My Favorite Quotes
You never know how much you really believe anything until its trust or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. – C.S. Lewis
“And there was no room for him in the inn. He got a bit older and there was no room for him in his family. His family turned on Him. He went to the temple and there was no room in the temple. The temple turned on Him. And when He died, there was no room to bury Him, He died outside of the city. So, why in God’s name do you expect to be accepted everywhere? How is it that the world couldn’t get along with the holiest man who ever lived but it can get along with you? Are we compromised? Have we no spiritual stature? Have we no righteousness that reflects on their corruption?” – Leonard Ravenhill
“Religion is hanging around the cross. Christianity is hanging on the cross.” – Stephen Hill
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:6-7
“It’s a good thing God chose me before I was born; because he surely would not have afterwards.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship him then a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. -C.S Lewis
“Many who say “Our Father” on Sunday spend the rest of the week acting like orphans.” – unknown
“We talk of the second coming; half the world has never heard of the first.” – Oswald J Smith
“What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?” – Malla Moe
“The truth is seen as hate by those who hate the truth.” – unknown
“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.” – Josh Billings
“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him”. – unknown
“Today most Christians spend more money on dog food than on missions.” – unknown
“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” – Richard P. Feynman
“The mark of a great church is not it’s seating capacity, but its sending capacity.” – unknown
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.” – Ellen Goodman
“A wise man seldom changes his mind, a fool never.” – unknown
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.” – GK Chesterton
“Smart people learn from their mistakes. Wise people learn from other people’s mistakes.” – unknown
“Sometimes being wise means being ignorant in certain things.” – unknown
“Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality?” George Moore
“If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.” – C.S. Lewis
“It takes three seconds to say I LOVE YOU, Three hours to explain it, And a whole lifetime to prove it!” – unknown
Romans 12 for the postmodern. “Be ye conformed to the image of this world and be ye transformed by the removal of your mind.” – unknown
Our Deepest Fear, by Nelson Mandela.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And 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.”
“A man without enemies, is a man without character.” – unknown
“Do it by the BOOK but be the AUTHOR.” – unknown
“No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.” Elenor Roosevelt
“A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.” – Spanish Proverb
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” -Theodore Roosevelt
“Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.” – Benjamin Franklin
“There is no price too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself” – R. Kipling
“You’re never really a loser until you quit trying.” – Mike Ditka
“A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow” – George S. Patton
“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.” – Chinese Proverb
“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin
“Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is quite small.” – Ruth Gendler
“Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.” – Rainier Maria Rilke
“Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.” – Dale Carnegie
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison
“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.” – Norm Franz
“When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can’t eat money.” – Chief Seattle
“A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion.” – Unknown
“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love least” – Dorothy Day
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
“The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.” – Duguet
“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…” ― C.S. Lewis
“Speak your mind, even if your voice trembles.” – Unknown
“Be an individual, be different, and don’t accept anything without questioning it.” – Unknown
“Our greatest fear should not be failure but succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” – Francis Chan.
“Stress in life comes from making things more important than they really are. Failure comes from making things less important than they are.” – Unknown
“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy.” – Dorothy Thompson
“If you are not at least a little afraid, you are probably not doing anything that will ever be called great.” – Paul Lemberg
“From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health.” – Catalan Proverb
“If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.” – John Locke
“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” – Dwight D Eisenhower
“Never compare yourself to anyone. You’re only comparing your worst to their best.” – Unknown
“Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet.” – Unknown
“Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
“Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.” – Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM
“Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.” – Maimonides
“What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?” – Unknown
“10% of conflict is due to difference in opinion and 90% is due to the wrong tone of voice.” – Unknown
“When you respond to critics too often, they begin to set your agenda.”- Mark Dever
“Worry is down payment on a problem you might never have.” – Unknown
“God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Americans spend half as much money on food and twice as much money on health care as the rest of the world. When I buy naturally raised meats I don’t think, “This costs so much!”, rather I know, “This is money that won’t be going toward chemo.” You will either pay the farmer or the doctor. It’s your choice.” – gacitejess (YouTube)
“The first Adam brought the curse; the Last Adam bore the curse (Gal. 3:13). Adam’s sin caused thorns to grow (Gen. 3:18), but Jesus wore those thorns as a crown (Matt. 27:29).” – Nelson’s Quick Reference Bible Commentary
“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
“The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.” – Adrian Rogers
“There are people so poor that the only thing they have is money.” – Unknown
“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” – Charles Spurgeon
“Start realizing right now that there’s no such thing as failure. There are only results. You always produce a result. If it’s not the one you desire, you can just change your actions and you’ll produce new results. Cross out the word “failure,” circle the word “outcome” in this book, and commit yourself to learning from every experience.” – Anthony Robbins
“The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee . . . gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” — Albert Einstein
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” – Steve Furtick
“I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.” – Blaise Pascal
”A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.” – Unknown
“To be an excellent writer, you have to be an excellent thinker. Excellent writing stems from excellent thoughts, not merely the selection of the right words to use.” – Steve Feld
“The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” – Andrew Carnegie
“Reasoning with someone who has none is like administering medicine to the dead” – Thomas Paine
“You can’t make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice.” – Unknown
“The trick to maximum earnings is to free yourself from as many of the things you only do adequately, and certainly the things you don’t do well, and focus as much time and energy as possible on the things you do well, especially the very few things you do better than anybody else you’ve ever met.” – Dan Kennedy
“Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything.” – St. Francis of Assisi
“We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.” – Unknown
“The true price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” – Unknown
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” – Unknown
As 1 Peter 1:7 says, the heat of trials is what causes the impurities in our lives to float to the surface so they can be skimmed away. But who likes heat? Not me, and likely not you. Because of this we avoid it and hold tight to our impurities, our secrets. Set a piece of gold ore in a lab dish at room temperature and it stays the same. But turn up the heat and it becomes something worth even more as the impurities are revealed. ” – Tom Davis
“Book smarts will make you a living; specialized knowledge will make you a FORTUNE.” – Unknown
“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Unknown
“Holiness is not the way to Christ. Christ is the way to holiness.” – Adrian Rogers
“If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur.” – Red Adair
“The Church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed.” – John Wesley
“Fragmented time is unproductive time. The moment you sandwich even a minor distraction in the middle of great productivity, that productivity takes a nose dive.” – Steve Feld
“A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.” – Bruce Lee
“Every man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to a particular channel.” – Orison Swett Marden.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
“90 percent perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100 percent perfect and stuck in your head.” – John Acuff
“If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came.” – C.S. Lewis
“God never yet gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit. Those who seek to earn the grace of God by their own efforts are trying to please God with sins.” – Martin Luther
“F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.” ― Zig Ziglar
“A man’s ‘free’-will cannot cure him even of the tooth ache, or of a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.” – Augustus Toplady
“The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“At times you physically can’t stand talking on the phone. You’ll screen your phone calls – even from your closest friends. It’s too intrusive for you. Friends expect you to tear your mind away from whatever it is you are focusing on and focus on them. This literally makes your brain hurt, your mind can’t change direction easily.” – Anna Bashkova
“Good can, did, and will exist without evil. But evil cannot exist without the good it opposes. A shadow is nothing but the obstruction of light. No light? No shadow. Augustine said “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name evil…” More than merely the absence of good, evil is the corruption of good… Perhaps we could better conceive of evil as a parasite on God’s good creation… Without the living organism it uses as a host, the parasite cannot exist. Likewise; cancer thrives on, consumes, and ultimately kills healthy living cells. As metal does not need rust, but rust needs metal; so good doesn’t need evil, but evil needs good.” – Randy Alcorn (from his book titled “If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil”)
I long for the day when evil is thrown into the lake of fire; and I thank God that the sacrifice of his son has made my own sin white as snow, so that it doesn’t drag me to that same burning lake!
“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” Roger C. Schank
“If your business is not a brand, it is a commodity.” – Donald Trump
“Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealized, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character..” – Richard Branson
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” – Henry Ford
“Pain doesn’t just show up in our lives for no reason. It’s a sign that something needs to change.” – Unknown
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ― C.S. Lewis
“Money only exists if two or more people believe it exists”- Daniel Suelo
“Intelligence is the ability to learn from your mistakes. Wisdom is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others.” – Unknown
“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.” – Bob Marley
“It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.” – Hippocrates
“Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.” ― Hippocrates
“Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.” – Albert Einstein
“The carpenters house is never finished, and the plumbers toilet always runs.” – Unknown
“Just as the small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it; likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.” – Viktor Frankl (Auschwitz survivor)
“One paragraph into chapter one on the New Earth will make up for eighty hard chapters on Earth. But even if it took another eighty to compensate – the joys will have only just begun. How long will we need to be in heaven before our new home will make up for all the suffering we faced in this life? Two months? Two weeks? Two days? Two hours? Two minutes? The bleakest pessimist might answer “More like a hundred years.” But even if you say 10,000 years, that will be but the beginning of an eternal life of joy and pleasures at God’s right hand… So if God thinks the whole thing is worth it, and we know it will be worth it to us once we reach heaven – then why not affirm by faith, even in the midst of suffering, that it’s worth it now?” – Randy Alcorn (from his book “If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil”)
“Working hard for a company will earn you more work. Working hard for yourself will earn you more money.” – Steve Feld
“If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”
– Edward Shillito (a minister in England during World War I)
“God is not only preparing a place for us; he is, through our suffering and character growth, preparing us for that place.” – Randy Alcorn
“When you don’t listen, God turns up the volume.” – JJ Virgin
“Entrepreneurs are the only people who will work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week.” – Lori Greiner
“I have always said, that long before anyone develops cancer or any serious degenerative disease, their sick and constipated liver stopped filtering all of the toxic carcinogenic chemicals out of their blood, which ended up causing their cells to mutate, and caused their cancer or disease. The bottom line, before any major disease begins in your body, your liver was sick first.” – Dr. Richard Schulze
“When an industry develops from a problem, that problem will get worse, not better.” – Unknown
“If it doesn’t work, it’s not a failure, it’s data.” – Dorie Clark
“Death is oh so bitter – not so much to the dying as to the living whom the dead leave behind.” – Martin Luther
“Faith is not a call to believe in things when common sense tells you not to. Faith is not a mindless stab in the dark. It is not a crossing of the fingers and hoping for the best. It is not a leap into apparent nothingness. It’s a word that speaks of reasoned, careful, deliberate, intentional thought.
Thought upon what? God and his promises. If you are absolutely gripped by the coming realities that have been promised to you by God, then how you live your life in the present will be radically different than if you did not possess that certainty.. This is what faith is, my friends! Positive certainty expressed in action.” – Art Azurdia
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” – Maya Angelou
“If You Have More Than Three Priorities, You Don’t Have Any.” – Jim Collins
“A mistake which makes you humble is much better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.” – Unknown
“Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment of your life.” – Unknown
“Your problem has already been solved, you just haven’t gotten to that point in time yet.” -Sue Moses
“You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. Always be kind.” – Unknown
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” ― C.S. Lewis
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie Ten Boom
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“If you rearrange the letters in Depression you’ll get “I Pressed On”.
Your current situation is NOT your final destination.” – Unknown
“If you don’t define your finish line, you’re never going to cross it.” – Christy Wright
“Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen, and thinking what no one has thought.” – Albert Szent-Gyorgi
“For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a world where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.” ― Randy Alcorn
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” ― Frederick Douglass
On the topic of compounding interest: “Once there was a farmer who asked the king to give him 1 penny and double it everyday. He bought the kingdom after 30 days.” – Unknown
“I don’t know the rules of grammar . . . if you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think.” – David Ogilvy
“Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.” – Ecclesiastes 7:7