and a higher life.
... A. W. Tozer (1895-1963
BROKEN HEART
By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our
great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have
deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter
unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of
self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall
find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the
presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in
the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory...
You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling;
but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good
the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will
mount on wings of faith to heaven. The sigh, the groan of a
broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven,
aye, into the very bosom of God.
... Charles Simeon (1759-1836)
ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE
If all things are possible with God, then all things are
possible to him who believes in him.
... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)
WITH HONOR
I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.
Sophocles
(BC 495-406, Greek Tragic Poet)
KNOWLEDGE
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away
from him, for an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Joseph E. O'Donnell
FEAR OF TIME
"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something
stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might
just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."
-- Earl Nightingale
HAPPINESS
Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.
A. Nielsen
(1897-1980, American Businessman, Market Researcher))
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what
they already have.
Source Unknown
If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want
happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month --
get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If
you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else.
Chinese Proverb
COURTESY
All doors open to courtesy.
Thomas Fuller
(1608-1661, British Clergyman, Author)
FEAR
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
Ben Johnson
(1600-?British Clergyman, Poet)
JUDGING
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others
judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1819-1892, American Poet)
PRAYING FOR LABORERS
It is true that [people] are praying for world-wide
revival. But it would be more timely, and more scriptural, for
prayer to be made to the Lord of the harvest, that He would
raise up and thrust forth laborers who would fearlessly and
faithfully preach those truths which are calculated to bring
about a revival.
... A. W. Pink (1886-1952)
PRAYER
We have taught our people to use prayer too much as a means
of comfort -- not in the original and heroic sense of
uplifting, inspiring, strengthening, but in the more modern and
baser sense of soothing sorrow, dulling pain, and drying tears
-- the comfort of the cushion, not the comfort of the Cross.
... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929)
We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray.
That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long
as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend
a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God
-- ah, then things must be critical indeed!
... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954
Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is
to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and
not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can
believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.
... J. C. Ryle, "A Call to Prayer"
[Thanks to Robert J. Douglas at RJDOUGLAS@stthomas.edu]
You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you
don't ask for... unless it's contagious!
Franklyn Broude
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Patty Hansen
(American Author)
PRIDE
The trouble with self-made men is that they tend to worship their
creator.
Source Unknown
CHANGE
Just because everything's different doesn't mean anything's
changed.
Irene Porter
LIFE
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived
forward.
Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855, Danish Philosopher, Writer)
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, German-born American Physicist)
WORRY
Set aside half an hour every day to do all your worrying; then
take a nap during this period.
Source Unknown
REPENTANCE
It is better to run back than run the wrong way.
Proverb
ACHIEVEMENT
You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things - to
compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to
reach challenging goals.
Sir Edmund Hillary
(1919-, New Zealand Mountaineer, Explorer)
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than
the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
(1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA)
Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records.
William A. Ward
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Patty Hansen
(American Author)
We cannot become what we need to be, remaining what we are.
Max Depree
(1924-, American Furniture Manufacturing Company Executive)
INFLUENCE
"Read something positive every night and listen to something helpful
every morning."
-- Tom Hopkins
TEACHING
"To teach is to learn twice."
-- Joseph Joubert
GREATEST TRAP
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unloveable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again, that I am a nobody." ....[My dark side says,] "I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and abandoned." Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Henri Nouwen (1932 - 1996) was a Jesuit priest and writer, born in the Netherlands.
LEGACY
The key to the fire within is our spiritual need to leave a legacy. It transforms other needs into capacities for contributions. Food, money, health, education, and love become resources to reach out and help fill the unmet needs of others.
Stephen R. Covey is chairman and founder of Covey Leadership Center, a worldwide, 700 member leadership development firm.
BEING QUIET
"Why are you all so quiet all the time?" I say, still
whispering at him in this hoarse voice.
"We are teachers and workers," he says, "not talkers."
"Workers, O.K.," I say, "but how can a teacher be quiet all
the time and teach anybody anything?"
"Christ was the best," he says, thinking of something. "He
lived thirty-three years. Thirty years he kept quiet; three
years he talked. Ten to one for keeping quiet."
... Franc Smith, Harry Vernon at Prep [1959]
CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNITY
There are many things which a person can do alone, but
being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life
is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of
union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren
is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human
being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The
personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one
has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian
fellowship.
... William T. Ham
GOD TAKING CARE
Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God
without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.
... John Calvin (1509-1564)
OBEDIENCE
Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, If you are not
willing to move your feet.
Source Unknown
TRUST
After Calvary, God has the right to be trusted; to be
believed that He means what He says; and that His love is
dependable.
... A. J. Gossip, In the Secret Place of the Most High [1947]
ON TALKING
Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.
Claudius
(10 BC-AD 54, Roman Emperor)
REACTING
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that
matters.
Epictetus
(50-120, Stoic Philosopher)
If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what
you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
... St. Augustine (354-430)
nearness of God
The nearness of God may inspire awareness of his activity,
mystery and order in the most ordinary and "non-sacred" places.
Therefore, Christians working in any kind of college must pray
for and cultivate delicate sensitivity to God's unexpected
disclosures in the ordinary and even in the profane areas of
life. The temptation of those who exalt the unrestricted
activity of God in any and all places is that they may become
overly diffuse in their outlook, seeing him where he does not
deign to disclose himself or scorning the customary or
conventional places of public worship. These, strangely
enough, are the places where the very distance of God leads us.
(Continued tomorrow)
... Wallace Gray, "Philosophy and Worship"
ON WORSHIP
Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all
tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?
They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but
to another standard to which each one must individually bow.
So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking
away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they
could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and
turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.
The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The
whole church of God gains when the members that compose it
begin to seek a better and a higher life.
... A. W. Tozer (1895-1963
BROKEN HEART
By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our
great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have
deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter
unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of
self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall
find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the
presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in
the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory...
You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling;
but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good
the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will
mount on wings of faith to heaven. The sigh, the groan of a
broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven,
aye, into the very bosom of God.
... Charles Simeon (1759-1836)
ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE
If all things are possible with God, then all things are
possible to him who believes in him.
... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)
WITH HONOR
I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.
Sophocles
(BC 495-406, Greek Tragic Poet)
KNOWLEDGE
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away
from him, for an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Joseph E. O'Donnell
FEAR OF TIME
"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something
stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might
just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."
-- Earl Nightingale
HAPPINESS
Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.
A. Nielsen
(1897-1980, American Businessman, Market Researcher))
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what
they already have.
Source Unknown
If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want
happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month --
get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If
you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else.
Chinese Proverb
COURTESY
All doors open to courtesy.
Thomas Fuller
(1608-1661, British Clergyman, Author)
FEAR
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
Ben Johnson
(1600-?British Clergyman, Poet)
JUDGING
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others
judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1819-1892, American Poet)
PRAYING FOR LABORERS
It is true that [people] are praying for world-wide
revival. But it would be more timely, and more scriptural, for
prayer to be made to the Lord of the harvest, that He would
raise up and thrust forth laborers who would fearlessly and
faithfully preach those truths which are calculated to bring
about a revival.
... A. W. Pink (1886-1952)
PRAYER
We have taught our people to use prayer too much as a means
of comfort -- not in the original and heroic sense of
uplifting, inspiring, strengthening, but in the more modern and
baser sense of soothing sorrow, dulling pain, and drying tears
-- the comfort of the cushion, not the comfort of the Cross.
... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929)
We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray.
That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long
as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend
a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God
-- ah, then things must be critical indeed!
... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954
Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is
to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and
not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can
believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.
... J. C. Ryle, "A Call to Prayer"
[Thanks to Robert J. Douglas at RJDOUGLAS@stthomas.edu]
You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you
don't ask for... unless it's contagious!
Franklyn Broude
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Patty Hansen
(American Author)
PRIDE
The trouble with self-made men is that they tend to worship their
creator.
Source Unknown
CHANGE
Just because everything's different doesn't mean anything's
changed.
Irene Porter
LIFE
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived
forward.
Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855, Danish Philosopher, Writer)
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, German-born American Physicist)
WORRY
Set aside half an hour every day to do all your worrying; then
take a nap during this period.
Source Unknown
REPENTANCE
It is better to run back than run the wrong way.
Proverb
ACHIEVEMENT
You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things - to
compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to
reach challenging goals.
Sir Edmund Hillary
(1919-, New Zealand Mountaineer, Explorer)
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than
the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
(1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA)
Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records.
William A. Ward
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Patty Hansen
(American Author)
We cannot become what we need to be, remaining what we are.
Max Depree
(1924-, American Furniture Manufacturing Company Executive)
INFLUENCE
"Read something positive every night and listen to something helpful
every morning."
-- Tom Hopkins
TEACHING
"To teach is to learn twice."
-- Joseph Joubert
GREATEST TRAP
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unloveable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again, that I am a nobody." ....[My dark side says,] "I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and abandoned." Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Henri Nouwen (1932 - 1996) was a Jesuit priest and writer, born in the Netherlands.
LEGACY
The key to the fire within is our spiritual need to leave a legacy. It transforms other needs into capacities for contributions. Food, money, health, education, and love become resources to reach out and help fill the unmet needs of others.
Stephen R. Covey is chairman and founder of Covey Leadership Center, a worldwide, 700 member leadership development firm.
BEING QUIET
"Why are you all so quiet all the time?" I say, still
whispering at him in this hoarse voice.
"We are teachers and workers," he says, "not talkers."
"Workers, O.K.," I say, "but how can a teacher be quiet all
the time and teach anybody anything?"
"Christ was the best," he says, thinking of something. "He
lived thirty-three years. Thirty years he kept quiet; three
years he talked. Ten to one for keeping quiet."
... Franc Smith, Harry Vernon at Prep [1959]
CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNITY
There are many things which a person can do alone, but
being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life
is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of
union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren
is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human
being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The
personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one
has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian
fellowship.
... William T. Ham
GOD TAKING CARE
Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God
without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.
... John Calvin (1509-1564)
OBEDIENCE
Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, If you are not
willing to move your feet.
Source Unknown
TRUST
After Calvary, God has the right to be trusted; to be
believed that He means what He says; and that His love is
dependable.
... A. J. Gossip, In the Secret Place of the Most High [1947]
ON TALKING
Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.
Claudius
(10 BC-AD 54, Roman Emperor)
REACTING
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that
matters.
Epictetus
(50-120, Stoic Philosopher)
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
"I can't do it" never yet accomplished anything: "I will try" has
accomplished wonders.
-- George P. Burnham
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them
master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
-- Helen Keller
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
progress.
-- Joseph Joubert
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act
rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have
those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
-- Aristotle
We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own
faults than by trying to correct theirs.
-- Francois Fenelon
"Faith is the conviction that God knows more than we do about
this life and He will get us through it." Max Lucado
"Goals determine what you are going to be."
-- Julius Erving
"Character is not one of the most important things in life...
it's the only thing." -- Unknown
"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of
progress." -- Thomas A. Edison
"Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine
your habits. Your habits determine your character. And your
character gives birth to your destiny." -- Unknown
"All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of
adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a
continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With
every additional step you enhance immensely the value of
your first." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Each failure is a stepping stone to Success, which in turn
will become a very long and lovely stone walkway into the
castle of your Dreams!" -- John DiLemme
"The Wisdom of Steven Wright"
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
If I worked as much as others, I would do as little as they.
When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't
for you.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you
need it.
No one is listening until you make a mistake.
Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of
the bread.
The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
A fool and his money are soon partying.
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques
Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back.
Half the people you know are below average.
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
-----------------------------
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
-- Mark Twain 1835-1910
-----------------------------
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous
circumstances, would have lain dormant.
-- Horace 65-8 B.C.
-----------------------------
An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a
sheep.
-- Arab proverb
-----------------------------
Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
-- Aeschylus 525-456 BC
-----------------------------
Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what
makes it permanent.
-- Marilyn vos Savant 1946-NA
-----------------------------
We tend to make courage too dramatic. Courage is often doing
something simple, unpleasant, or boring again and again until we get
it down pat. People who are physically challenged and who have the
determination to get around their handicaps are great examples
because their courage makes them test their limits every day.
-- Dave Thomas, founder of Wendys
-----------------------------
Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person,
at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for
the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task,
but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right
person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right
manner, and at the right time.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can
anger
you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
-----------------------------
The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady
resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who
succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense
importance
of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time.
-- W.J. Davison
-----------------------------
Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far
higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.
-- F. Hawes
-----------------------------
Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead
of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre
of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation
represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and
weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than
it was before.
-- James Buckham
-----------------------------
Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great
temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the
real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being
decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you
shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made
except by a steady, long continued process.
-- Phillips Brooks
-----------------------------
Children need models rather than critics.
-- Joseph Joubert
-----------------------------
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of
courage and true progress.
-- Nicholas Murray Butler
-----------------------------
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I
don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
-----------------------------
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere.
They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
-- Anotole France
-----------------------------
Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he
wishes to be valued.
-- Jean De La Bruyere
-----------------------------
If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire
better than another, it is a brave man, -- it is the man who dares to
look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.
-- James A. Garfield
-----------------------------
The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They
believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ablility to
correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.
-- Wang Yang-Ming
-----------------------------
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected
without trials.
-- Chinese proverb
accomplished wonders.
-- George P. Burnham
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them
master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
-- Helen Keller
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
progress.
-- Joseph Joubert
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act
rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have
those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
-- Aristotle
We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own
faults than by trying to correct theirs.
-- Francois Fenelon
"Faith is the conviction that God knows more than we do about
this life and He will get us through it." Max Lucado
"Goals determine what you are going to be."
-- Julius Erving
"Character is not one of the most important things in life...
it's the only thing." -- Unknown
"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of
progress." -- Thomas A. Edison
"Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine
your habits. Your habits determine your character. And your
character gives birth to your destiny." -- Unknown
"All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of
adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a
continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With
every additional step you enhance immensely the value of
your first." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Each failure is a stepping stone to Success, which in turn
will become a very long and lovely stone walkway into the
castle of your Dreams!" -- John DiLemme
"The Wisdom of Steven Wright"
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
If I worked as much as others, I would do as little as they.
When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't
for you.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you
need it.
No one is listening until you make a mistake.
Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of
the bread.
The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
A fool and his money are soon partying.
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques
Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back.
Half the people you know are below average.
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
-----------------------------
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
-- Mark Twain 1835-1910
-----------------------------
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous
circumstances, would have lain dormant.
-- Horace 65-8 B.C.
-----------------------------
An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a
sheep.
-- Arab proverb
-----------------------------
Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
-- Aeschylus 525-456 BC
-----------------------------
Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what
makes it permanent.
-- Marilyn vos Savant 1946-NA
-----------------------------
We tend to make courage too dramatic. Courage is often doing
something simple, unpleasant, or boring again and again until we get
it down pat. People who are physically challenged and who have the
determination to get around their handicaps are great examples
because their courage makes them test their limits every day.
-- Dave Thomas, founder of Wendys
-----------------------------
Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person,
at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for
the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task,
but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right
person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right
manner, and at the right time.
-- Aristotle
-----------------------------
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can
anger
you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
-----------------------------
The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady
resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who
succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense
importance
of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time.
-- W.J. Davison
-----------------------------
Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far
higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.
-- F. Hawes
-----------------------------
Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead
of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre
of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation
represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and
weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than
it was before.
-- James Buckham
-----------------------------
Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great
temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the
real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being
decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you
shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made
except by a steady, long continued process.
-- Phillips Brooks
-----------------------------
Children need models rather than critics.
-- Joseph Joubert
-----------------------------
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of
courage and true progress.
-- Nicholas Murray Butler
-----------------------------
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I
don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
-----------------------------
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere.
They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
-- Anotole France
-----------------------------
Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he
wishes to be valued.
-- Jean De La Bruyere
-----------------------------
If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire
better than another, it is a brave man, -- it is the man who dares to
look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.
-- James A. Garfield
-----------------------------
The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They
believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ablility to
correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.
-- Wang Yang-Ming
-----------------------------
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected
without trials.
-- Chinese proverb
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