|
||||||||||
|
Anatole France (1844-1924) |
||||||||||
|
ability abortion absence absolutes abstinence absurdity abuse acceptance achievement action acting advent adversity advertising advice age agnosticism alliteration ambition America anarchy ancestors angel anger animals & the environment anthropology anticipation antinomy anxiety apathy apology apostacy appreciation argument aristocracy arms art assimilation assurance atheism atonement attitude Australia authority autonomy autumn The greatest ability is dependability. Natural abilities are like plants that need pruning by study.--- Francis Bacon Sometimes I suffer from delusions of adequacy. -- William D Blake Skill and confidence are an unconquered army. -- George Herbert The only ability you need to serve God is availablity--Grant MacDonald They are able because they think they are able.--- Virgil Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.-- John Wooden
Would you consider abortion in the following four
situations? If you would have recommended abortion in any of these
situations, you should know that... Christians believe life begins at conception. Liberals believe that life begins at birth. Jews believe that life begins when the children leave home and the dog dies. A student was sitting in law class when the professor asked him if he knew what the Roe vs Wade decision was. He sat there for quite a while pondering this very profound question and finally sighed and said: "I think that's the decision George Washington made prior to crossing the Delaware..." Only half the patients who go into an abortion clinic come out alive. If it isn't a baby, then you aren't pregnant, so what are you aborting? Christians are differentiated from other people by
country, language, or customs . ..they do not live in cities
of their own or speak some strange dialect . . . They live
in their own native lands, but as resident aliens . . .
.They marry and have children just like everyone else, but
they do not kill unwanted babies. A woman who intentionally destroys a fetus is guilty of murder. And we do not even talk about the fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed. Basil the Great Abortions will not let you forget. Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt youth; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use soothsaying; thou shalt not practise sorcery; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born; thou shalt not covet the goods of thy neighbour; -- The Didache, c. 100 AD He had a decade to repent. He refused. He stood before
the cameras this week, displaying the familiar grin that had
been published in newspapers and magazines across the nation
a decade ago. Paul J. Hill It is not possible to speak of the right to choose when a clear moral evil is involved, when what is at stake is the commandment Do not kill! -- John Paul II (1920-2005) The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our
century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery,
that of the unborn. While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it's final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of " the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit. - Evangelium Vitae-Gospel of Life Pope John Paul II No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. -- P.J. O'Rourke However we may pity the mother whose health and even life imperilled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent. -- Pius XI Abortion: A form of birth control. Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.-- Ronald Reagan It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. -- Mother Teresa In time, they will start killing grown-up people, disabled people and so on.-- Mother Teresa Abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you, and you to kill me? There is nothing between. Mother Theresa For us, murder is once for all forbidden... It makes no difference whether one take away the life once born, or destroy it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.... Tertullian (160?-230?) Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great. --Bussy-Rabutin (Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy; 1618 93) Absence in most, that quenches love, The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.&emdash;Benjamin Franklin Absence diminishes small loves, and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. -- La Rochefoucauld The American elite is almost beyond redemption... Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush -- sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict. - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 1997 It's not that Christianity has been refuted by scientific fact or historical scrutiny. Rather, it's considered implausible because it claims to be universally and objectively true--that is, true for everybody. Put simply, the Christian message violates today's carefully cultivated incredulity toward all absolutes, especially religious ones. --Jim Leffel An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy.--C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man ..the Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. -- Walter Lippmann Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. John Owen "There are no absolutes," they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute. ----Ayn Rand: Galt's speech from _Atlas Shrugged_ The Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic, modern concept of truth as relative. But too often, instead of being the radical, standing against the shifting sands of relativism, he subsides into merely maintaing the status quo. If it is true that evil is evil, that God hates it to the point of the cross, and that there is a moral law fixed in what God is in Himself, then Christians should be the first into the field against what is wrong. ... Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There [1968] With the Christian answer it is now possible to
understand that there are true moral absolutes. There is no
law behind God, because the furthest thing back is God. The
moral absolutes rest upon God's character. The creation as
He originally made it conformed to His character. The moral
commands He has given to men are an expression of His
character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice
on the basis of what God is. The standards of morality are
determined by what conforms to His character, while those
things which do not conform are immoral. In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute. -- Francis Schaeffer No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.-- Kingsley Amis To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. -- St. Augustine Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce If you say, "Would there were no wine" because of the drunkards, then you must say, going on by degrees, "Would there were no steel," because of the murderers, "Would there were no night," because of the thieves, "Would there were no light," because of the informers, and "Would there were no women," because of adultery. -- St. John Chrysostom: Homilies, c. 388 Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult. -- Samuel Johnson An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons -- marriage, or meat, or beer, or cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning. -- C S Lewis, Mere Christianity Abstinence engenders maladies. ~W.S. Love's Labours Lost, IV,3 There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each
and every eatable,drinkable, and smokable which has in any
way acquired a shady reputation.They pay this price for
health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it
is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that
has gone dry. Great men of action . . . never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job, and at times they all are. A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity, it is an occupational risk. -- Oswald Mosley, (1896-1980) Abuse does not rule out use. --attributed to Aquinas When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff.--Cicero, 106 -- 43 B.C. We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. (1749-1832), Faust (1806) Calumnities are best answered with silence. -- Samuel Johnson Abuse is the weapon of the vulgar.- Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793 &endash; 1860) Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning
than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify
what they cannot comprehend.
Denial, despair and grieving are all part of the many emotions we process towards acceptance. The final stage of grief is acceptance. However, this stage is not as easy as it sounds. The last phase of Kubler-Ross' theory on grief may not be a permanent condition. If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.-Aristotle There are two kinds of worries -- those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994. Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace. -Epicetus Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence to, not in exemption from, suffering.-Francois de Fenelon_The Book of Positive Quotations_ Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of nature, are calls to labour and diligence. When we feel any pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we can only obey the will of Heaven by languishing under it, any more than when we perceive the pain of thirst, we are to imagine that water is prohibited.-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #32 There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.-James Russell Lowell We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns.- Orison S. Marden All that the Devil asks is acquiescence ...not struggle, not conflict. Acquiescence.--Suzanne Massie _Journey_ Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change! -J.C.F. von Schiller Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it. -Kathleen Casey Theisen It's better to step on toes than walk on eggs. -- Bruce Thompson Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.-Paul Tournier The Meaning of Persons Harper 57 Simpson's Contemporary Quotations 1988. Jesus accepts you the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you that way. -- Lee Venden The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference Elie Wiesel You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the
absurd. He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find, Everything I've accomplished I've accomplished through the grace of God and pure stubbornness. -- Mary Fairchild My dear boy, why don't you try acting? Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg. People can be divided into three groups:1. Those who make things happen, 2. Those who watch things happen, 3. And those who wonder what's happening. Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday. If there is no wind, row.... Latin Proverb If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep. --Yiddish Proverb Do nothing without deliberation; and when you have acted, do not regret it. Sirach 32:19 Familiarity breeds attempt. - Jane Sherwood Ace (1905-1974) "Easy Aces" Radio Show, 1928-1945; in "The Fine Art of Hypochondria by Goodman Ace," 1966. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. -- William Blake Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for
responsibility. If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall long be surprised to find out how little remains that we cannot do.-Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. --Thomas Carlyle Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.--Miguel de Cervantes No action is without its side effects. -- Barry Commoner (1917-____) Webster's Electronic Quotebase To congratulate oneself on one's warm commitment to the environment, or to peace, or to the oppressed, and think no more is a profound moral fault.-- Robert Conquest, _Reflections on a Ravaged Century_, 1999 Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.--Oliver Cromwell The result of a single action may spread like the circles that expand when a stone is thrown into a pond, until they touch places and people unguessed at by the person who threw the stone.... --Robertson Davies, "Literature & Moral Purpose" Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.--Benjamin Disraeli The man who will not act until he knows all will never act at all... Jim Elliot (1927-1956) An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. ~ Friedrich Engels, quoted in: Reg Groves, The Strange Case of Victor Grayson (1975) It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.~ Anatole France Better hazard once than always be in fear.... Thomas Fuller Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.- Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) "War Memoirs," Vol. 2. How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflections? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then shalt thou know what is in thee. -- Goethe There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which
kills countless ideas and splendid plans: the moment one
definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All
sorts of things occur to help one that never other otherwise
would have occurred . . . There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid that you will succeed. - Ray Goforth I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything let me not refuse to do the something that I can do. --Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) Never mistake motion for action.Ernest Hemingway (1889-1961) I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving - we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, 1841 - 1935 Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. -- Karen Horney, Self-Analysis, 1942 Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them.... Elbert Hubbard The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning. Thomas Henry Huxley Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.... William James, (1842-1910) Life is not long, and too much of it should not be spent in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson) Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake
of the imperfections their author. To confer duration is not
always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and
employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future,
and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is
performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at
once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret,
in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren
zeal. At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done. -- Thomas a Kempis If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.... Arthur Koestler I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.- - - Jack London, 1916 Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.- Malcolm X (1925-1965) "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," 1965. Because it's there. - George Leigh Mallory's reply when asked why he wanted to climb Everest . he died on 19 June 1924 close to the summit. A lobster, when left high and dry among the rock, has not instinct or energy enough to work his way back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does not come, he remains where he is and dies, although the slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves, which are perhaps within a yard of him. The world is full of human lobsters; men stranded on the rocks of indecision and procrastination, who, instead of putting forth their own energies, are waiting for some grand billow of good fortune to set them afloat.... Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924) We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results . . .. --Herman Melville A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is not purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.- Thomas Merton You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.- Alan Alexander Milne, 1882 - 1956 Take to learning as far as possible, but God will not give it's rewards until you translate it into action. -- Mohammed, Hadith grace of God, I will do.--Dwight L. Moody Ideas in a void have never appealed to me; action must follow thought or political life is meaningless. -- Oswald Mosley (1896-1980) Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. --Clementine Paddelford Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882 - 1945 Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.-- Theodore Roosevelt It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to he man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew niether victory nor defeat.... Theodore Roosevelt Things in motion sooner catch the eye Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.~Sophocles, Unknown Dramas frag.288 All beginnings are hard. - Talmud What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things. Mother Teresa (1910-1997) A Gift for God, "Carriers of Christ's Love," 1975. God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try. Mother Teresa, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (1910-1997) In "Rolling Stone," by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dec 1992. A life which does not go into action is a failure. - Arnold J. Toynbee The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and then starting on the first one. --Mark Twain (1835-1910) ... one of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while
we wait for God,we are with God all along, that while we
need to be reassured of God's arrival, or the arrival of our
homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have
to trust, to have faith, but it is God's grace that gives us
that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are
true, and equally true, at once. The mind can't grasp
paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul. A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer ,in a letter:, 1943 The advent of our God God and the doctor God may calm the storm around you, but more often He'll calm the storm within you. Adversity is the diamond dust with which Heaven polishes its jewels. A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security. If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. No cloud can overshadow a true Christian, but his faith may discern a rainbow in it. Some folks treat God like a lawyer. They go to Him, only when they are in trouble. There is more safety with Christ in the tempest, than without Christ in the calmest waters. The brook would lose its song if you removed the stones. "post tenebras lux" - after darkness, light God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. In the day of prosperity, adversity is forgotten, and in the day of adversity, prosperity is not remembered. Sirach 11:25 Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is
approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to
some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the
storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it
up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below,
the eagle is soaring above it. Sooner or later we will be called upon to trust God as we endure sickness, grief, or disappointment. That's when "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7) Sometimes God calms the storm, sometimes He calms the sailor. Trials are not enemies of faith but are opportunities to prove God's faithfulness. The diamond can not be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials. -- Chinese Proverb A man should learn to sail in all winds. Italian Proverb Many stars cannot be concealed by a small cloud - Maori proverb The anvil fears no blows.... Romanian Proverb The hammer shatters glass but forges steel -- Russian Proverb We live, my dear, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not. --John Adams, to Abigail Adams, 1774, quoted in _John Adams_ David McCullough The truth is, if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father. -- Lance Armstrong God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them. --Aughey Whenever you fall, pick up something. - Oswald Theodore Avery I have two planks for a bed, two stools, two cups and a basin. On my broken wall is a small card which says,'God hath chosen the weak things -- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' It is true I have passed through fire.-- Gladys Aylward in The Lion Christian Quotation Collection, 1997 There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster. -- Richard Bach, "ONE". Night brings out stars, as sorrow shows us truths. -- Gamaliel Bailey Lord, it belongs not to my care, If life be long I will be glad, Christ leads me through no darker rooms Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet Then shall I end my sad complaints, My knowledge of that life is small, He is not drowning His sheep when He washeth them, nor
killing them when He is shearing them. But by this He
showeth that they are His own; and the new shorn sheep do
most visibly bear His name or mark, when it is almost worn
out and scarce discernible on them that have the longest
fleece. When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars. -- Charles A. Beard We are always in the forge, or on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things. -- Beecher (1813-1878) The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. -- Ps. 9:9-10 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. -- Psalm 34:19 For a righteous man will fall seven times, and rise again: but the ungodly shall be without strength in troubles.--Proverbs 24:16{English translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton(1807-1862) originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851} Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.-- Isa. 50:10 The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow.-- William J.H. Boetcker Be glad today. Tomorrow may bring tears. To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered, Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented, And when this cup You give is filled to brimming Yet when again in this same world You give us I 've learned to hold everything loosely because it hurts when God pries my fingers from it. -- CORRIE TEN BOOM If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -Anne Bradstreet So long as man has encouragement elsewhere, he does not encourage himself in the Lord his God...Now when God sees that his children fall in love more with the nurse than himself, then he removes the nurse, and causes their peace to be suspended and interrupted. -- William Bridge The flowers smell sweetest after a shower; God's house of correction is His school of instruction.-Thomas Brooks Let us learn like Christians to kiss the rod, and love it.-John Bunyan In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God. John Bunyan He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and
sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil. It is the Heavenly Father's will thus to exercise them so as to put his own children to a definite test. Beginning with Christ, his first-born, he follows this plan with all his children. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion [1559] It is profitable for the pious to be unsettled on earth, lest, by setting their minds on a commodious and quiet habitation, they should lose the inheritance of heaven. -- Calvin on Gen 20:1 Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness. -- John Calvin No pressure, no diamonds. - Mary Case If a sheep stray from the flock, the shepherd sets his dog after it, not to devour it, but to bring it in again; even so our Heavenly Shepherd. -Daniel Cawdray God denies a Christian nothing, but with a design to give him something better. -- Richard Cecil We often learn more of God under the rod that strikes us, han under the staff that comforts us. -Stephen Charnock One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) "The Hammer of God." At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised. Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it. - Winston Churchill, 1874 - 1965 A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials--Cicero It is only by hammer blows that God manages to humble us, no matter how good our native disposition. -- Anthony Mary Claret Trials should not surprise us, or cause us to doubt God's
faithfulness. Rather, we should actually be glad for them.
God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our
faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn
away our self confidence and drive us to our Saviour. That was no discouragement to me; for when the storm blew hardest, the smiles of my Lord were at the sweetest. It is a matter of rejoicing unto me to think how my Lord hath passed by many a tall cedar, and hath laid His love upon a poor bramble bush, the like of me. --John Cochran, shoemaker, hanged 1683 I have looked back on Watergate and thank God for it.
Through that crucible I came to know Christ personally and
discovered that in the darkest moments of my life he was
working to produce what I would later see as the greatest
blessings of my life. Afflictions sent by providence melt the constancy of the noble minded, but confirm the obduracy of the vile, as the same furnace that liquifies the gold, hardens the clay. --Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) How naturally does affliction make us Christians! -William Cowper, letter, 4 July 1765 Through Christ's satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is changed with regard to believers. As death, which was, at first, the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (Is. 57:2); so afflictions are not the rod of God's anger, but the gentle (medicine) of a tender father. Tobias Crisp God does not lead His children around hardship, but leads them straight through hardship. But He leads! And amidst the hardship, He is nearer to them than ever before. -- Otto Dibelius Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever... -Isak Dinesen The Lord does not measure out our afflictions according to our faults, but according to our strength, and looks not at what we have deserved, but what we are able to bear. -George Downame For God to explain a trial would be to destroy its purpose, calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience.... Alfred Edersheim The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to
travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary
to the natural bias of our flesh.- The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness. --Havelock Ellis, Engl. 1859 -- 1939 God dwells as glorious in a saint when he is in the dark, as when he is in light, for darkness is His secret place, and His pavilion round about Him are dark waters. - WILLIAM ERBERRY When God intends to fill a soul, he first makes it empty. When he intends to enrich a soul, he first makes it poor. When he intends to exalt a soul, he first makes it sensible to its own miseries, wants, and nothingness. -- John Flavel on "Humility" Man's extremity is God's opportunity.-- John Flavel And is it well done, then, to repine and droop because your Father consults more the advantage of your souls than the pleasing of your humors? Because He will bring you a nearer way to heaven than you are willing to go? Is this a due requital of His love, who is pleased so much to concern Himself for your welfare? This is more than He will do for thousands in the world, upon whom He will not lay a rod or send an affliction for their good (Hosea 4:17; Matthew 15:14). But alas! We judge by sense, and reckon things good or evil according to what we, for the present, can taste and feel in them. - JOHN FLAVEL Crosses release us from this world and by doing so bind us to God. -- Charles de Foucauld Stop thinking about your difficulties, whatever they are, and start thinking about God instead.--- Emmet Fox I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains. -Anne Frank What is to give light must endure burning. - Viktor Emil Frankl, 1905 - 1997 If afflictions refine some, they consume others. --Thomas Fuller, M.D. (1654-1734) _Gnomologia_ [1732] A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994. The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. - Edward Gibbon Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. -- Arthur Golden The hues of bliss more brightly glow, Chastised by sabler tints of woe. --- Thomas Gray, Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 45. In religion, we are not asked to make up our minds, we are asked to make up our lives... We may refuse to make up our minds, but our lives get made up, one way or the other... Whatever we believe with our minds, our lives are committed either to God's way or to the God-denying way, and what matters in religion is the act of commitment.... A. Leonard Griffith (1920- ), Barriers to Christian Belief [1962] God's wounds cure, sin's kisses kill. -- WILLIAM GURNALL God would not rub so hard if it were not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our natures. God loves purity so well He had rather see a hole than a spot in His child's garments.-- William Gurnall The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God. WILLIAM GURNALL When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?' -Sydney Harris In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.--Paul Harvey Those that go gold into the furnace will come out no worse.-- MATTHEW HENRY Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. -- Matthew Henry (1662-1714) Storms make oaks take deeper root--George Herbert (1593-1633) The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.-- Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970 To reach the port of Heaven we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must sail, and not drift or lie at anchor. Oliver Wendell Holmes Thy sorrows outbid thy heart, thy fears outbid thy sorrows, and thy thoughts go beyond thy fears; and yet here is the comfort of a poor soul: in all his misery and wretchedness, the mercy of Lord outbids all these, whatsoever may, can, or shall befall thee. --THOMAS HOOKER It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you
carry it. God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. -- Elbert Hubbard But they who bleed remember far better. Great minds have great purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.--- Washington Irving As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst things.-William Jenkyn O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation, if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering, and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything; but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord.... John of the Cross (1542-1591) It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honors forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or quiet, and how justly we may inscribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy and courage.... Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Seward: "One should think that sickness, and the view of death, would make more men religious." Johnson: "Sir, they do not know how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of calculation. - James Boswell: Life of Samuel Johnson Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.--Samuel Johnson He whose courage has made way against the turbulence of opposition, and whose vigour has broken through the snares of distress, has many advantages over those that have slept in the shades of indolence, and whose retrospect of time can entertain them with nothing but day rising upon day, and year gliding after year.-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #150 Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross. He hath many seekers of comfort, but few of tribulation. He findeth many companions of His table, but few of His fasting. All desire to rejoice with Him, few are willing to undergo anything for His sake. Many follow Jesus that they may eat of His loaves, but few that they may drink of the cup of His passion. Many are astonished at His miracles, few follow after the shame of His Cross. Many love Jesus so long as no adversities happen to them. Many praise Him and bless Him, so long as they receive any comforts from Him. But if Jesus hide Himself and withdraw a little while, they fall either into complaining or into too great dejection of mind. -- Thomas à Kempis When Christ was in the world, He was despised by men; in the hour of need He was forsaken by acquaintances and left by friends to the depths of scorn. He was willing to suffer and to be despised; do you dare to complain of anything? He had enemies and defamers; do you want everyone to be your friend, your benefactor? How can your patience be rewarded if no adversity tests it? How can you be a friend of Christ if you are not willing to suffer any hardship? Suffer with Christ and for Christ if you wish to reign with Him. Had you but once entered into perfect communion with Jesus or tasted a little of His ardent love, you would care nothing at all for your own comfort or discomfort but would rejoice in the reproach you suffer; for love of Him makes a man despise himself.... Thomas a Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ [1418] It is good, too, that we sometimes suffer opposition, and that men think ill of us and misjudge us, even when we do and mean well. Such things are an aid to humility, and preserve us from pride and vainglory. For we more readily turn to God as our inward witness, when men despise us and think no good of us. Thomas à Kempis'_The Imitation of Christ_ [c. 1420]: --Bk. 1, ch. 12: "On The Uses of Adversity" We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. -- Helen Keller Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity. --- James Keller, Three Minutes by James Keller, M. M., 1950. Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings.-- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, from "To Live Until You Say Goodbye" No one ever promised us a life free from pain and disappointment. The most anyone promised us was that we would not be alone in our pain, and that we would be able to draw upon a source outside ourselves for the strength and courage we would need to survive life's tragedies and life's unfairness. ~ Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) The facts of life and death are neutral. We, by our responses, give suffering either a positive or a negative meaning. Illnesses, accidents, human tragedies kill people. But they do not necessarily kill life or faith. If the death and suffering of someone we love makes us bitter, jealous, against all religion, and incapable of happiness, we turn the person who died into one of the 'devil's martyrs.' ~ Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) No path of flowers leads to glory. -- Jean de La Fontaine We need to suffer that we may learn to pity. -- Letitia Elizabeth Landon There is a deep peace that grows out of illness and loneliness and a sense of failure. God cannot get close when everything is delightful. He seems to need these darker hours, these empty-hearted hours, to mean the most to people.-- Frank Laubach , letter: 6 FEBRUARY 1931 The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when
we see them in the wrong light: when we see them in the hand
of God, Who dispenses them; when we know that it is our
loving Father who abases and distresses us; our sufferings
will lose their bitterness and become even a matter of
consolation. The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.-- Robert Leighton It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. - Madeleine L'Engle (1918-____) Noble souls, through dust and heat, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions, Mishaps are like knives; they either serve us or cut us,
as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it too close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at a proper distance and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway of life. -- Celia Luce I am bigger than anything that can happen to me. All these things, sorrow, misfortune, and suffering, are outside my door. I am in the house and I have the key. -- CHARLES FLETCHER LUMMIS (1859 - 1928) How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.... George Macdonald (1824-1905) Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.-- Og Mandino Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind the stronger the trees. - Williard Marriott If your every human plan and calculation has miscarried, if, one by one, human props have been knocked out, and doors have shut in your face, take heart. God is trying to get a message through to you, and the message is: "Stop depending on inadequate human resources. Let me handle the matter."... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983) When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."- Peter Marshall My soul, alas, needs these uneasinesses in outward things, to be driven to take refuge in God. Henry Martyn The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life, the obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune, are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. Peril is the element in which power is developed. --William Matthews (1822-1896) Different people must contend with different trials, but adversities in some shape or other come to everyone. Life is a procession of people bearing crosses and when one carries his awkwardly he interferes with his fellow marchers.--R. C. McCarthy Even in the wildest storms the sky is not all dark; and so in the darkest dealings of God with His children, there are always some bright tokens for good.-- Robert Murray McCheyne, letter: , 6 FEBRUARY 1839 Many are the sayings of the wise, He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. -- Milton , Areopagitica Be not afraid of those trials which God may see fit to send upon thee. It is with the wind and the storm of tribulation that God, in the garner of the soul, separates the true wheat from the chaff. Always remember, therefore, that God comes to thee in thy sorrows as really as in thy joys. He lays low and He builds up. Thou wilt find thyself far from perfection if thou dost not find God in everything. -- Miguel de Molinos, 1640-97 We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.... Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your
anguish; Number one, God brought me here. It is by His will that I am in this place. In that fact I will rest. Number two, He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child. Number three, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Number four, in His good time He can bring me out again. How and when, He knows. So let me say I am here.--Andrew Murray May I be patient! It is so difficult to make real what one believes, and to make these trials, as they are intended, real blessings.... John Henry Newman (1801-1890) Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust his skill and thank him for his prescription. -- Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Afflictions make them love the word, God often takes a course for accomplishing His purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe. He brings a death upon our feelings, wishes, and prospects when He is about to give us the desire of our hearts. -- John Newton (1725-1807) He knows our sorrows, not merely as He knows all things, but as one who has been in our situation, and who, though without sin Himself, endured when upon earth inexpressibly more for us than He will ever lay upon us. -- JOHN NEWTON God's people have no assurances that the dark experiences of life will be held at bay, much less that God will provide some sort of running commentary on the meaning of each day's allotment of confusion, boredom, pain, or achievement. It is no great matter where we are, provided we see that the Lord has placed us there, and that He is with us. -- John Newton The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.... John Newton (1725-1807) :It is necessary that our sharpest trials should sometimes spring from our dearest comforts, else we should be in danger of forgetting ourselves and setting up our rest here. - John Newton letter 21 Dec 1776 The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. - Thomas Paine They sicken of the calm that know the storm. -- Dorothy Parker The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.-- Dolly Parton) Little things console us, because little things afflict us. --Pascal Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, it no longer matters. ---Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends. -- Plutarch The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.... Plutarch Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune. - Plutarch Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.--Plutarch (46-120)_Consolation to Apollonius_ We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe, Heaven is not always angry when he strikes, When difficult times come - and they will - we can decide to become bitter, angry, and brittle. Or, we can choose to open our lives to the presence of God, whose nature it is to enlarge us and deepen us and make us better because of what we have endured. - Charles E. Poole God never promised us light loads. In fact, sometimes the loads are very, very heavy. The weight of life sometimes stoops our shoulders, slows our steps, and robs our sleep. God does not promise to insulate us from burdens and exempt us from sorrow.What God does promise us, though, is to always be with us, to always be for us, and to always wring whatever good can be wrung from life's heaviest burdens and toughest trials.~ Charles E. Poole I learned much more from defeat than I ever learned from winning. - Grantland Rice (1880 &endash; 1954) Just as there are laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or destroyed But one can be converted into the other. --Spider Robinson, "The Law of Conservation of Pain" _Callahan's Chronicals_ You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. Your are able to say for yourself, 'I lived through this horror I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you can not do.-Eleanor Roosevelt I had a series of childhood illnesses . . . scarlet fever . . . .pneumonia . . . . Polio. I walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports. -- Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994) "USA Today," 6 Aug 1987. I desire now to make no more pleas with Christ; verily, he hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer; he oweth me nothing; for in my bonds, how sweet and comfortable have the thoughts of him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense of reward!... Samuel Rutherford, letter [1637] For at my first entry into this trial (being cast down and troubled with challenges and jealousies of His love, whose name and testimony I now bear in my bonds), I feared nothing more than that I was casten over the dyke of the vineyard, as a dry tree. But, blessed be His dear name, the dry tree was in the fire, and was not burnt; His dew came down and quickened the root of a withered plant. And now He is come again with joy, and has been pleased to feast His exiled and afflicted prisoner with the joy of His consolations. Now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastened, but I die not; I have loss, but I want nothing; this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the good-will of Him that dwelt in the Bush. The worst things of Christ, His reproaches, His cross, are better than Egypt's treasures. I would not give, nor exchange, mybonds for the prelates' velvets; nor my prison for their coaches; nor my sighs for all the world's laughter. This clay-idol, the world, hasno great court in my soul. Christ has come and run away to heaven with my heart and my love, so that neither love is mine:- Samuel Rutherford, Letter XXVII. To LADY HALHILL,ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637 If it were no more than once to see the face of the
Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity
with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams
of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were
a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven
deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head.
Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and
shorter than when we first believed. Strangers are not wise
to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging.
It is a foul way, but a fair home. Oh that I had but such
grapes and clusters out of the land as I have sometimes seen
and tasted in the place whereof your Ladyship maketh
mention! But the hope of it in the end is a heartsome convoy
in the way. If I see little more of the gold till the race
be ended, I dare not quarrel. It is the Lord! Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight. -- Samuel Rutherford Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so I may get my heart full of my Lord Jesus.... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664) Whenever I find myself in the cellar of affliction, I always look about for the wine. - S. Rutherford Grace grows better in the winter. - S. Rutherford Jesus Christ came into my prison cell last night, and every stone flashed like a ruby. - S. Rutherford Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.- S. Rutherford I am glad that you have been acquainted, from your youth, with the wrestlings of God, being cast from furnace to furnace; knowing, if you were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of him, he would not spend as much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to his image in suffering, Rom. viii.17, and some do more fully resemble the copy than others.... Samuel Rutherford, letter [1629] I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith shall out- watch all this winter-night, and not nod or slumber, till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me.... Samuel Rutherford, letter [1637] A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity till he has tasted adversity. - Muslih-uddin Sadi If I want only pure water, what does it matter to me whether it be brought in a vase of gold or of glass? What is it to me whether the will of God be presented to me in tribulation or consolation, since I desire and seek only the Divine will? -- Francis de Sales Sweet are the uses of adversity, Some people change their ways when they see the light; others when they feel the heat.--Caroline Schoeder Wouldn't it be nice if our lives were like VCRS (video recorders), and we could "fast forward' through the crummy times?--Charles Schulz, Peanuts. Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit. Peter Sellers. Whatsoever is good for God's children they shall have it; for all is theirs to help them towards heaven; therefore if poverty be good they shall have it; if disgrace or crosses be good they shall have them; for all is ours to promote our greatest prosperity. --RICHARD SIBBES Measure not God's love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof. -- RichardSibbes Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.Richard Sibbes We should answer God's dealing by our dealing. He works by contraries; we should judge by contraries. Therefore, if we be in misery, hope and wait for glory, in death look for life, in sense of sin assure thyself of pardon, for God's nature and promises are unchangeable; and when God will forgive, he lets us see our troubles. Therefore with resolute Job say, 'Though he kills me, I will yet trust in him.' - RICHARD SIBBES God sends burdens, and shoulders, too. =-- Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gimpel the Fool Crosses are the ladders that lead to heaven.--Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), _Self Help_ [1859] Bless you, prison, for having been in my life. The meaning of earthly existence lies, not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul. -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had
have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed
most cruel to me, he has then been most kind. If there is
anything in this world for which I would bless him more than
for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure
that in these things the richest, tenderest love has been
manifested to me. Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls. -- Charles Spurgeon The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon As sure as God puts His children in the furnace he will be in the furnace with them. -- Charles H Spurgeon Some of us think at times that we could cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" There are seasons when the brightness of our Father's smile is eclipsed by clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us. It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ's case it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father's love; but the real turning away of God's face from His Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it caused Him? In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in His case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away from Him for a season. O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God's face, but art now in darkness, remember that He has not really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when He shines forth in all the lustre of His grace; but since even the thought that He has forsaken us gives us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when He exclaimed, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" - C H Spurgeon Morning and Evening 15 April Do not believe that any man will become a physician unless he walks the hospitals. And I am sure that no one will become a minister or a comforter unless he lies in the hospital as well as walks through it, and has to suffer himself. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _New Park Street Pulpit_ Vol. 4 [1858 Fiery trials make golden Christians.- Spurgeon's Proverbs The anvil is not afraid of the hammer. - Charles H. Spurgeon (1834 &endash; 1892) Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. Arnold Schwarzenegger A holy person is like a silver bell, the harder he is smitten, the better he sounds. -George Swinnock All [our] difficulties are only platforms for the manifestation of His grace, power and love. -- HUDSON TAYLOR From heaven even the most miserable life will look like one bad night at an inconvenient hotel. - St. THERESA Crisis does not make men, it reveals men. --Ron Tottingham What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them... we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly. --A. W. Tozer We must face today as children of tomorrow. We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come. To the pure in heart nothing really bad can happen... not death but sin should be our great fear. --A. W. Tozer By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. - Mark Twain Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind. -&endash; Leonardo da Vinci Afflictions add to the saints' glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints' cross is, the heavier will be their crown. - THOMAS WATSON The godly have some good in them, therefore the devil afflicts them; and some evil in them, therefore God afflicts them. THOMAS WATSON What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less
rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of
sin. When God lays men upon their backs, then they look up to heaven. -Thomas Watson The vessels of mercy are first seasoned with affliction, and then the wine of glory is poured in. Thus we see afflictions are but beneficial to the saints. Thomas Watson Man is born to trouble" He is heir apparent to it; he comes into the world with a cry, and goes out with a groan. -Thomas Watson Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting.-Thomas Watson There is more evil in a drop of sin, than in a sea of affliction.-Thomas Watson Whoever brings an affliction, it is God that sends it.-Thomas Watson God's people have no assurances that the dark experiences of life will be held at bay, much less that God will provide some sort of running commentary on the meaning of each day's allotment of confusion, boredom, pain, or achievement. David Wells Like many of the leaders and teacher [in the church], perhaps I failed to prepare people for the way of suffering. I had not suffered much myself and did not help people to be ready for it. But the fact is: when you follow Jesus, what happened to Him happens to you.... Todd H. Wetzel, Steadfast Faith [1997 I never feel the power of religion more than when under outward or inward trials. It is that alone which can enable any man to sustain with patience and thankfulness his bodily infirmities. - George Whitefield , journal DECEMBER 18, 1739 I always observe inward trials prepare me for, and are certain forerunners of, fresh mercies. - George Whitefield , journal: DECEMBER 1, 1739 Your extremity shall be God's opportunity.- George Whitefield letter 25 July1741 Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, buy you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.- David Whyte High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace. -Tennessee Williams, _Memoir I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness....Thus was it with....Manasseh, when he was in affliction, "He besought the Lord his God": even that king's iron was more precious to him than his gold, his jail a more happy lodging than his palace, Babylon a better school than Jerusalem. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are not, indeed, for our pleasure, but for our profit. --Abraham Wright Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths. Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths. Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission. -- Fred Allen Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. Steuart H. Britt She hung up and I set out the chess board. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons,and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armour, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency. -- Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye, Chapter 24) You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.--Norman Douglas,_South Wind_ (1917) ch. 6 I'd like to know why sociologists can't decide whether movie sex and violence has any effect on children, but there's a universal consensus that even a glimpse of a Camel will force children to become lifelong smokers. -- Jonah Goldberg Give them quality. That's the best kind of advertising. Milton S. Hershey Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in
a newspaper. You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. ~Joseph E. Levine Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, especially if the goods are worthless. ~Sinclair Lewis We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest. --Thomas Merton (1948), quoted in _Forces of Habit_, David T. Courtwright Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. --David Ogilvy (1911-____ ) Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill
bucket. We are advertised by our loving friends. William Shakespeare, King Henry VI What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public. Vilhjalmer Stefansson (11879 &endash; 1962) Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand. Why did God create man before woman? There is little serenity comparable to the serenity of the inexperienced giving advice to the experienced Take my advice, I'm not using it ...bumper sticker Got a problem? He who is always his own counsellor will often have a fool for his client. Hunte No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master. -- Ben Johnson Don't smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much or work too much. We're all on the road to the grave--but there's no reason to be in the passing lane.--Robert Orben There are three things which I consider excellent advice. First, don't smoke to excess. Second, don't drink to excess. Third, don't marry to excess. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway. Come, thieving time, take what you must, Youth is when we are always hunting greener pastures, and middle age is when we can barely mow the one we've got. Old age comes at a bad time. Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage There are three signs of old age. The first is your loss of memory, the other two I forget. You're getting old when you don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along. I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day she locked me in the cellar. Only the good die young, which explains the average age of Congressmen. God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. Every day I break my own record for the number of consecutive days I've been alive. Three ages of man. The best thing about growing older is that it takes such
a long time. Gemu ba ya hana ilimi- A beard (old age) is not a barrier to knowledge. -Hausa proverb, Nigeria. Long whiskers cannot take the place of brains. -- RUSSIAN PROVERBS Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish tokeep them in working order. - John Quincy Adams In his book _The Meaning of Faith_, Harry Emerson Fosdick gave the account of John Quincy Adams, then 80 years old as he met a friend on a Boston Street. "Good morning," said the friend, "and how is John Quincy Adams today?" "Thank you," the ex-president replied. "John Quincy Adams himself is well, quite well, thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon its foundation. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. The walls are much shattered, and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon. But he himself is quite well, quite well." This attitude has been called "body transcendence." It means you do not judge yourself solely on the state of your body. Aging does not automatically cause one to be less of a person. We can still maintain many of our abilities. As we grow older, we can continue to acquire wisdom, to love more deeply and to continue to contribute to the life of the world about us. --Charles L. Allen One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common -- discontent.-- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still endures.-- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, 2ndC A. D. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for
execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than
for settled business. Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns on water, or but writes in dust. -- Francis Bacon. 1561-1626. Of Studies. The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. Lucille Ball (1911-1989) In "An Uncommon Scold," by Abby Adams, 1989. It's sad to grow old, but nice to ripen. - Brigitte Bardot I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals. - Brigitte Bardot (1934-____)In "The Harper Book of Quotations," by Robert I. Fitzhenry, 1993. If I were younger, I'd know more. -- James Barrie A person is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. - John Barrymore To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am. Bernard M. Baruch (1870 &endash; 1965) Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life. Prov. 16:31 Old Age, n. That time in life when we condemn the vices we no longer have the enterprise to commit.The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce Grow old along with me! The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.- John Buchan (1875-1940) "The Wise Years." Age is of no importance unless you are a cheese. - Billie Burke, 1886 - 1970 If you live to the age of a hundred, you have it made because very few people die past the age of a hundred.-- BURNS, GEORGE (1896-19 We all know the troubles of old age. The bones creak; the eyes get dim, oneforgets names.. The spark does not ignite; adrenalin has lost its potency. But there is something to be said on the other side... The beauty of nature has lost none of its charm; the beauty of women none of its benediction. There is.a possibility of growing old gracefully, and with content in one's heart.~ Vannevar Bush 1890-1974, Letter, 1971 Years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the
limb; Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life. -Sebastien Chamfort I prefer old age to the alternative. -- Maurice Chevalier Age ... is a matter of feeling, not of years.--George William Curtis Old age is no place for sissies. - Bette Davis You can stay young as long as you learn. - Emily Dickinson I feel so sorry for folks who don't like to grow old. I revel in my years. They enrich me. If God should say to me, `I will let you begin over again and you may have your youth back once more,' I should say, `If You do not mind, I prefer to go on growing old.' I would not exchange the peace of mind, the abiding rest of soul, the measure of wisdom I have gained from the sweet and bitter and perplexing experiences of life. These are the best years of my life--the sweetest, and the most free from anxious care. The way grows brighter, the birds sing sweeter, the winds blow softer, the sun shines more radiantly than ever before....My `outward man' is perishing, but my `inward man' is being joyously renewed day by day.--Henry Durbanville A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of Mother or Father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.-- EINSTEIN, ALBERT (1879-1955) The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. T.S. Eliot Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. -- Benjamin Franklin An old goat is never the more reverend for his beard.--Thomas Fuller, M.D. (1654-1734), _Gnomologia_ [1732] The older I grow, the more I listen to people who don't say much. -- Germain G. Glidden There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age. - William Golding (1911-1993) I love everything that 's old,--old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine. -- Oliver Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer, act i. It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest. - S. den Hartog, Ph.D Age is not important unless you're a cheese. - Helen Hayes A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbours: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, _The Guardian Angel_, 1867 Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. -- Bob Hope The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.--Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65-8 BC)_Epistles_, bk. II, epistle ii, line 55 Middle age snuffs out more talent than ever wars or sudden deaths do. - Richard Hughes (1900 &endash;1976) Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.~Victor Hugo There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better." -- William R. Inge Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. - Pope John XXIII I am afraid, ... that health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives, must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of old age. -- Samuel Johnson, letter to James Boswell (Dec 7, 1782 So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally producs, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side. -- Samuel Johnson A perpetual conflict with natural desires seems to be the lot of our present state. In youth we require something of the tardiness and frigidity of age; and in age we must labour to recall the fire and impetuosity of youth; in youth we must learn to respect, and in age to enjoy. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #111 Most men love money and security more, and creation and
construction less, as they get older. The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.~Madeleine L'Engle The long dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity
or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather
for the Devil. It would be a good thing if young people were wise and old people were strong, but God has arranged things better. MARTIN LUTHER Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul. - General Douglas MacArthur The shadows of the evening that precedes a lovelier morning are drawing down around us both. But our God is in the shadow as in the shine, and all is and will be well: have we not seen his glory in the face of Jesus? and do we not know him a little? . . . This life is a lovely time, but I never was content with it. I look for better --- oh, so far better! I think we do not yet know the joy of mere existence. . . . May the loving Father be near you and may you know it, and be perfectly at peace all the way into the home country, and to the palace home of the living one -- the life of our life." --George MacDonald, Letter of November 11, 1894 Age ain't nothin' but a number. But age is other things
too. It is wisdom, if one has lived one's life properly. It
is experience and knowledge. And it is getting to know all
the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the
world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way
so you won't get run over. Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read! Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things. -- Melchior: Floresta Espaqola de Apothegmas o sentencias, etc., ii. 1, 20. Time, the subtle thief of youth.--John Milton (1608-1674) _On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three_ [1631] Allah has made a medicine for every disease except old age. Hadith, Abu Dawud vol.3 no.3846 p.1083 Old age is an island surrounded by death.-- Juan Montalvo, "On Beauty" The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.- Saki (1870-1916) H. H. Munro: "Reginald at the Carlton." The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills, & wills.-Richard Needham Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Satchel Paige Thanks people, that confirms my worst fears re my creeping senility. These days I walk into a room full of people and the only name I can remember is Alzheimer. -- pavlov@hotmail.com Some old women and men grow bitter with age. The more
their teeth drop out the more biting they get. No-one is ever too old to know better. - Margaret Preston There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old there is no respect for age. I missed it coming and going. --J. B. Priestly (1894-1984) As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish. -- La Rochefoucauld My mother used to say: the older you get, the better you get -unless you're a banana. ~ Rose, "The Golden Girls" The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) The years pass more quickly as we become older. --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) _Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer_ [1851], "Counsels and Maxims" Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed. -- Charles Schulz The older I wax the better I shall appear. ~WS, Henry V , 5.2 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough. --Philip Dormer Stanhope Men come of age at sixty, women at fifteen. - James Stephens -Observer, 10 Oct. 1944 Inside every older person, there's a younger person wondering what happened. Gloria Swanson (1897-1983) I think all this talk about age is foolish. Every time I'm one year older, everyone else is too.-- Gloria Swanson (1897-1983) "Swanson On Swanson," 1981. No wise man ever wished to be younger. - Jonathan Swift It is the common vice of all, in old age, to be too intent upon our interests. -- Terence. 185-159 B.C. Adelphoe .Sc.8,30.(953.) Age steals away all things, even the mind.--Virgil (70-19 BC) The longer I live, the larger allowances I make for human infirmities. --John Wesley (1703-1791) Letter, 21 Feb 1756 to Samuel Furley. Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest, soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest. J ohn Webster: Westward Hoe, act ii. sc. 2. The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. -- Oscar Wilde I am not young enough to know everything.-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) There's one advantage to being 102. No peer pressure. ~ Dennis Wolfberg My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle. - Henny Youngman A world in which men know that most of what they know is probably untrue cannot be dignified with the name of a sceptical world; it is simply an impotent and abject world, not attacking anything, but accepting everything while trusting nothing; accepting even its own incapacity to attack; accepting its own lack of authority to accept; doubting its very right to doubt. We are grateful for this public experiment and demonstration; it has taught us much. We did not believe that rationalists were so utterly mad until they made it quite clear to us. We did not ourselves think that the mere denial of our dogmas could end in such dehumanised and demented anarchy. It might have taken the world a long time to understand that what it had been taught to dismiss as mediaeval theology was often mere common sense; although the very term common sense, or communis sententia, was a mediaeval conception. But it took the world very little time to understand that the talk on the other side was most uncommon nonsense. It was nonsense that could not be made the basis of any common system, such as has been founded upon common sense. -- G K Chesterton{The Well and the Shallows, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1935, pp. 79-80} Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man's search for God. For me, they might as well talk about the mouse's search for a cat... C. S. LEWIS Agnosticism is epistemologically self-contradictory on its own assumptions because its claim to make no assertion about ultimate reality rests upon a most comprehensive assertion about ultimate reality -- Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) Avoid alliteration. Always Apt alliteration 's artful aid. -- Charles Churchill. 1731-1764. The Prophecy of Famine. Line 86. Avoid awkward or affected alliteration. William Safire Ambition is the mother of all Heresies...Almost all corruptions of doctrine flow from the pride of men. - John Calvin (Acts 20:30) There are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice.--Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Ambition is a commendable attribute, without which no man succeeds. Only inconsiderate ambition imperils. Warren Harding (1865-1923): Speech, 3 May 1922. I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere moneymaking has never been my goal. I had an ambition to build. --John D. Rockefeller, Sr, in Allen Nevins, _Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller_, v. 1 Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -- Mark Twain Americans don't dine. They gobble, gulp, and go. In Southern Nevada, there is only a screen door between you and hell. --- an early settler The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred
character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in
at number 79. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --John Adams America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well- wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.-- John Quincy Adams Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. - Dave Barry O beautiful for pilgrim feet I do not know how a man can be an American, even if he is
not a Christian, and not catch something with regard to
God's purpose as to this great land. A tramp in Britain is a bum in America, while a bum in Britain is a fanny in America, while a fanny in Britain....well, we've covered that. ~ Bryson Mother Tongue The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. --Edmund Burke. 1729-1797.Speech on the Conciliation of America. P. 123. The United States was Scotland realized beyond the seas. - Andrew Carnegie The Americans are a funny lot; they drink whiskey to keep them warm; then they put some ice in it to keep it cool; they put some sugar in it to make it sweet; and then they put a slice of lemon in it to make it sour. Then they say "here's to you" and drink it themselves.-- B. N. Chakravaty The Yankee is a dab at electricity and crime, The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. --Calvin Coolidge, quoted by Cal Thomas, "Silent Cal Speaks: Why Calvin Coolidge is the Model for Conservative Leadership Today" http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL576.cfm I'd move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England, and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack. RUSSEL CROWE, {Interview in Movieline Magazine} Their demeanour is invariably morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive. I should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humor, vivacity, or the capacity for enjoyment. -- Charles Dickens (about Americans) I desperately want my children, and one day (God willing) my grandchildren and their descendants, to have the option of living peacefully and productively in the United States of America. I am certain this depends upon America regaining its Christian - oriented moral compass. - Rabbi Daniel Lapin, America's Real War ...the choice is between a benign Christian culture and a sinister secular one. - Rabbi Daniel Lapin, America's Real War p.14 On July 4, 1776, King George III wrote in his diary, "Nothing of importance today." --Leonard W. Levy, first line of Introduction, _The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution_, co-editor Dennis J. Mahoney, 1987 Why ... do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now. - -- Michael Gove, "The hatred of America is the socialism of fools" Unless the present progress of change be arrested by an increase of taste and judgement in the more educated classes, there can be no doubt that, in another century, the dialect of the Americans will become utterly unintelligible to an Englishman. - Thomas Hamilton (a Scot ) in Men and Manners in America, 1833 Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Nor were they (the Scots) intimidated by their new environment. On the contrary, it had a certain familiar feel: an Anglo-Saxon privileged elite who dominated politics and government; an Anglicized urban middle class divided into competing protestant sects; Irish immigrant workers crowded into growing industrial cities; an inaccessible interior governed by tribal warrior societies about to be displaced by the forces of progress - here was Scotland all over again. - - Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, 2001, p 328 Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America. --.Eric Hoffer, First Things, Last Things, p. 71. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without a rebellion. - Thomas Jefferson In the 1770's surveying the immensity and diversity of London, Dr. Samuel Johnson laid down: "Sir, a man who is tired of London is tired of life." The saying could be rephrased today. A man who hatesAmerica hates humanity.- Paul Johnson I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.-- Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson 15 April 1778 When it comes to finding available men in Minnesota, the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Garrison Keillor Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above- average. - Garrison Keillor Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams. Mary Ellen Kelly It was afterwards by the them confessed, that upon the arrival of the English in these parts, the Indians employed their sorcerers, whom they call powaws, like Balaam, to curse them, and let loose their demons upon them, to shipwreck them, to distract them, to poison them, or in any way to ruin them. All the noted powaws in the country spent three days together in diabolical conjurations, to obtain the assistance of the devils against the settlement of these our English; but the devils at length acknowledged unto them, that they could not hinder those people from their becoming the owners and masters of the country; whereupon the Indians resolved upon a good correspondence with our new-comers.- Cotton Mather (Magnalia, v.1 p.55). If the general attitude of Canadians toward their mighty
neighbor to the south could be distilled into a single
phrase, that phrase would probably be "Oh, shut up." The
Americans talked too much, mainly about themselves. Their
torrid love affair with their own history and legend
exceeded--painfully--the quasi-British Canadian idea of
modesty and self-restraint. ... They were forever busting
their buttons in spasms of insufferable yahoo pride or all
too publicly agonizing over their crises. Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.-- RUSS MacDONALD The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. attrib. to H. L. Mencken The United States is the greatest single achievement of European civilization. --Robert B. Mowat (1883-1941) It's time to say that America is a better place to be a Jew than Jerusalem. If there ever was a promised land, we Jewish Americans are living in it. Rabbi Jacob Neusner, 1987 North American is tilted in such a way that everything loose slides to Southern California. --Donna Newton We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen.--Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.-- ROBERT ORBEN, (1927-) Each American embassy comes with two permanent features--a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards. P. J. O'Rourke Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force to an immovable object. Laurence J. Peter Watching all the assorted stuff going on in the US in recent months from a distance an Aussy cyberfriend commented that he was glad they got the convicts and we got the puritans. Robert Pindell (USA) Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. --Ayn Rand,_America's Persecuted Minority_ The Constitution does not set up agnosticism as the established non-religion of the United States. --Daniel P. B. Smith, alt .quotations, 22 Feb 2000 Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. -- Joseph Sobra I'd rather the United States be the world's policeman than the Soviet Union be the world's jailer.-- Aleksander Solzhenitsyn American prosperity and American free enterprise are both highly unusual in the world, and we should not overlook the possibility that the two are connected. - Thomas Sowell One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual (and more exciting) principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys." -- Thomas Sowell The reason we fear to go out after dark is not that we may be set upon by bands of evangelicals and forced to read the New Testament, but that we may be set upon by gangs of feral young people who have been taught that nothing is superior to their own needs of feelings. - David C. Stolinsky, "American : A Christian Country," New Oxford Review Jul-Aug 1994 America, my friends, is the only country in the world actually founded on liberty-- the only one. People went to America to be free. -- Margaret Thatcher I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her
comodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not
there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies; and it
was not there; in her rich mines and her vast commerce, and
it was not there. Not until I visited the churches of
America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did
I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is
great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be
good, America will cease to be great. Of the twenty-two civilisations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now. Arnold Toynbee I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her
comodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not
there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies; and it
was not there; in her rich mines and her vast commerce, and
it was not there. Not until I visited the churches of
America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did
I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is
great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be
good, America will cease to be great. America is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for democracy -- and won't cross the street to vote in a national election. Bill Vaughan [I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. --Daniel Webster I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor deluded rebels in America. -- John Wesley, Journal, Aug 1, 1777 Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language. -- Oscar Wilde, THE CANTERVILLE GHOST, I. We planted last spring some 20 acres of Indian corn and sowed some 6 acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at our doorsteps. We began to gather in the small harvest we had, and to fit up our houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. Others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All summer there was no lack. And now began to come in store of fowl as winter approached. And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which we took many, besides deer and other animals. Our harvest being gotten in, Governor Bradford sent four men on fowling and they in one day killed enough fowl to serve our company for a week. During this time, among other recreations, we exercised with our weapons, many of the Indians also coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out themselves and killed five deer, which they brought back to our settlement. Edward Winslow & William Bradford , from "Mourt's Relation " and "Of Plymouth Plantation"). Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings. -- George Will The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. -- The Duke of Windsor, Look, March 5, 1957 We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules. - Alan Bennnett A genealogist is one who chases his own tale. Old genealogists never die. They just lose their census. The gentleman will please remember that when his
half-civilised ancestors were hunting the wild boar in
Silesia, mine were princes of the earth. Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon. --Disraeli (reply to a taunt by Daniel O'Connell We cannot reform our forefathers. --George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859 Ah, yes, but they will make fine ancestors. Oh well, it's right that the members of these old families should stick together nowadays. After all, their ancestors in those days were probably chained together. -- Billy Hughes (1864-1952) speaking about a rival candidate standing for election in North Sydney, 1931 A nation is a society united by a delusion about it's
ancestry and by a common hatred of it's neighbours. Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes
friends with its grandfathers. The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry, is like the potato--the best part under ground. - Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 &endash; 1613) The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves very lightly. Chesterton Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Keep cool; anger is not an argument. Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind. The trouble with letting off steam is-- it only gets you into more hot water. For every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness. Swallowing angry words is much better than having to eat them. The best answer to anger is silence. -- German Proverb Little folk are soon angry. -- Scots Proverb How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. - Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121 &endash; 180) It is easy to fly into a passion--anybody can do that--but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time with the right object and in the right way--that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it. -- Aristotle He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. -- Proverbs: 16:32 A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation overthings evil. Henry Ward Beecher Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong. -- Charlotte Bronte An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. --Marcus Porcius Cato An angry man is full of poison. -- Confucius Anger is never without a reason but seldom a good one. -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size? -Sydney J. Harris Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.-Robert G. Ingersoll Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.... Thomas A. Kempis Resentment is an extremely bitter diet, and eventually poisonous. I have no desire to make my own toxins. -Neil Kinnock Anger always comes from frustrated expectations. - Elliott Larson It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired
or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to
ourselves. I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened,my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. Martin Luther (1483-1546), Table-Talk, 319 Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us in a rage. -- Andre Maurois No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched. -George Jean Nathan Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.-- Thomas Paine Anger is not only inevitable, it is necessary. Its absence means indifference, the most disastrous of all human failings. -Arthur Ponsonby When a man curls his lip, when he uses ridicule, when he grows angry, you have touched a raw nerve in domination.~ Sheila Rowbotham, Woman's Consciousness, Man's World Francis Schaeffer knew when the Bible said 'in your anger
do not sin' it implied anger itself was natural but striking
out unfairly because of anger was wrong. Yet he suffered
outbursts of anger his entire life, and in his anger Francis
did sin, long after he accepted the authority of the Bible.
In his freshman year in college in 1931 he snapped and
pummeled an abusive upperclassman. Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us that injury that provokes it. -- Seneca Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man. -Anthony Shaftesbury Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.-- William Shakespeare He never let the sun go down on his anger, though there were some colourful sunsets while it lasted. ~ A.A. Thomson in Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England (1979 - [speaking of W.G. Grace] Boredom is rage spread thin. -- Paul Tillich (1886-1965) I love animals, they are delicious. The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from the onlookers. A minute later they were both eaten by a killer whale. Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart. Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.... People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. A lady came up to me on the street, pointed at my suede jacket and said, "Don't you know a cow was murdered for that jacket?" I said "I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too".- George Carlin Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. ~George Eliot (1819-1880), Scenes of Clerical life (1858) Many years ago when an adored dog died a great friend, a bishop, said to me, "You must always remember that, as far as the Bible is concerned, God only threw the humans out of Paradise." Bruce Foyle "Pets and Their People" A lady came up to me on the street and pointed at my
suede jacket. "You know a cow was murdered for that jacket?"
she sneered. I replied in a psychotic tone, "I didn't know
there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you
too." It isn't easy being green. - Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson: 1936 &endash; 1990) My favorite animal is steak -Fran Lebowitz Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen
fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop
the world so that we can all get off. Because we can expect future generations to be richer than we are, no matter what we do about resources, asking us to refrain from using resources now so that future generations can have them later is like asking the poor to make gifts to the rich. -- Julian Simon Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judaeo-Christian Religious tradition. -- Peter Singer Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are
restless until they find their rest in thee. Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their place,
but believe not that man changes his nature.
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. --George Eliot [Marian Evans Cross] (1819-1880) _Silas Marner_ [1861], Chapter 18 The particular antimony which concerns us here is the apparent opposition between divine sovereignty and human responsiblilty, or (putting it more biblically) what He God does as King and what He does as Judge. Scripture teaches that, as King, He orders and controls all things, human actions among them, in accordance with His own eternal purpose.* Scripture also teaches that, as Judge, He holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues.** Thus, hearers of the gospel are responsible for their reaction; if they reject the good news, they are guilty of unbelief. 'He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed...' Again, Paul, entrusted with the gospel, is responsible for preaching it; if he neglects his commission, he is penalized for unfaithfulness. 'Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe to me, if I preach not the gospel!' God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are taught us side by side in the same Bible; sometimes, indeed, in the same text.(Luke 22:22; "And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" NKJV) Both are thus guaranteed to us by the same divine authority; both, therefore, are true. It follows that they must be held together, and not played off against each other. Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled though he is a responsible moral agent. God's sovereignty is a reality, and man's responsiblilty is a reality too.--JI Packer "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God." page 22 Can you understand it, for I cannot, how a man is a free agent, a responsible agent, so that his sin is his own willful sin and lies with him and never with God, and yet at the same time God's purposes are fulfilled and his will is done even by demons and corrupt men? I cannot comprehend it: without hesitation I believe it, and rejoice so to do , I never hope to comprehend it. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon There are two great truths which from this platform I have proclaimed for many years. The first is that salvation is free to every man who will have it; the second is that God gives salvation to a people whom He has chosen; and these truths are not in conflict with each other in the least degree. CHARLES SPURGEON The Bible teaches that both God is in control and that people make real choices. These two truths go side by side throughout the Scriptures. The Bible absolutely does not teach fatalism. But neither does it teach that people are absolutely free and autonomous. The effects of the Fall and our very natures restrain us. This is called an antinomy. That is (per the American Heritage Dictionary) "A contradiction between principles or conclusions that seem equally necessary and reasonable."--Mike Walbert Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday Worry is like riding a roller coaster. It scares the wits out of you, and you always end up right where you started. Only a lack of imagination saves me from immobilizing myself with imaginary fears. If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system. Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy. Don't worry about the world ending today . . . It's already tomorrow in Australia. Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by
the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith. Only a lack of imagination saves me from immobilizing myself with imaginary fears. Dear God, Worry is the darkroom in which negatives are developed. Worry is a think stream of fear which, if encouraged, becomes a wide channel into which all other thoughts flow. Ulcers aren't the result of what you eat. You get ulcers from what's eating you. When we put our cares in God's hands, He puts His peace in our hearts. There are two days in every week we should never worry about, two days that should be kept free from fear and apprehension. One is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its aches and pains, its faults and blunders.Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday.We cannot undo a single act we performed, nor erase a single word we've said Yesterday is gone. The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow, with its impossible adversaries, its burden, its hopeful promise and unknown performance.Tomorrow is beyond our control.Tomorrow's sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds ...but it will rise ... and until it does.We have no stake in tomorrow, for it is as yet unborn.This leaves only one day: TODAY! Anyone can fight the battles of just one day.It is only when we add the burdens of yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives people mad.It is the remorse of bitterness for something that happened yesterday, and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Make TODAY the best day it can be, and live one day at a time! Worrying is like a rocking chair. It´s something to do, but it won´t get you anywhere. Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.... Swedish Proverb Always remember that the future comes one day at a time. Dean Acheson (1893-1971) "Sketches From Life." O Lord! how happy should we be, For when we kneel and cast our care O may these anxious hearts of ours You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now. -- Joan Baez (1941-____) What if we knew for certain that everything we're worried about today will work out fine? What if . . . we knew the future was going to be good, and we would have an abundance of resources and guidance to handle whatever comes our way? What if . . . we knew everything was okay, and we didn't have to worry about a thing? What would we do then? We'd be free to let go and enjoy life. -- Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it. Robert Benchley Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.-- Ps. 55:22 Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared. --Proverbs 3:25-26 Be anxious for nothing- but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. -Phil. 4: 6-7 Much that worries us beforehand can afterwards, quite unexpectedly, have a happy and simple solution. Worries just don't matter. Things really are in a better hand than ours. -- DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.-- Corrie ten Boon The bridges you cross before you come to them are over rivers that aren't there. - Gene Brown Think of the ills from which you are exempt, and it will aid you to bear patiently those which may never come.-- Richard Cecil When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.-- Winston Churchill If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars. -- A. H. Clough, "Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow; and when we lie down at night we may safely say to most of our troubles, "Ye have done your worst, and we shall see you no more."--- William Cowper I think these difficult times have helped me to realize how infinitely rich and beautiful life is. And that so many things one worries about are of no importance whatsoever. -- Isaak Dinesen I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. Dorothy Dix (1870-1951)"Dorothy Dix, Her Book," Introduction. As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.-Thomas A. Edison The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. -- Robert Frost He that fears not the future may enjoy the present-- Thomas Fuller Things happen more frequently in the future than they do in the past. - Booth Gardner (1936 &endash; ) I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came.- James A. Garfield (1831 &endash; 1881) An undivided heart, which worships God alone and trusts him as it should, is raised above all anxiety for earthly wants. Geikie Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short God and His will for us.--Billy Graham If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine. -- Horace If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.S---Elbert Hubbard Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.---William R. Inge When you're at the end of the tether, remember that God is at the other end. - Seen outside a church, by David Jackman, in The Communicators Commentary, Ruth1. It would be undoubtedly best, if we could see and hear everything as it is, that nothing may be too anxiously dreaded, or too ardently pursued. - Samuel Johnson: Idler #50 Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God. -- Thomas A. Kempis Anxiety is not only a pain which we must ask God to assuage but also a weakness we must ask Him to pardon &emdash; for He's told us to take no care for the morrow. - C. S.Lewis, letter ,NOVEMBER 27, 1953 My grandmother was a Jewish juggler: she used to worry about six things at once. Richard Lewis I have a better Caretaker than you and all the angels. He it is who lies in a manger ... but at the same time sits at the right hand of God, the almighty Father. Therefore be at rest. -- Martin Luther , letter to his wife Kate: 1546, eleven days before his death. Pray, and let God worry. -Martin Luther [b. 11/10/1483], in the last letter written to his wife Katy, before his death on 2/18/1546] Worriers spend a lot of time shoveling smoke.-- Claude McDonald It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the future to Him and mind the present. -- George MacDonald Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. --Thomas Merton (1915-1968) _No Man Is An Island_ [1955], "Prologue" In grief we know the worst of what we feel, But who can tell the end of what we fear? -Hannah More The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. --George Mueller (1805-1898) _Sign of the Times_ I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of faggots, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to the load, before we are required to bear it. -- John Newton (1725-1807) Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all. -- Ovid Don't take tomorrow to bed with you.--Norman Vincent Peale He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over. Beilby Porteus I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. -Charles Schulz Nothing is more destined to create deep-seated anxieties in people than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.--Fulton J. Sheen 'Each day has troubles enough of its own' So why anticipate them? If we do, we double them. For if our fear does not materialize, we have worried once for nothing; if it does materialize, we have worried twice instead of once. In both cases; it is foolish: worry doubles trouble.-- John R. W. Stott A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly troubles. -- B B Warfield Worry, the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. -- George Washington (1732-1799) Doth God give us a Christ, and will he deny us a crust? If God doth not give us what we crave, He will give us what we need. -- THOMAS WATSON Immoderate care takes the heart off from better things; and usually while we are thinking how we shall do to live, we forget how to die. We may sooner by our care add a furlong to our grief, than a foot to our comfort. THOMAS WATSON Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it. Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. We may have found a cure for most evils; but [we have] found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings. - Helen Keller An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be. -- Baroness Orczy Cooks and preachers should not apologise. The recipients of their labours may not know about anything better. GJW The language [of the apostate] is "We have known and tried these things, and declare their folly." Now, no man living can attempt a higher dishonour against Jesus Christ, in his person or in any of his ways, than openly to profess that upon trial of them they find nothing in them for which they should be desired. John Owen VOL 7 p.49 Appreciate me now, and avoid the rush.-- Ashleigh Brilliant You get appreciation by giving it. Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime. Dale Carnegie If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities. -- Bob Conklin The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. - William James Brains are like hearts -- they go where they are appreciated --- Robert McNamara (1916-____).In "The New Book of Christian Quotations," by Tony Castle, 1982. It's hard for a fellow to keep a chip on his shoulder if you allow him to take a bow.--- Billy Rose I never criticize anyone. The way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. Charles Schwab When you argue with a fool, chances are he is doing just the same. If you spend all of your time arguing with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be nuts. "Dilbert", Scott Adams Arguments with furniture are rarely productive.-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" When two quarrel, both are to blame.... Dutch Proverb If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world. -- Joseph Addison It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. -- Pierre De Beaumarchais We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself. -- Samuel Butler Where two discourse, if the one's anger rise, The man who lets the contest fall is wise. --Euripides (c. 485-406 BC), _Protesilaus_ Silence is argument carried on by other means. - Che Guevara (1928 &endash; 1967) Very slender differences will sometimes part those whom long reciprocation of civility or beneficence has united. -- Samuel Johnson: Idler #23 By persuading others, we convince ourselves. ~ Franciscus Junius 1589-1677, The Letters of Junius (1768) Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side. La Rochefoucauld, Maxims It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.-- Montaigne Half the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. We need not dispute, we need not prove, we need but define. At all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all and then see who are left for us to dispute; what is left for us to prove. -- John Newman [F]requently the more trifling the subject the more animated and protracted the discussion. Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) In "The Forbes Book of Business Quotations," by Ted Goodman, 1997 A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent. Thomas Jefferson The strongest reason for the people to retain the right
to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect
themselves against tyranny in government. An armed society is a polite society. -- Robert A. Heinlein This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilised nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! Adolph Hitler, 1935 Buy old masters. They fetch a better price than old mistresses. -- attributed to Lord Beaverbrook(1879-1964) Abstract art? A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers -- and never succeeding. ~ Marc Chagall The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in the strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce anything they like. They are free to write a _Paradise Lost_ in which Satan shall conquer God. They are free to write a _Divine Comedy_ in which heaven shall be under the floor of hell. And what have they done? Have they produced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by the fierce Ghibelline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan schoolmaster? ... Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them at their own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you will not find a finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you find the grandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it who described Faranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell. --G. K. Chesterton, _Heretics_, 1905 ..no nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow -and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals ~ Kenneth Clark, The Nude Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) A: "Orthodoxy," 1908. A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. -- Goethe (1749-1832) Matisse's painting "Le Bateau" hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for forty-seven days before anyone noticed (October 18 to December 4, 1961). In that period 116,000 people had visited the gallery. --Jean Cocteau (1890-1963) _Past Tense: Diaries_, Volume 1 [1987] Pablo Picasso resisted school stubbornly and seemed completely unable to learn to read or write. To other students grew used to seeing him come late with his pet pigeon -- and with the paintbrush he always carried as if it were an extension of his own body. -- Mildred & Victor Goertzel If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed. - David Hockney (1937 &endash; ) Painting consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson) If God is and remains Sovereign, then art can work no
enchantment except in keeping with the ordinances which God
ordained for the beautiful, when He, as the Supreme Artist,
called this world into existence. And further, if God is and
remains Sovereign, then He also imparts these artistic gifts
to whom He will, first even to Cain's, and not to Abel's
posterity; not as if art were Cainitic, but in order that he
who has sinned away the highest gifts, should at least, as
Calvin so beautifully says, in the lesser gifts of art have
some testimony of the Divine bounty." All art worthy of the name is religious. -- Henri Matisse Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding. - Giancarlo Menotti (1911 &endash; ) Secondly, pictures of Christ are in principle a violation of the second commandment. A picture of Christ, if it serves any useful purpose, must evoke some thought or feeling respecting him and, in view of what he is, this thought or feeling will be worshipful. We cannot avoid making the picture a medium of worship. But since the materials for this medium of worship are not derived from the only revelation we possess respecting Jesus, namely, Scripture, the worship is constrained by a creation of the human mind that has no revelatory warrant. This is will worship. For the principle of the second commandment is hat we are to worship God only in ways prescribed and authorized by him. It is a grievous sin to have worship constrained by a human figment, and that is what a picture of the Saviour involves. -- John Murray The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? ~ Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. -- Pablo Picasso It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on
as long as something has been said. Technique is just a
means of arriving at a statement. Jack the Dripper --sobriquet of Pollock The learned understand the theory of art, the unlearned its pleasure. -- Quintilian (35-90 A.D.) De Institutione Oratoria If I am walking in an art gallery and see a beautiful painting, it may be good to praise the Lord, and to thank Him for that great gift. The thing is beautiful, and therefore a joy and spiritually rich . . . But more than likely it will not even occur to us, for we place the arts out of the context of life, making them something autonomous; or say that the gift is just 'natural,' so opposing nature to grace, forgetting that there is no 'nature' that is out of God's creation. No: let us give praise to God for every manifestation of His gifts.H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 244. An art work has value as a creation because man is made
in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and
think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create.
Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to
have creativity. In fact, it is part of the image of God to
be creative, or to have creativity. We never find an animal,
non-man, making a work of art. On the other hand, we never
find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the
world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the
distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some
degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our
„mannishness. I am sick of shit masquerading as art. Brian Sewell on The Turner Prize, 1998, Evening Standard Art is the signature of civilization.-Beverly Sills (1929-____): Interview - 1985 Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us
many objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination
without skill gives us modern art. One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passers by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.- Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) "Artists in Quotation," by Donna Ward La Cour, 1989. To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano. James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies," "Propositions," 1890. You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) In "Whistler Stories," by D. C. Seitz, 1913. In material and moral terms, assimilation was always the best option for indigenous peoples confronted with the fact of white dominance. That is the conclusion reached by the historian who studies the fate not only of the American Indians but of the aborigines in Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand. To be preserved in amber as tribal societies with special 'rights' and 'claims' is merely a formula for continuing friction, extravagant expectations, and new forms of exploitation by white radical intellectuals --Paul Johnson Oh, then be ashamed, Christians, that worldlings are more
studious and industrious to make sure of pebbles, than you
are to make sure of pearls. Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated
experimental proof of the Lord's power and goodness to save;
when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely
wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given
up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and
placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated
to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to
trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and
against appearances: and this trust, when habitual and
strong, bears the name of assurance; for even assurance has
degrees. Assurance encourateth us in our combat; it delivers us not from it. We may have peace with God when we have done from the assaults of Satan.- JOHN OWEN Assurance I consider as the ring which God puts upon faith's finger..."A weak hand may tie the marriage-knot; and a feeble faith may lay hold on a strong Christ"... A wife may lose her wedding ring. But that does not dissove the marriage-relation. She continues a lawful wife still. And yet she is not easy until she find her ring again.-- A. Toplady--Works, p.442 When the witness and the fruit of the Spirit meet together, there can be no stronger proof that we are of God.-- John Wesley , letter: 31 March 1787 Here lies an Atheist I tried atheism for a while, but my faith just wasn't strong enough. Atheism is a non prophet organisation The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. Atheists believe that Nobody is responsible for this mess. Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure
of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism
would deny. I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." -Isaac Asimov, in "Free Inquiry", Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9 They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. -Francis Bacon We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians. - Nicolai A. Berdyaev If atheism spread, it would become a religion as intolerable as the ancient ones. ~ Gustave le Bon 1841-1931, Aphorisms du temps présent You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. I am not like you. ~Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 -1821 Judge Bork was telling of a Supreme Court case he was
involved with, regarding religion in schools. Between court
appearances he remarked to the atheists that they should
have gone to Congress to achieve their goal. They said that
they had. He asked what the reply was. "They told us to go
to Hell!" He that doth not believe that there is a God, is more
vile then a devil. To deny there is a God, is a sort of
atheism that is not to be found in hell. Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God. --Heywood Broun They love talking about it and they hate hearing about it . . . I fancy there is more than meets the eye in this curious controversial attitude; the desire to ask rhetorical questions and not to ask real questions; the wish to heckle and not to hear. ~G.K. Chesterton, The Thing, (1929) The two most evangelical groups in the world are atheists and vegetarians, especially the least knowledgeable and least intelligent individuals within those groups.- Clark Coleman Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property. Jeremy Collier The three great apostles of practical atheism that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are health, wealth, and power. --Charles Caleb Colton TThere are no atheists in foxholes.--William Thomas Cummings (1903-1944) (Field sermon, Bataan [1942]; From Carlos P. Romulo's _I Saw the Fall of the Philippines_ [1942]) The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.- Charles Darwin The total amount of suffering per year in the natural
world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute
that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of
animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for
their lives, whimpering with fear, others are being slowly
devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all
kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must
be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact
will automatically lead to an increase in population until
the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through
the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the
foremost conceit of the proud atheist. This heady notion was
first made popular by French intellectuals such as Voltaire
and Diderot, who ushered in the so-called Age of
Enlightenment. The atheist is without God but not without faith, for today he puts his trust in the investigative method known as science, whether he understands it or not. Since there are very few minds capable of grasping higher-level physics, let alone following their implications, and since specialization means that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest developments in the more esoteric fields, the atheist stands with utter confidence on an intellectual foundation comprised of things of which he knows nothing. In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this, except when he fails to admit that he is not actually operating on reason in this regard, but is instead exercising a faith that is every bit as blind and childlike as that of the most unthinking Bible-thumping fundamentalist. --Vox Day, "The irrational atheist" Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior. -Vox Day IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST, THEN EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. -- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) But what grounds the right of self-ownership itself? The answer, according to Locke, was that it derives from God. How? God, being the creator of everything that exists other than Himself - including us - is the ultimate owner of everything that exists - including us. Therefore, when a person harms another person by killing him, stealing from him, and so forth, he in effect violates the rights of God, because he damages what is God's property. To respect God's rights over us, therefore, we must recognize our duty not to kill, harm, or steal from each other, which entails treating each other as having certain rights relative to each other - the rights to life, liberty, and property. And these rights can usefully be summed up as rights of self-ownership. But ultimately, as it turns out, we don't really own ourselves: God does. Relative to Him, we are merely "leasing" ourselves, as it were, and are accountable to Him for how we use His property. Relative to other human beings, however, we are in effect self-owners; we must treat others as if they owned themselves, and not use them as if they were our property. That Locke's version of classical liberalism favors a decidedly religious social order should be obvious. Of course, Locke is also famous for promoting the idea of religious toleration, and would vehemently reject the suggestion that any particular denomination or its teachings ought to be promoted by government. But Locke was nevertheless very far in his thinking from the interpretation of the doctrine of the separation of church and state favored by the ACLU. For he also held that toleration cannot be extended to atheists, precisely because their denial of the existence of God amounted, in his view, to the denial of the very foundations of the moral order in general, and the classical liberal political order in particular. In Locke's estimation, if the suggestion that liberalism entails a right of toleration of atheism isn't exactly a self-contradiction, it will do until the real thing comes along; for the existence of any rights at all presupposes the falsity of atheism. -- Edward Feser, The Trouble with Libertarianism http://www.techcentralstation.com/072004C.html But the thing I've really never understood about atheists is why try to find fault with a religion based mainly on treating others the way you'd like to be treated? ~ Benjamin Furleigh, Mason City Globe Gazette (Jan 13 1997) It amazes me to find an intelligent person who fights against something which he does not at all believe exists. ~Mohandas Gandhi Only in Atheism does the spring rise higher than the source, the effect exist without the cause, life come from a stone, blood from a turnip, a silk purse from a sow's ear, a Beethoven Symphony or a Bach Fugue from a kitten walking across the keys..... --James M. Gillis I'm an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself-Christopher Hitchens_Free Inquiry_, Fall 1996 To admit there is no god is to provide free license to
pillage and rape with clear conscience. We have grown used to a Godless universe, but we are not yet accustomed to one which is loveless as well, and only when we have so become shall we realize what atheism really means.-- Joseph Wood Krutch But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master? - Milan Kunder Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. --C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain 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? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.--C.S. Lewis _Mere Christianity_ The only atheism is the denial of truth. --Arthur Lynch There are absolute atheists ... Absolute atheism is in no way a mere absence of belief in God. It is rather a refusal of God, a fight against God, a challenge to God. ~ Maritain Jacques In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners.~Jonathon Miller In agony or danger, no nature is atheist. The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God. --Henry More (1614-1687) I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. --Thomas Nagel _The Last Word_ In America, however, most of our atheists are actually thinly disguised Christians, or sometimes thinly disguised Jews, who want to retain the humanism taught by the Creator, without believing in the Creator. They believe in the image of God, without believing in God. They want the Kingdom of God &emdash; the Kingdom of compassion, justice, peace, love, integrity, honesty, and commitment &emdash; without God, the King. -- Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?" One must feel sorry for atheists. They seem so lonely. Alone not only under the vast stars of a summer's night, in all this immense cosmos. And passing through it as we do all, as evanescently as fireflies. But alone also in this religion-drenched country, most of whose public spaces reek of faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. -- Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?" Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society. --Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?" And what will happen to our own civilization, when the full atheistic agenda of the ACLU has finally and completely been accomplished? When there is no one who can speak publicly, under government auspices, about the ground of our rights? When no public symbols or ceremonies remind the young of these sacred sources, from whose depths alone spring their special nobility and unique calling? When the United States of America has thoroughly abandoned in public the faith of our forebears, and only the desolate winds of atheism blow across our monuments? When our rights are reduced to those of a barnyard? Poor ACLU. No more than the Jacobins of France in 1789 do they know what they do. Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?" What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself? Does he think that in that way he will have straightway persuaded us to have complete confidence in him, to look to him for consolation, for advice, and for help, in the vicissitudes of life? Do such men think that they have delighted us by telling us that they hold our souls to be nothing but a little wind and smoke -- and by saying it in conceited and complacent tones? Is that a thing to say blithely? Is it not rather a thing to say sadly -- as if it were the saddest thing in the world?... -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensee Infidelity reproves nothing that is bad. It only ridicules and denounces all that is good. It tears down, but never builds up; destroys, but never imparts life; attacks religion, but offers no adequate substitute. ~ P. Pavlov (1849 -1936) Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to the acknowledgement of a divine power.--Plato (428-348 BC) Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding. -- Plato It is better to have no opinion of God at all than such as one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only unbelief--the other is contempt. --Plutarch (46-120) I started to believe in God when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was simply puzzled by what my school teachers told me. They repeated to us many times that God did not exist. And I wondered who it was that did not exist with such power that people couldn't stop talking about him. It was useless to ask my teachers about it because I already knew what their answer would be. And it was useless to ask my parents because they always avoided the topic. So I thought this was some dangerous secret and I decided to find out for myself who this God is...It wasn't God's power that interested me. I was just a small girl and everyone around me was more powerful than me and could punish me...I learnt that God was kind and that he loves me. This is something I desperately needed. - Irina Ratushinskaya Irina Ratushinskaya, a Ukrainian poet, who on her 29th birthday in March 1983, received a seven-year prison sentence for expressing "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" in her verses; these seven years of hard labor were to be followed by five years of internal exile. For those who are adamant that "conscience" provides knowledge of an objective moral order, Nietzsche replies that such an "inner voice" is merely a construct of history, instinct and social practice. He asks, "But why do you listen to the voice of conscience? And what gives you the right to consider such a judgment true and infallible? … Your judgment "this is right" has a pre-history in your instincts, like,dislikes, experiences, and lack of experiences …. [T]hat you feel something to be right…may be due to the fact that you never thought much about yourself and simply have accepted blindly what you have been told ever since your childhood was right." "It is selfish to experience one's own judgment [of conscience] as a universal law ~~ Thomas Raucherstein, Nietzsche and Rorty on Morality and the Death of God (2000) [The] belief that a groundless ethic can promote an increase in tolerance and peace is simply false. Historical examples indicate that atheism has contributed (directly) to the most horrific totalitarian regimes the world has ever seen. If God is dead, then one can certainly conclude that humanity is dead as well. In the absence of God, there is no one to have mercy on our souls.~ Thomas Raucherstein, Nietzsche and Rorty on Morality and the Death of God (2000) That God does not exist, I cannot deny, There are three possible kinds of God: the god of one's own ego, in which the atheist believes, and which is also the god of modern confusionism; the god of nature, of stone and gold and silver, which belonged to the old religions of idolatry; and the Supreme God, who made both man and nature, and redeemed them both upon the cross. Those who tell us that they deny the existence of God are merely substituting one god for another. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _On Being Human_ [1982] The modern atheist is always angered when he hears anything said about God and religion. He would be incapable of such a resentment if God were only a myth. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979), _Peace of Soul_ [1954] Infidelity is seated in the heart; its origin is not in the head. It is the wish that Christianity might not be true, that leads to an argument to prove it. ~Charles Simmons 1798-1856 Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God. -- Tom Stoppard God doesn't believe in atheists. -- Thomas A. Sundberg Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position. ~ John Updike If one is going to eliminate the creator of all things, then it is a good idea to replace the creator with a very clear idea of what constitutes goodness in the human scale. ~Gore Vidal, Creation The atheist's most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something, but can't think of anybody to thank for it.--Mary Ann Vincent (1818-1887) The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability. --Voltaire (1694-1778) _Philosophical Dictionary_ [1764] Most of the great men of this world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his eyes open, knows that the knowledge of a God, his presence,and his justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, the objects of ambition, interest, or pleasure, in the pursuit of which they are wholly occupied. -- Voltaire I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up -- they have no holidays.-- Henny Youngman .I have heard some say that the three most beautiful words are "It is finished". On the mount of crucifixion, ..if the death of Christ on the cross is the true meaning
of the Incarnation, then there is no gospel without the
cross. Christmas by itself is no gospel. The life of Christ
is no gospel. Even the resurrection, important as it is in
the total scheme of things, is no gospel by itself. For the
good news is not just that God became man, nor that God has
spoken to reveal a proper way of life for us, or even that
death, the great enemy, is conquered. Rather, the good news
is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection
is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as
our representative, so that we might never have to suffer
it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look
forward to heaven. ...Emulation of Christ s life and
teaching is possible only to those who enter into a new
relationship with God through faith in Jesus as their
substitute. Theresurrection is not merely a victory over
death (though it is that) but a proof that the atonement was
a satisfactory atonement in the sight of the Father (Rom
4:25); and that death, the result of sin, is abolished on
that basis. Any gospel that talks merely of the
Christ-event, meaning the Incarnation without the atonement,
is a false gospel. Any gospel that talks about the love of
God without pointing out that his love led him to pay the
ultimate price for sin in the person of his Son on the cross
is a false gospel. The only true gospel is of the one
mediator (1 Tim. 2:5-6), who gave himself for us. Finally,
just as there can be no gospel without the atonement as the
reason for the Incarnation, so also there can be no
Christian life without it. Without the atonement the
Incarnation themeeasily becomes a kind of deification of the
human and leads to arrogance and self advancement. With the
atonement the true message of the life of Christ, and
therefore also of the the life of the Christian man or
woman, is humility and self sacrifice for the obvious needs
of others. The Christian life is not indifference to those
who are hungry or sick or suffering from some other lack. It
is not contentment with our own abundance, neither the
abundance of middle class living with home and cars and
clothes and vacations, nor the abundance of education or
even the spiritual abundance of good churches, Bibles, Bible
teaching or Christian friends and acquaintances. Rather, it
is the awareness that others lack these things and that we
must therefore sacrifice many of our own interests in order
to identify with them and thus bring them increasingly into
the abundance we enjoy...We will live for Christ fully only
when we are willing to be impoverished, if necessary, in
order that others might be helped. Not what my hands have done All the kings throughout history sent their people out to die for them Only one person ever died for their people willingly and lovingly. -- DAVE BROWN The Creed sets forth what Christ suffered in the sight of men, and then appositely speaks of that invisible and incomprehensible judgement which he underwent in the sight of God in order that we might know not only that Christ's body was given as the price of our redemption, but that he paid a greater and more excellent price in suffering in his soul the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man. -- John Calvin (1509-1564) Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its
power On the cross Jesus was guilty of nothing but God treated Jesus as if he had committed personally every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe...though in fact he committed none of them. That's what substitution means. Then God exploded the full fury of His wrath against all the sins of all who will ever believe against Jesus. And God exhausted His wrath on Jesus. Jesus was no sinner; God treated Him as though he was. On the other side, God did it in our behalf in order that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus...Jesus lived a perfect life to fulfill all righteousness. Why? So his life could be imputed to us...On the cross Jesus wasn't a sinner; God treated him as if he was; you're not righteous but He treats you as if you are. On the cross, God treated Jesus as if he lived your life so he could treat you as if you had lived his. That's imputation; that's substitution. Jesus came to be poor to exchange his life for yours in order to fulfill the elective plan of God that he might do the will of God perfectly and in the end back the very love gift the Father had given to him. JOHN McARTHUR The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son
underwent punishment for, either: Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God's elect, that they should believe. -- JOHN OWEN We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON Christ's blood has value enough to redeem the whole world, but the virtue of it is applied only to such as believe. THOMAS WATSON Alas! and did my Saviour bleed It's a beautiful world to see, Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or I
can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for
free. I am responsible for my attitude. My attitude determines my actions You cannot change people but you can change the way you look at them. The church is near but the road is icy; the tavern is far away but I will walk carefully.--Russian proverb No man can humiliate me or disturb me. I won't let him. -- Bernard Baruch Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content. -- Boethius I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. - Charlotte Bronte A winner never whines. -- Paul Brown If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.-- Dale Carnegie I think it's liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood. . . . -- Charles Dickens, in Martin Chuzzlewit Distance is a great promoter of admiration! - Denis Diderot (1713-1784) Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.-- John Donne A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.--- Hugh Downs What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight , it's the size of the fight in the dog. EISENHOWER, DWIGHT DAVID (1890-1969) Cripple them, and you get a Sir Walter Scott or a Florence Nightingale. Lock them in a prison cell, and you get a John Bunyan or a Susan B. Anthony. Pit them against impossible, overwhelming odds, and you get a George Washington or a Joan of Arc. Raise them in abject poverty, and you get an Abraham Lincoln or a Mother Theresa. Strike them down with terrible illness, and you get a Franklin Roosevelt or a Charlotte, Emily, & Anne Bronte. Deafen them, and you get a Ludwig von Beethoven or a Helen Keller. Have them born black in a society filled with racial hatred and discrimination, and you get a Booker T. Washington or a Marian Anderson. Call them slow learners, 'retarded', or write them off as uneducable or crazy, and you get an Albert Einstein or a Marie Curieâ*| and so it is that life is 20% what happens to us and 80% the way we respond to it.- Ted Engstrom and Ellen Mogensen Men are not moved by things but by the views which they take of them.-- Epictetus He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the latter. --Henry Fielding (1707-1754) The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. -- Victor Frankle A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life. - John Hancock (1737 &endash; 1793) It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.-Lena Horne I am too busy with my cause to-- hate--too absorbed in something bigger than myself. I have no time to quarrel, no time for regrets and no man can force me to stoop low enough to hate him. Lawrence James This should be a man's attitude: 'Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much. -- Thomas Jefferson Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. -- Helen Keller I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's
only a choice of attitude. It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.- Lombardi, Vince Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further thanpeople with vastly superior talent.--Sophia Loren (1934- ) You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction. - George Lorimer (1867-1937) We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns.-- Orisen S. Marden You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut. -- Maxwell Maltz Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal realities. --Robert Murray McCheyne Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure -- Norman Vincent Peale There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -- John Ruskin (attributed) Don't tell God how big your problems are...tell your problems how big your God is. - Sue Schmacher Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.-Fulton J. Sheen Look at everthing as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory. ... Betty Smith The longer I live, the more I realise the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past--we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude--I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you--we are in charge of our Attitudes. -- Charles Swindoll They are able because they think they are able.... Virgil The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstances. -- Martha Washington One ship drives east and another drives west Your attitude is more important than your aptitude-- . Zig Ziglar A positive attitude will have positive results because attitudes are contagious. -- Zig Ziglar Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. -- Zig Ziglar The way you see life will largely determine what you get out of it. -- Zig Ziglar Australians are still influenced by their convict past. Everyone wants to escape. That's why, wherever you go in the world you find Australians. - An Australian on BBC Radio 4's Today 2002 From distant climes o'er widespread seas we come. Our first settlers were chosen by England's best judges.~Sir Douglas Copland, Sydney Morning Herald (9th July 1960) Our treatment of the natives may be deemed unjustifiable by some. Naturally they may say it was their country, and ask what business we had there? Quite so; but the same argument may be said in all new countries. It will not hold water, however, nor can we change the un-alterable law of Nature. For untold centuries the aborigines have had the use of the country, but in the march of time they, like the extinct fossil, must make way. They now encumber the ground, and will not suit themselves to cultured circumstances. The sooner they are taught that a superior race has come upon them, and are made to feel its power, the better for them. ~Thomas Major, Leaves from a Squatter's Notebook (1900 New Zealanders who leave for Australia raise the IQ of both countries -- Sir Robert Muldoon, Prime Minister (1921-1992) When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd I don't like authority. At least I don't like other people's authority. - A. C. Benson (1862 &endash; 1925) Many refuse to accept the reality of a personal God because they are unwilling to submit to His authority Kurt Bruner I have as much authority as the Pope...I just don't have as many people who believe it.--George Carlin I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband ever wife, learned over simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen Filmer would be right, and patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. C. S. Lewis "Membership" Sobernost #31 (June 1945) Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason -- I
do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for
they have contradicted each other -- my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant
anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor
safe. God help me. Amen. Real authority is the power to serve.-- Dick McMullen There are few things more distasteful to modern man than subjection to authority and the demand for obedience to authority.PRINCIPLES OF CONDUCT [John Murray. Eerdmans.1984. p104] If it be true that the world has lost its respect for authority, it is only because it lost it first in the home. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)_On Being Human_ [1982] Parliament isn't the great institution of life. Churches are your great institutions, as are your great voluntary associations. And you're entitled to look to them and say, "Look, there are certain standards, and if you undermine fundamentally these standards you'll be changing our way of life." When the authority of those institutions is undermined because they haven't been forthright [about the behavior that causes the spread of AIDS], it is then that people turn too much to the State.- Margaret Thatcher"Aids, Education and the Year 2000," Woman's Own, 3 October 1987,Page 10: Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority ["experts"] uses not his understanding but rather his memory. -- Leonardo da Vinci Evil can be interpreted as guilt only where human existence is understood as personal, and that means where the existence of man is understood to be in responsibility to the Divine Thou. This is the depth of human distress, that we are separated from God, that our communion with Him is destroyed, that man has emancipated himself (has taken himself out of the hand of God) and has become independent, his own master. ... Emil Brunner, The Word and the World [1931]
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf's a flower. - Albert Camus Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Autumn is really the best of the seasons; and I'm not sure that old age isn't the best part of life. But of course, like autumn, it doesn't last. --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) _Letters of C.S. Lewis_ [1966], "27 October 1963" |
||||||||||
Home Page
Me and my lists|
Family History|
Family
photos|
Christian Faith |
|Pictures
from Church History|Humour
|
Quotes Index of Topics|
quotes A B
C
D
E F
G
H I
J
K L
M
N O
P Q
R
S T
U V W
Z
Quotes by Author
index| Authors
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V W
XYZ
Quotes of
the week|
these_you_have_sought_on_alt
quotations|
Favorite
Links
Last Modified: 3/7/05