Compendium of Meaningful Quotations

July 8, 2009

2009-07-08T16:52:00.001-05:00

"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for."
- Charles Spurgeon

July 7, 2009

2009-07-07T16:48:00.001-05:00

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
- Laurence J. Peter

July 3, 2009

2009-07-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

"What does it matter if I suffer injustice? Would I not have deserved even more severe punishment from God if God had not treated me with mercy? Is not justice done to me even done to me a thousand times over even in injustice? Must it not be beneficial and conducive to humility for me to learn to bear such petty ills silently and patiently?"
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"

May 22, 2009

2009-05-22T14:41:00.002-05:00

"Our inventions are want to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at. . ."
- Henry David Thoreau

May 21, 2009

2009-05-21T14:33:00.000-05:00

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well."
- Henry David Thoreau

May 18, 2009

2009-05-18T14:31:00.000-05:00

"It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the TV and treat life as if it goes on forever."
- Philip Adams

May 14, 2009

2009-05-14T14:29:00.000-05:00

"Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you are tired - you quit when the gorilla is tired."
- Robert Strauss

April 23, 2009

2009-04-23T14:27:00.000-05:00

"Live your life so that your children can tell their children that you not only stand for something wonderful - you acted on it."
- Dan Zadra

April 2, 2009

2009-04-02T14:10:00.000-05:00

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all."
- Michelangelo

March 27, 2009

2009-03-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by destroying the strong. You cannot further the brotherhood of men by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You can not build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
- Dr. William J.H. Boetcker

March 9, 2009

2009-03-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

"Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them."
- W. Clement Stone

March 2, 2009

2009-03-02T14:01:00.000-06:00

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
- Leo Tolstoy

February 13, 2009

2009-02-13T00:27:00.000-06:00

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
- Samuel Johnson

February 6, 2009

2009-02-06T00:24:00.000-06:00

"When you do the things you have to do when you have to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them."
- Zig Ziglar

February 4, 2009

2009-02-04T00:23:00.000-06:00

"An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
- Orlando A. Battista

February 2, 2009

2009-02-02T00:19:00.000-06:00

"When the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow, and don't try to squirm out of your problems."
- James 1:3-4

February 1, 2009

2009-02-01T00:16:00.001-06:00

"The cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will persevere longer, than the sad or sullen."
- Thomas Carlyle

January 29, 2009

2009-01-29T00:14:00.000-06:00

"The crucible for silver and
the furnace for gold,
but man is tested by the
praise he receives."
- Proverbs 27:21 (NIV)

January 26, 2009

2009-01-26T00:11:00.000-06:00

"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them."
- Washington Irving

January 24, 2009

2009-01-24T00:08:00.000-06:00

"Do not gloat when your
enemy falls;
when he stumbles, do not
let your heart rejoice,
or the Lord will see and
disapprove
and turn his wrath away
from him."
- Proverbs 24:17-18 (NIV)

January 22, 2009

2009-01-22T15:29:00.000-06:00

"As cultural fads ebb and flow, the inescapable truth emerges that century after century the power of his written Word has surpassed, and will continue to surpass, the exhilarations of momentary experience, which are conceived and die in an instant. We tenderly set a halo on the forehead of feeling or miracle, but in times of greatest loss it is the written Word, the embodied Word, that carries us through, not feeling."
- Ravi Zacharias, (www.rzim.org) "Generations, Regeneration, and the Word"

January 21, 2009

2009-01-21T15:27:00.003-06:00

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's money."
- Alexis de Toqueville (1805 - 1859)

January 20, 2009

2009-01-20T15:24:00.001-06:00

"I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom."
- George W. Bush

January 12, 2009

2009-01-12T15:19:00.001-06:00

"And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."
- Romans 5:3-4 (NKJV)

January 7, 2009

2009-01-07T16:07:00.000-06:00

"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom but license."
- John Milton (1608 - 1674)

January 6, 2009

2009-01-06T16:05:00.002-06:00

"He who does not long to know more of Christ, knows nothing of him yet."
- Charles H. Spurgeon, "Morning and Evening" (Morning, January 4)

January 5, 2009

2009-01-05T15:59:00.000-06:00

"We have each of us in the dustiest cells of our minds a counter at which we strive to repay the debts of the past with the debased currency of the present."
- Gene Wolf, "Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of The Book of the New Sun" (p 66)

January 4, 2009

2009-01-04T15:57:00.000-06:00

"The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
And he who wins souls is wise."
- Proverbs 11:30 (NKJV)

January 3, 2009

2009-01-03T15:55:00.000-06:00

"As a ring of gold in a swine's snout,
So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion."
- Proverbs 11:22 (NKJV)

January 2, 2009

2009-01-02T15:53:00.000-06:00

"As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
So is the lazy man to those who send him."
- Proverbs 10:26 (NKJV)

January 1, 2009

2009-01-01T15:50:00.000-06:00

"The blessing of the Lord makes one rich,
And he adds no sorrow with it."
- Proverbs 10:22 (NKJV)

December 31, 2008

2008-12-31T15:48:00.000-06:00

"Where the grace of God is missed, bitterness is born. But where the grace of God is embraced, forgiveness flourishes . . . The more we immerse ourselves in grace, the more likely we are to give grace."
- Max Lucado, "In the Grip of Grace"

December 30, 2008

2008-12-30T15:44:00.001-06:00

"The first step to joy is a plea for help, an acknowledgement of moral destitution, an admission of inward paucity. . . Oh, the irony of God's delight - born in the parched soil of destitution rather than the fertile ground of achievement."
- Max Lucado, "The Applause of Heaven"

December 24, 2008

2008-12-24T14:53:00.001-06:00

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."
- Cherokee saying

December 23, 2008

2008-12-23T14:50:00.001-06:00

"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)

December 22, 2008

2008-12-22T14:48:00.000-06:00

"Justice without power is impotent; power without justice is tyranny."
- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

December 17, 2008

2008-12-17T14:43:00.000-06:00

"We take thought beforehand and aim to be honest and absolutely above suspicion, not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men."
- 2 Corinthians 8:21 (Amplified)

December 13, 2008

2008-12-13T14:42:00.000-06:00

"I will send showers in season; there will be showers of blessing."
- Ezekiel 34:26 (NIV)

December 12, 2008

2008-12-12T14:40:00.000-06:00

"Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

December 11, 2008

2008-12-11T14:38:00.000-06:00

"I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life."
- Walter Anderson

November 24, 2008

2008-11-24T14:37:00.000-06:00

"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons."
- Jim Rohn

November 19. 2008

2008-11-19T14:30:00.000-06:00

"The focus on plausibility is indicative of the focus on trying to convince others. We want others to believe and so we work on persuading them. This turns philosophy into a branch of marketing. What I find plausible says a great deal about me but nothing about what is true."
- Owen Anderson, in an interview by Joe Gorra (www.epsociety.org)

November 18, 2008

2008-11-18T14:23:00.000-06:00

"My concern about proofs for the existence of God is threefold. First, they are viewed as nice but not necessary; second, plausibility is thought to be sufficient; third, they do not identify the real challenge. By way of contrast, I believe it is necessary for the central claims of Christianity that there be no excuses for unbelief. This means that all alternative views of the metaphysical absolute - what is eternal, claims about the material world existing from eternity, about God and the world being co-eternal, about the world as an illusion in the mind of eternal consciousness, must be addressed."
- Owen Anderson, in an interview by Joe Gorra (www.epsociety.org)

October 14, 2008

2008-10-14T14:20:00.000-05:00

"The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom;
all who follow his precepts
have good understanding.
To him belongs eternal
praise."
- Psalm 111:10 (NIV)

October 3, 2008

2008-10-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

"I love peace, but it is because I love justice and not because I am afraid of war."
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

October 2, 2008

2008-10-02T14:16:00.000-05:00

"Great minds have purpose, others have wishes."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

September 29, 2008

2008-09-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

"The world still offers abundant challenges to our security and our ideals. But it is a world far more hospitable to our founding convictions than it was when America began to lead it. At the end of the cold war, Americans took time to congratulate ourselves for leading the world through a dangerous time. But we had yet to remember that we had a duty to move on and begin building a better one."
- John McCain, "Worth the Fighting For" (p 296)

September 18, 2008

2008-09-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

"The grace that is given freely and lavishly toward sinners is the same grace given to those who do not see their need for grace and to those who take the grace of God for granted."
- Margaret Manning, (www.rzim.org) "Contours of Grace"

September 16, 2008

2008-09-16T14:06:00.000-05:00

"If only the poor and disadvantaged are expected to fight for us, then the country should belong to them and no one else. The rest of us should meekly live off their goodwill and charity, for they are the ones who have loved our country the most and are most deserving of her blessings."
- John McCain, "Worth the Fighting For" (p 12)

September 12, 2008

2008-09-12T16:38:00.003-05:00

"Faith in myself was important, and remains important to my self-esteem. But I discovered in prison that faith in myself alone, separate from other, more important allegiances, was ultimately no match for the cruelty that human beings could devise when they were entirely unencumbered by respect for the God-given dignity of man. This is the lesson I learned in prison. It is, perhaps, the most important lesson I have ever learned."
- John McCain, "Faith of My Fathers" (p 253)

"In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her."
- ibid (p 254)

September 11, 2008

2008-09-11T16:31:00.001-05:00

"It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment. Having no one else to rely on, to share confidences with, to seek counsel from, you begin to doubt your judgement and your courage. But you eventually adjust to solitary as you can to almost any hardship, by devising various methods to keep your mind off your troubles and greedily grasping any opportunity for human contact."
- John McCain, "Faith of My Fathers" (p 206)

"The sound of the human voice, unappreciated in an open society's noisy clutter of spoken words was an emblem of humanity to a man held at length in solitary confinement, an elegant and poignant affirmation that we possessed a divine spark that our enemies could not extinguish."
- ibid (p 212)

September 5, 2008

2008-09-05T16:28:00.000-05:00

"The senseless man does not know,
fools do not understand,
that though the wicked spring
up like grass
and all evil doers flourish,
they will be forever
destroyed."
- Psalm 92: 6-7 (NIV)

August 22, 2008

2008-08-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

"The prisoners were at their coldest and hungriest when they checked in through these gates in the evening, and their bowl of hot and watery soup without any fat was like rain in a drought. They gulped it down. They cared more for this bowlful than freedom, or for their life in years gone by and years to come. They came back through the gates like soldiers from the wars with a lot of noise and cocky as hell. It was best to keep out of their way."
- Alexsander Solzhenitsyn, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (p 151)

August 7, 2008

2008-08-07T11:40:00.000-05:00

"But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?"
- Alexsander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address; Thursday June 8, 1978

"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die."
- ibid

August 6, 2008

2008-08-06T11:36:00.000-05:00

"Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. One would then like to ask by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time and with what prerogatives?"
- Alexsander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address; Thursday June 8, 1978

August 5, 2008

2008-08-05T11:26:00.003-05:00

"I have spent all my life under a communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worth of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man's noblest impulses. And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of the threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure."
- Alexsander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address; Thursday June 18, 1978

"The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals."
- ibid

July 31, 2008

2008-07-31T11:23:00.000-05:00

"In the old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's."
- George Elliot, "Silas Marner" (p 114)

July 28, 2008

2008-07-28T11:19:00.000-05:00

"Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud."
- George Elliot, "Silas Marner" (p 48)

"Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the good of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in."
- ibid, (p 63)

July 24, 2008

2008-07-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

"It seemed to him that the Power in which he had vainly trusted among the streets and in prayer meetings, was very far away from this land in which he had taken refuge, where men lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to bitterness. The little light he possessed spread its beams so narrowly, that frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough to create for him the blackness of night."
- George Elliot, "Silas Marner"

July 23, 2008

2008-07-23T16:37:00.000-05:00

"The creatures are always accusing one another of wanting 'to eat the cake and have it'; but thanks to our labors the are more often in the predicament of paying for the cake and not eating it."
- C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters" (p 169)

July 22, 2008

2008-07-22T16:29:00.001-05:00

"When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me
into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I
desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever."
- Psalms 73:21-26 (NIV)

"And all the time the joke is that the word 'Mine' in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say 'Mine' of each thing that exists and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever happens."
- C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters" (p 114-115)

July 17, 2008

2008-07-17T16:18:00.000-05:00

"It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out."
- C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters" (p 16)

"To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but as appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself; the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct."
- ibid (p 38-39)

"Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
- ibid

July 15, 2008

2008-07-15T16:11:00.001-05:00

"(Charles) Simeon's main goal in all his preaching was to emphasize what God wanted emphasized, and he did this by putting the stress on what Scripture stresses. Everytime he went to Scripture, his goal was to see what the author of that book was particularly insisting on, and then to insist on that in his exposition of it. Simeon's own words for this: 'I love the simplicity of the scriptures . . . I wish to receive and inculcate every truth precisely in the way and to the extent that it is set forth in the inspired volume . . . My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.' "
- quoting Charles Simeon, Fred Sanders "Oscillating, Not Vacillating: Simeon at Both Extremes"

June 25, 2008

2008-06-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

"Love is indeed the most powerful apologetic. It is the essential component in reaching the whole person in a fragmented world. The need is vast, but it is also imperative that we be willing to follow the example of our Lord and meet the need. What does this mean for us? It means giving a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus and telling the recipient to thank God and not man for that gift. Only eternity will reveal how deep and how real such an impact is, but our calling is clear: to let our light so shine that men, women, and children will see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven.

That is apologetics completed. That is confirming to the mind by the visible touch of the body. The mind is to the soul what the body is to the shadow. When we can touch both we have demonstrated the power of both thought and deed. It lifts the message out of the shadow and brings it into the light. Such is the power of love."
- Ravi Zacharias, (www.rzim.org) "The Apologetics Between Shadow and Reality"

June 5, 2008

2008-06-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

"Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances in this domain [science] is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence . . . the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence."
- Albert Einstein, "Ideas and Opinions"

"Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity of which we somehow form a part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God, with a capital "G". Science is, very usually, branded as being atheistic. After what we have said this is not astonishing. If its world picture does not even contain beauty, delight, sorrow, if personality is cut out of it by agreement, how should it contain the most sublime idea that presents itself to the human mind."
- Erwin Schrodinger, "My View of the World" (p 93)

May 23, 2008

2008-05-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
- George Orwell

May 22, 2008

2008-05-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

"The wicked freely strut
about when what is vile
is honored among men."
- Psalms 12:8 (NIV)

May 16, 2008

2008-05-16T14:24:00.000-05:00

"It is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation."
- George MacDonald, "The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture"

May 14, 2008

2008-05-14T14:11:00.002-05:00

"A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart."
- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" (p 184)

May 8, 2008

2008-05-08T13:55:00.000-05:00

"With some of our leading intellectuals assuring us that we have pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and we therefore have no need for God, the only thing missing from our lives seems to be the tune of "Forever Young" playing in the cosmic background. A visitor from Outer Space would probably conclude that only the very unlucky ones die, while the rest of us are guaranteed endless thrill rides through space aboard this green planet.

But such a visitor would promptly be treated to the rude awakening that even the most self-assured of human beings are still in transit. While it is possible to sustain a facade of total control within the confines of material comforts, a functional government, and a reasonable distance from the darker side of human suffering, this opportunity is not equally shared around the globe."
- J.M. Njoroge, (www.rzim.org) "The Last Enemy"

May 5, 2008

2008-05-05T12:10:00.002-05:00

"Where does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of
every living thing, concealed
even from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say,
'Only a rumor of it has reached
our ears.'

God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where
it dwells, for he views the
ends of the earth and sees
everything under the heavens.
When he established the force
of the wind and measured
out the waters, when he made
a decree for the rain and a
path for the thunderstorm, then
he looked at wisdom and
appraised it; he confirmed it
and tested it.

And he said to man,
'The fear of the Lord - that
is wisdom, and to shun
evil is understanding.' "
- Job 28: 20-28 (NIV)

"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges."
- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" (p 14)

May 1, 2008

2008-05-01T12:08:00.000-05:00

"Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure."
- Job 14:1 (NIV)

April 30, 2008

2008-04-30T12:03:00.001-05:00

"The only regrets that were quietly expressed were the dismay that we had not been allowed to stay in Somalia and complete our mission. It is difficult enough to bury a fallen comrade, but even harder to look into the eyes of his family, knowing that the objective for which he died has been deemed unobtainable by the very men who sent him to his death."
- Michael J. Durant, "In the Company of Heroes" (p 347)

April 29, 2008

2008-04-29T00:46:00.000-05:00

"A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty. But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams, as the streams that overflow when darkened by thawing ice and swollen with melting snow, but that cease to flow in the dry season, and in the heat vanish from their channels."
- Job VI: 14-17 (NIV)

April 19, 2008

2008-04-19T00:38:00.001-05:00

"It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy. 'Will You carry this too, Lord Jesus?'

But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.' "
- Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place" (p 194-195)

April 18, 2008

2008-04-18T00:32:00.001-05:00

"Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which Christianity looks very improbably; but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why faith is such a necessary virtue; unless you teach your moods "where they can get off", you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.
- C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" (p 139)

April 17, 2008

2008-04-17T00:27:00.000-05:00

"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."
- Romans VII: 5-8 (NIV)

April 16, 2008

2008-04-16T00:23:00.000-05:00

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strongly close and urgent. Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do."
- Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place" (p 15)

April 14, 2008

2008-04-14T00:20:00.001-05:00

"No sin against God can be little, because it is against the great God of heaven and earth; but if the sinner can find a little God, it may be easy to find out little sin."
- John Bunyan

April 8, 2008

2008-04-08T09:23:00.000-05:00

"No matter what the vehemence of tone or expression, whenever a public speaker indulges himself in violent and unqualified statements and in sweeping denunciations, he not only makes it apparent that he is deficient in a sound and fair judgement, but what is far worse, he creates in his hearers a secret distrust of his real earnestness, - a vague feeling that after all he is thinking more of his speech than of the end for which he professes to make it. When men are profoundly in earnest, they are not apt to be extravagant."
- Ephraim Peabody, Christian Examiner (July 1849)

April 2, 2008

2008-04-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

"I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."
- G.K. Chesterton

"From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise."
- Fredrick Douglass, "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave" (p 37)

March 31, 2008

2008-03-31T09:12:00.001-05:00

"The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears."
- Fredrick Douglass, "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave" (p 26)

March 24th, 2008

2008-03-24T09:05:00.000-05:00

"First we had to be persuaded how much God loved us, in case out of sheer despair we lacked the courage to reach up to him. Also we had to be shown what sort of people we are that he loves, in case we should take pride in our own worth, and so bounce even further away from him and sink even more under our own strength. So he dealt with us in such a way that we could progress rather in his strength...

So we needed to be persuaded how much God loves us, and what sort of people he loves; how much in case we despaired, what sort in case we grew proud."
- Augustine, "On the Trinity" (Book IV, Ch 1)

March 16, 2008

2008-03-16T09:01:00.001-05:00

"Education without religion, as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man a more clever devil."
- C.S. Lewis

"The end of all learning is to know God and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him."
- John Milton

March 10th, 2008

2008-03-10T15:10:00.001-05:00

"For the eyes of the Lord range
throughout the earth to
strengthen those whose
hearts are fully committed
to him."
- 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV)

March 7th, 2008

2008-03-07T15:05:00.003-06:00

"Television tells newcomers lies - that most Americans are rich, that most African Americans are gang members and drug dealers, that happiness comes from buying consumer goods and unhealthy foods. There are no ads for the joys of quiet time, gardening, looking at sunsets, visiting with the neighbors, or reading to children."
- Mary Pipher, "The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community" (p 86)

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."
- Andre Gide (1869-1951)

March 6th, 2008

2008-03-06T15:03:00.001-06:00

"The American pleasure in privacy and independence is strange to many refugees. To them, our autonomy simply feels lonely."
- Mary Pipher, "The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community" (p 71)

March 4th, 2008

2008-03-04T14:58:00.003-06:00

"Refugees reveal the strengths and flaws of America. To be fair, we are the country that takes people in. We educate refugees and allow them to become citizens. And yet, when they arrive, we often exploit them and make them suffer needlessly. And, for the most part, we Americans are abysmally ignorant about the rest of the world. We have both an immense innocence and an enormous sense of entitlement. We are spoiled children in a world of hurting people, and we take far too much for granted."
- Mary Pipher, "The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community" (p 21)

February 26, 2008

2008-02-26T01:39:00.001-06:00

"Thinking that our work will glorify God when people do not even know we are Christians is like admiring an effective ad on TV that never mentions the product. People may be impressed but won't know what to buy."
- John Piper, "Don't Waste Your Life"

February 21, 2008

2008-02-21T01:37:00.001-06:00

"Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it."
- Thomas Hardy, "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (p 119)

February 15th, 2008

2008-02-15T01:31:00.004-06:00

"Often, we ask God why we are compelled into the wilderness. We grumble and complain in our lament, and try to hurry our way into the Promised Land by forcing our own way, or else we seek to return to Egypt to meet our needs in our time and through our own methods. The journey of all Christ's followers is a journey through the wilderness toward the Cross. We cannot escape it, nor can we go around it. And yet, the wilderness, the Cross, and the ultimate resurrection of Jesus all demonstrate that no matter the wilderness we find ourselves in, God will bring us through to life on the other side. We will not be removed from the suffering of the wilderness, but with God's help we can be transformed by it."
- Margaret Manning (www.rzim.org), "Compelled Into the Wilderness"

February 14th, 2008

2008-02-14T02:56:00.000-06:00

"What I see in nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility."
- Albert Einstien

February 5th, 2008

2008-02-05T02:53:00.000-06:00

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."
- G.K. Chesterton, "What's Wrong With the World" Chapter 5

January 29th, 2008

2008-01-29T02:27:00.000-06:00

"A world so lacking in passion lacks the neccessary components of punishment. Punishment has its origins in the demand for justice, and justice is demanded by angry, morally indignant men, men who are angry when someone else is robbed, raped, or murdered, men utterly unlike Camus's Meursalt. This anger is an expression of their caring, and the just society needs citizens who care for each other, and the community of which they are parts. One of the purposes of punishment, particularly capital punishment, is to recognize the legitimacy of that righteous anger and to satisfy and thereby reward it. In this way, the death penalty, when duly or deliberately imposed, serves to strengthen the moral sentiments required by a self-governing community."
- Professor Walter Berns, "Religion and the Death Penalty" The Weekly Standard - Vol 13, Issue 20

January 23rd, 2008

2008-01-23T02:49:00.001-06:00

"No man should preach from a pulpit who isn't willing to burn at a stake!"
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 133)

"There have been too many times when I have treated my Creator as an inconvenient adjunct to life, rather than life itself."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 148)

"There are only two classes of people in the world: those whom Christ is seeking, and those that He has sought and saved."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 157)

"The best person in the world needs the God of the cross; the worst person can have Him."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 212)

January 18th, 2008

2008-01-18T02:42:00.000-06:00

"So the first key to witnessing is to draw a circle of three feet around the cross, invite the 'witnessee' into it, and only leave that circle for the empty tomb."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 103)

"All of us judge, that's not the issue; the issue is do we judge rightly or wrongly."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 113)

"We need no church's permission to be saved - nor any church's help. Nor can any church - Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or otherwise, refuse us salvation. Salvation is always and only a matter between the sinner and his Savior! Nor can anyone, Man or Devil, take this water of life away from us. Christ told the woman at the well that the fountain would be hers forever!"
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 114)

January 15th, 2008

2008-01-15T02:35:00.000-06:00

"Christ didn't die on a cross to start a new religion. There was already too much religion in the world, and it was religion that nailed Him to the cross."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 45)

"When ministry becomes business, it ceases to be ministry."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 53)

"Grace is the love of God acting in perfect wisdom and with infinite power. The cross of Christ is the genius of God. The message of the cross is so marvelously simple that a child can believe it and be saved, and it is so infinitely profound that it will forever challenge the minds of scholars."
- James A Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 69)

January 13th, 2008

2008-01-13T22:27:00.000-06:00

"God is not what men make Him out to be. The god manufactured by the imagination of men is always either an impotent, unintelligent, amoral observer sitting in the bleachers of our lives, or a heartless monster in the sky out to rob us of happiness and give us a flat tire, on a country road, in a rainstorm, at night. When we see Infinite Grace in sandals walking a dusty road that ends in a cross, we see the real and living God for what He is!"
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 25)

"Satan's power doesn't always make people nasty; it frequently makes them nice."
- James A. Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Savaltion" (p 41)

January 12th, 2008

2008-01-12T22:18:00.000-06:00

"When God wants to assure us that He loves us and to tell us how much, He never points us to how well we're doing physically, financially, or emotionally. He always points us to Calvary - check it out! We may be financially bankrupt, friendless, and dying of cancer but that doesn't prove a thing - except that we're still living in Satan's world."
- James A Kirkwood, "Godman - The Sunrise of Salvation" (p 22)

January 9th, 2008

2008-01-09T13:26:00.001-06:00

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
- Lamentations 3:22-24 (NIV)