Quotes to grow by…
We engage in philosophy for personal growth, not directly for the benefit of society. Philosophy is not passed on or inherited, it must be developed and incorporated into one’s personal existence. The wisdom of Solomon and the understanding of Socrates or Aristotle does no good to those who do not themselves understand and apply the insights such figures have labored with long before us. Know yourself. Know your own values. Know how to share yourself with others. Know your own philosophy.
I do not say that I am a prophet; but I say that they ought to fear precisely because I am alone and that they are many. I am sure of this, that the word of God is with me, and that it is not with them.
When the papal bull reached Luther, he said: “I despise and attack it, as impious, false…. It is Christ Himself who is condemned therein…. I rejoice in having to bear such ills for the best of causes. Already I feel greater liberty in my heart; for at last I know that the pope is antichrist, and that his throne is that of Satan himself.”—D’Aubigne, b. 6, ch. 9. GC 142.3
First they came for the socialists
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
To speak out for me
He said there were two kinds of Christians: those who sincerely believe in God and those who, just as sincerely, believe that they believe. You can tell them apart by their actions in decisive moments.
If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
The greatest want of the world is the want of men,–men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.
A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
We are all formed of frailty and error; let us reciprocally pardon each other’s folly.
How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
The story of Hitler is not about the Nazis or the Jews. The story of Hitler is about the German population that failed to recognize the evil in the small realities. They called good evil and evil good. They justified in their own minds that what was going on was unpleasant but couldn’t be bad because there must be good people involved. They told themselves that not all the leaders could be bad and that much of what was occurring was good. They were self-deceived. The apathy of the German population at large enabled the holocaust. We are headed for a global holocaust. It won’t be just the Germans this time. It will be the general population of the whole world – a world of a new order. If people don’t stand for good they will fall for anything including wicked persecution of their neighbors and families. Your only defense is to determine in your own mind to not participate in global cowardice, to stand for what you know in your heart is right in the small things, to recognize that something vastly more important than this life calls us to be faithful to the truth and righteousness of God’s law in our hearts. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. You can be lied to, but you can’t be forced to believe the lies. Choose this day whom you will serve. Only a remnant will choose faithfulness to their Creator God. If you are not among the remnant, it’s your own fault, your own choice.
If God abhors one sin above another, of which His people are guilty, it is doing nothing in case of an emergency. Indifference and neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God.
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.
Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.
The more you understand what is wrong with a figure, the more valuable that figure becomes.
There is one thing I feel strongly in respect to investigation in physical or chemical laboratories—it leaves no room for shady, doubtful distinctions between truth, half-truth, whole falsehood. In the laboratory everything tested or tried is found true or not. Every result is true. Nothing not proved true is a result;—there is no such thing as doubtfulness. The search for absolute and unmistakable truth is promoted by laboratory work in a manner beyond all conception.
Blow a soap bubble and observe it. You may study it all your life and draw one lesson after another in physics from it.
Nothing can be more fatal to progress than a too confident reliance on mathematical symbols; for the student is only too apt to take the easier course, and consider the formula not the fact as the physical reality.
The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don’t understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.
S. P. Thompson: “Once when lecturing in class he [the Lord Kelvin] used the word ‘mathematician’ and then interrupting himself asked his class: ‘Do you know what a mathematician is?’ Stepping to his blackboard he wrote upon it: integral from – infinty to + infinity of exp(-x^2)dx = sqrt(pi). Then putting his finger on what he had written, he turned to his class and said, ‘a mathematician is one to whom that is as obvious as that twice two makes four is to you.'”
A single curve, drawn in the manner of the curve of prices of cotton, describes all that the ear can possibly hear as the result of the most complicated musical performance…. That to my mind is a wonderful proof of the potency of mathematics.
Do not be afraid of being free thinkers. If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion. You will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.
Overwhelming strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us.
I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.
The mystery of radium, no doubt we shall solve it one day; but the freedom of the will, that is a mystery of another kind.
One half of hypnotism is fraud and the rest bad observation.
To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.
Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and fancy women.
One word characterized the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly during fifty-five years; that word is FAILURE. I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my first session as Professor. Something of sadness must come of failure; but in the pursuit of science, inborn neccessity to make the effort brings with it much of the certaminis gaudia, and saves the naturalist from being wholly miserable, perhaps even allows him to be fairly happy in his daily work.
A boy should have learnt by the age of twelve to write his own language with accuracy and some degree of elegance; he should have a reading knowledge of French, should be able to translate Latin and easy Greek authors and should have some acquaintance with German.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.
And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
There are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is, the better.
Linguinol is a virtual chemical that exhibits linguiluminescence, with a post-retinal red glow, when mixed with an appropriate blogging agent. Linquinol is a transparent, odorless, optically applied, etymological solvent. Investigators utilize linquinol to detect vulgar ad hominem, bloviations, pseudo-intellectual word constructs, tangential topic drift, illogical logic and other non-constructive verbal abuses. Linguinol is often used to reveal WBS, Wasted Brain Syndrome.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.
Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of the striving for the wish fulfillment of material kinds. The goal is to raise the spiritual values of society.
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie?
…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.
I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives – the disastrous by-product of the scientific and technical mentality. Nostra culpa. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits.
Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgements of all kinds remain necessary.
Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.
Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.
If someone can enjoy marching to music in rank and file, I can feel only contempt for him; he has received his large brain by mistake, a spinal cord would have been enough.
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
Human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Atheists are like a bunch of light bulbs denying that there is a power grid.
Secular science is like a small flashlight that asserts its narrow band of illumination at the universe presuming it surpasses its dependency on the battery.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth.
Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
By perseverance the snail reached the ark.
Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
Giving is true having.
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.
Better to be a strong man with a weak point, than to be a weak man without a strong point. A diamond with a flaw is more valuable than a brick without a flaw.
If you want to know how rich you really are, find out what would be left of you tomorrow if you should lose every dollar you own tonight.
Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record from day to day, and you are a success.
That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow.
The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.
The more you learn what to do with yourself, and the more you do for others, the more you will learn to enjoy the abundant life.
True religion… is giving and finding one’s happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.
We will never have real safety and security for wage earners unless we provide for safety and security for the wage payers and wage savers.
What a different world this would be if people would listen to those who know more and not merely try to get something from those who have more.
You cannot raise a man up by calling him down.
Your success depends mainly upon what you think of yourself and whether you believe in yourself.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help
small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by
destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down
the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than
your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting
class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You
cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and
independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what
they could and should do for themselves.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The greatest of mankind’s criminals are those who delude themselves into thinking they have done the right thing.
As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than Fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do, than the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor and catch tradewinds in your sail.
A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.
No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn’t work anyway.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?
Optimal health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
What you should really focus on in school is learning to work together with others on projects, in particular learn how other people approach problems and how they differ from your approach.
I never argue with fools. People might not know the difference.
Let us not forget that the value of this great system does not lie primarily in its extent or even in its efficiency. Its worth depends on the use that is made of it… For the first time in human history we have available to us the ability to communicate simultaneously with millions of our fellowmen, to furnish entertainment, instruction, widening vision of national problems and national events. An obligation rests on us to see that it is devoted to real service and to develop the material that is transmitted into that which is really worthwhile.
It was state of the art, he said. The art in this case was probably pottery.
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
When I use the talents God has given me, I can feel His pleasure…
Q: What is the definition of ‘Crazy’?
A: Doing the same thing and
expecting different results.
“-tomorrow is our permanent address”
Better, faster, cheaper – choose two
Fantasy is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
It’s a [darn] poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.
The educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers.
We as humans have an instinct for creativity and a moral instinct. A good educational system ought to nurture and encourage these aspects of human life and allow them to flourish. But of course that has problems. For one thing, it means that you will encourage challenge of authority and domination. It will encourage questioning of powerful institutions. So the way schools actually function, by and large, there’s a very strong tendency which works its way out in the long run and on average, for the schools to have a kind of filtering effect. They filter out independence of thought, creativity, imagination, and in their place foster obedience and subordination.
Those who are enamored of practice without theory are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
There are people who don’t accept, who aren’t obedient. They are weeded out, they’re “behavior problems.” The long-term effect of this is to reward and foster subordination; it begins in kindergarten and goes all the way through your professional or other career. If you challenge authority, you get in one or another kind of trouble. It’s not 100 percent the case, and there are some areas of life where it’s dramatically not the case, but on average and overwhelmingly in the outcomes, it holds.
If something comes along that you don’t like, there are a few sort of four-letter words that you can use to push it out of the sphere of discussion. If you were in a bar downtown, they might have different words, but if you’re an educated person what you use are complicated words like “conspiracy theory” or “Marxist” . It’s a way of pushing unpleasant questions off the agenda, so that we can continue in our own happy ideology.
With disorder, I can make ‘dat’ order!
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
I’ve come to realize the only thing more dangerous than taking a big risk, or not taking any risk, is taking a risk while minimizing the precarious reality of the situation.
They say that hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take a chance?
Government is like a baby–an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
The destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals.
There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Sometimes when I’m faced with an unbeliever, an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there’s a cook.
Republicans think every day is July 4, and Democrats think every day is April 15.
Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.
Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
Facts are stupid things.
Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time off for good behavior?
Pain and disappointment are inevitable. Misery is optional.
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product.
And then the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
You know the world’s gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance, and the Germans don’t want to go to war.
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than for illumination.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary numbers and those who don’t.
He represented, indeed to a superlative degree, the great moral fallacy of our time, that collective virtue may be pursued without reference to personal behavior.
We don’t have a democracy, we have an auction.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
I don’t suffer from Insanity… I enjoy every minute of it…
To become educated you must direct your own education. To learn you must do, and dwell on what prevents you from doing, so that you can change your knowledge base and try again. Seek out confussion in order to learn from it, and pay only as much attention to school as you have to, remembering that school and learning have little to do with each other.
The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray. The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.
Knowledge is power. [Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est].
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for
the wrong reason.
If a train station is where the train stops, what is a workstation?
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
Truth Like Football. Get kicked around much, before reaching goal.
Self-developed ‘filters’ that separate quality information from the ongoing information flood are a positive survival skill.
The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has its limits.
A man with a good watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
Trust in God, but tie up your camel.
Think! It ain’t illegal yet.
If you can keep smiling when things go wrong, you’ve thought of someone to place the blame on.
To make a long story short, don’t tell it.
Your best interest is secured by making the right decisions the first time.
I child-proofed my house but they are still getting in.
Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.
Rules are written for those who lack the ability to truly reason, But for those who can, the rules become nothing more than guidelines, and live their lives governed not by rules but by reason.
Computers are like air conditioners – They work fine until you open Windows.
When you idiot-proof something, the world just produces better idiots.
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.
The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.
A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
No lawsuit ever fixed a moron…
Education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
The instructions said to use Windows 98 or better, so I installed Linux.
Take my advice. I’m not using it.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
and heaven in a wildflower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour.
Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember.
A lie can go round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Boys are beyond the range of anybody’s sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
If you’re not on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.
Reality is something that does not disappear after you cease believing in it.
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Reject religion! Embrace Jesus Christ.
The job of an engineer is to build systems that people can trust. By this criterion, there exist few software engineers.
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
> ,”`. > UNIX is user friendly, it’s just picky about who its friends are : :’ : > `. `’ > `-
Nothing adds excitement like something that is none of your business.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.
I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.
A lot of money is tainted – It taint yours and it taint mine.
One man with a club is a hooligan. A thousand men with clubs are a regiment.
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.
In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.
I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results.
We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.
It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches.
The problem is just that sometimes the lowest common denominator is pretty damned low, and much too common.
“If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law.”
It’s not the pace of life that concerns me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
Think outside the box — the box isn’t our friend.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Did I misplace my ontological predicates again?
Anyone who says that there is a difference between education and entertainment knows nothing about either one.
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.
I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.
Things may come to those who wait…but only the things left by those who hustle.
I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
You can have anything you want – if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Everything you can imagine is real.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards.
Marriage is like pi – natural, irrational, and very important.
You don’t marry someone you can live with, you marry the person who you cannot live without.
Success in marriage is much more than finding the right person; it is a matter of being the right person.
A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.
Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.
Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
To keep the fire burning brightly there’s one easy rule: Keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart-about a finger’s breadth-for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule.
Being asked whether it’s better to marry or not, he (Socrates) replied, “Whichever you do you will repent it.
The first bond of society is marriage.
Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, a church filled with family and friends. I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for, he said one that would make me his wife.
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day…
give a man a computer and
he’ll be on
Internet for the day and forget to eat…
Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don’t go to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Learn from other’s mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself.
There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
Experiment constantly. Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects.
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
Call me a Christian and I’ll be offended. Call me Christ-like and I’ll be honored.
Democracy, like Christianity, is a process, not a destination. If you think you’ve arrived, you haven’t even begun.
Tradition is the revolution of those who have gone before. Revolution is the tradition of those yet to come.
Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.
When I talk to God it’s called prayer, when God talks specifically to me, it’s called schizophrenia.
If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools, lets start with typewriters.
They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.
When you want to test the depths of a stream don’t use both feet.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
The more you own the more you have to fix!
The phenomenon of a person in deep trouble, who indignantly rejects the only thing that can help him, is observed in every field of endeavour.
Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Actions speak louder than words. Inaction is deafening.
He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
In the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there’s no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.
What government gives, it must first take away.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Education is the expansion of one’s knowledge. Knowledge, like air and water should be free and readily accessible.
When at war, make sure there’s an enemy.
Accuracy trumps popularity in the long run.
Being intelligent is an obligation to your Creator, being wise is a gift from your Creator, being smart is praise to your Creator.
The honor of favored child is nothing to cherish when you’re under the wing of those who would consume their own children.
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
The inclination to “negotiate” is absurd when the enemy’s first demand is that we cease to exist.
Happiness is the best facelift.
Disillusionment is the emotional awareness that one’s understanding to date lacks truth.
Scientists who deny God are like octipi who with varying degrees of aptitude employ the use of five arms while denying that they might possess additional arms.
School’s two formost, surprisingly independant objectives are learning and getting good grades.
We shape our dwellings and afterward our dwellings shape us.
If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.
Science is the method by which one limits reality to understanding.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.
Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
Reprove your friends in secret, praise them openly.
The greatest power is often simple patience.
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.
I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Those who have not distinguished themselves at school need not on that account be discouraged. The greatest minds do not necessarily ripen the quickest.
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have.
Miracles are not contrary to nature; only to what we know about nature.
The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness – all foes to real understanding. Likewise, tolerance or broad, wholesome charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in our little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.
All human wisdom is summed up in two words – wait and hope.
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.
Drunkenness . . . is temporary suicide.
Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.
I shall pass through this life but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall never pass this way again.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed undone.
Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.
The truth is always the strongest argument.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.
Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
A Committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
Silence is not only golden; it is seldom misquoted.
The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.
He who wants to change the world should begin by cleaning the dishes.
A good home must be made, not bought.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: “President Can’t Swim.”
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
The difference between salad and garbage is timing.
At Microsoft, quality is job SP1.
It’s the job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.
Good things come to those who wait because the great things were taken by those who didn’t.
Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit….The excellent becomes the permanent.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments it takes our breath away.
A birth certificate shows you were born…
A death certificate shows
you died…
Photographs show that you lived!
Do not be caught by the sensational in nature, as a coarse red-faced sunset, a garrulous waterfall, or a fifteen thousand foot mountain… avoid prettiness — the word looks much like pettiness — and there is but little difference between them.
…good and evil are important to us finally as matters of choice, and to show the reality of choice requires that time pass, time for decisions to be made and paid for.
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutinary act.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Opportunity is in the can, not in the cannots.
If you’re going to think anyway, you might as well think big.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect, has intended us to forego their use.
The core of Mencken’s social philosophy was relatively simple. He believed it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting. (H.L. Mencken)
Eric Sevareid’s Law: The chief source of problems is solutions.
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Church and state are intrinsically separate – at least in a democracy. The state deals with bureaucracy which is necessarily a least common denominator endeavor. Church, in its appropriate form, deals with the individual soul and its spiritual relationship with God which is necessarily the antitheses of any bureaucracy. This natural separation of church and state does not necessitate conflict between the two. On the contrary, both church and state benefit each other when properly respected. To limit the appropriate influence of one upon the other is to destroy both.
Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success.
When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty; When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace; When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.
There are a thousand striking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
We have not succeeded in answering all your problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.
An Englishman and a Scotsman were discussing oats. The Englishman, with his nose in the air said “In England we feed oats to our horses, and in Scotland you feed oats to your men…”, to which the Scotsman replied “…that’s why in England you have such fine horses and in Scotland we have such fine men!
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
All political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Don’t agonize. Organize.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
God has entrusted me with myself.
If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.
A verbal agreement is as good as the paper it’s written on.
Truth is stranger than fiction, for we have fashioned fiction to suit ourselves.
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.
Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.
Talent is long patience.
Christianity is how you relate to God in light of the evidence while relating to others in spite of the evidence.
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
We are better off not to question trials but rather to let the trials question us.
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them.
Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
In the end, the only things that matter are the people we help and the people we hurt.
If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many it’s research.
That which is Striking and beautiful
is not always Good
But that
which is Good is
Always Beautiful.
I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
Doing what’s right will not lead to lost friends, but may well expose foes.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
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, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
College isn’t the place to go for ideas.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
God Himself is not secure, having given man dominion over His work.
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.
I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.
The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.
Your success and happiness lie in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invisible host against difficulties.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
If I learned one thing over the years, it’s the importance of staying ahead of change… to make things happen rather than wonder what happened.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery…
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence.
Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
I am not one who’s beliefs can not be challenged by truth. No matter how devastating to my very soul, I would rather every foundational belief I stood on crumble to the ground than remain ignorantly proud on a pedestal of lies believed.
Don’t tell God how big your troubles are–tell your trouble HOW BIG YOUR GOD IS.
- Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum hatred for a minimum reason.
- All it takes is one person, and another, and another, and another, to start a movement
- Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
- A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
- God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.
- Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
- Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
- Life without commitment is not worth living.
- Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
- Remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power. Never forget that you can still do your share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and frustrations and disappointments.
- When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
- Awareness of symbolic meaning is awareness of a specific idea; kavanah is awareness of an ineffable situation.
- A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought.
- Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.
- The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition.
- The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
- The course of life is unpredictable… no one can write his autobiography in advance.
- When I marched in Selma, my legs were praying.
Light is faster than sound. That’s why some people seem really bright until you hear them speak.
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’
Carelessness and overconfidence are more dangerous than deliberately accepted risk.
And if anything is accomplished to the purpose, it must be done at the
golden moment. The slightest inclination of the weight in the balance should
be seen, and should determine the matter at once. Long delays tire the
angels. It is even more excusable to make a wrong decision sometimes than to
be continually in a wavering position; to be hesitating, sometimes inclined
in one direction, then in another. More perplexity and wretchedness result
from thus hesitating and doubting than from sometimes moving too hastily.
I have been shown that the most signal victories and the most fearful
defeats have been on the turn of minutes. God requires promptness of action.
Delays, doubtings, hesitation, and indecision frequently give the enemy
every advantage….
The timing of things may tell much in favor of truth. Victories are
frequently lost through delays. There will be crises in this cause. Prompt
and decisive action at the right time will gain glorious triumphs, while
delay and neglect will result in great failures and positive dishonor to
God. Rapid movements at the critical moment often disarm the enemy, and he
is disappointed and vanquished, for he had expected time to lay plans and
work by artifice….
The greatest promptness is positively necessary in the hour of peril and
danger. Every plan may be well laid to accomplish certain results, and yet a
delay of a very short time may leave things to assume an entirely different
shape, and the great objects which might have been gained are lost through
lack of quick foresight and prompt dispatch.
Gospel Workers 1915, Page 134
Generosity does not justify misbehavior.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.
I cannot recommend this individual too highly.
School is a place where former A students teach mostly B students to work for C students.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart.
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end…
Vision without execution is hallucination.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
The only intuitive interface is the nipple; everything else is learned.
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.
Youth is a circumstance you can’t do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old.
Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.
It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong.
Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent.
If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible […] The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost.
There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind.
Those who have too little courage to reprove wrong, or who through indolence or lack of interest make no earnest effort to purify the family or the church of God, are held accountable for the evil that may result from their neglect of duty. We are just as responsible for evils that we might have checked in others by exercise of parental or pastoral authority as if the acts had been our own.
Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church, but He has not committed to us the work of judging character and motive.
When men endanger the work and cause of God by their own wrong course of action, shall they hear no voice of reproof? If the wrongdoer only were concerned, and the work reached no further than him, he alone should have the words of warning; but when his course of action is doing positive harm to the cause of truth, and souls are imperiled, God requires that the warning be as broad as the injury.
The names of those who sin and refuse to repent should not be retained on the church books, lest the saints be held accountable for their evil deeds. Those who pursue a course of transgression should be visited and labored with, and if they then refuse to repent, they should be separated from church fellowship, in accordance with the rules laid down in the Word of God. Those who refuse to hear the admonitions and warnings given by God’s faithful messengers are not to be retained in the church. They are to be disfellowshiped; for they will be as Achan in the camp of Israel-deceived and deceiving. Who, after reading the record of Achan’s sin and punishment, can think it according to the will of God that those who do wickedly, refusing to repent, are to be retained in the church. To retain them would be an insult to the God of heaven.
I saw that decided efforts should be made to show those who are unchristian in life their wrongs, and if they do not reform, they should be separated from the precious and holy, that God may have a clean and pure people that He can delight in. Dishonor Him not by linking or uniting the clean with the unclean.
A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
To “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” doesn’t mean to be as dumb as a rock.
One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
You get what you buy, not necessarily what you pay for.
A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.
The decree which is to go forth against the people of God will be very
similar to that issued by Ahasuerus against the Jews in the time of Esther.
The Persian edict sprang from the malice of Haman toward Mordecai. Not that
Mordecai had done him harm, but he had refused to show him reverence which
belongs only to God. The king’s decision against the Jews was secured under
false pretenses through misrepresentation of that peculiar people. Satan
instigated the scheme in order to rid the earth of those who preserved the
knowledge of the true God. But his plots were defeated by a counterpower
that reigns among the children of men. Angels that excel in strength were
commissioned to protect the people of God, and the plots of their
adversaries returned upon their own heads. The Protestant world today see in
the little company keeping the Sabbath a Mordecai in the gate. His character
and conduct, expressing reverence for the law of God, are a constant rebuke
to those who have cast off the fear of the Lord and are trampling upon His
Sabbath; the unwelcome intruder must by some means be put out of the way.
The same masterful mind that plotted against the faithful in ages past is
still seeking to rid the earth of those who fear God and obey His law. Satan
will excite indignation against the humble minority who conscientiously
refuse to accept popular customs and traditions. Men of position and
reputation will join with the lawless and the vile to take counsel against
the people of God. Wealth, genius, education, will combine to cover them
with contempt. Persecuting rulers, ministers, and church members will
conspire against them. With voice and pen, by boasts, threats, and ridicule,
they will seek to overthrow their faith. By false representations and angry
appeals they will stir up the passions of the people. Not having a “Thus
saith the Scriptures” to bring against the advocates of the Bible Sabbath,
they will resort to oppressive enactments to supply the lack. To secure
popularity and patronage, legislators will yield to the demand for a Sunday
law. Those who fear God cannot accept an institution that violates a precept
of the Decalogue. On this battlefield comes the last great conflict of the
controversy between truth and error. And we are not left in doubt as to the
issue. Now, as in the days of Mordecai, the Lord will vindicate His truth
and His people.
By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the
law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness.
When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand
of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with
spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country
shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and
republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal
falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the
marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near.
Racism is a uniquely secular beast, sometimes full fanged, sometimes cloaked in sheep’s skin, but always not of God.
The message from God to me for you is ‘Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out’ (John 6:37). If you have nothing else to plead before God but this one promise from your Lord and Saviour, you have the assurance that you will never, never be turned away. It may seem to you that you are hanging upon a single promise, but appropriate that one promise, and it will open to you the whole treasure house of the riches of the grace of Christ. Cling to that promise and you are safe. ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ Present this assurance to Jesus, and you are as safe as though inside the city of God.
Education is to better fathom and cope with our limitations so that we might have a stronger faith in and love for our Creator.
There are only two types of people, the idiot savant and the idiot ignoramus.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
When wolves in sheep’s clothing have their coats removed, has there been a decrease in the population of sheep?
When a community of rats and roaches hires an exterminator, why should they be surprised when the inhabitants scatter?
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
Racism is like a dog fight. It’s wrong and ugly no matter which dog you’re betting on. The only way to beat dog fighting is to stop and leave the venue.
You’re amazing — or you simply don’t live in the same universe as I do.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
The goal of business is not about making money. Making money is the objective of a job, trade or plain dumb luck. Business is about intelligently creating value by leveraging external resources in a systematic, sustainable manner. Cash generated by the business process is an important metric, but is incidental rather than central to a well-run business. If making money alone provided a sufficient description of the goal for business, then every lottery winner, every thief, and every oppressive government is a successful business. Furthermore, the value created by business should serve to better our fellow man. Money is a measure of power. Value is a measure of greatness. Power that is not subordinate to value is evil and ultimately not sustainable.
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
So, if I choose to have dessert, instead of having dinner, then should I die before night fall, I’d say I died a winner.
We’re still lost, but we’re making very good time!
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
An investment is to take that which you have and combine it with that which you are to make something that is either more or less than that which you have and that which you are. The great mystery is that you have anything at all or that you are anything at all. The faithful and judicious application of these two components will produce a small but wonderful moment of praise to the origin and synergy of these two things given you. A successful investment is like a well formed flower rooted in good soil raising itself to the warmth of the sun. Success is not measured in duration or size, but in the effective absorption and reflection of its life giving elements.
Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Sometimes a woman’s love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn’t love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.
Since then your sere Majesty and your Lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.
“Atticus, you must be wrong.” “How’s that?” “Well, most folks seem to think
they’re right and you’re wrong. . .”
“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full
respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other
folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by
majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are to love truly and freely, we must be able to give something that is truly our own to another. If our heart does not belong to us, asks Merton, how can we give it to another?
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
The organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’
If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?
More powerful than the pain of rejection is the fear of rejection.
Losers have goals. Winners have systems.
There is NO CLOUD. It’s just SOMEONE ELSE’S COMPUTER!
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
If there is only a spark left in you then you have to cling on to it. A person can survive for a few days without eating but he can’t survive without hope for more than a minute.
If you want to know what water is, don’t ask the fish.
Smooth talk is speech that sounds good lubricated by untruth and low commitment. Truth is employed if convenient. Keeping all options open is accomplished by avoiding principled statements that reveal lines which won’t be crossed.
Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives their doctor.
The way to be truly happy is to be truly human, and the way to be truly human is to be truly godly.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
You Fell But I Broke.
You fell in love
With my flowers,
Not with my roots.
So when
autumn arrived
You didn’t know what to do.
You fell in love
With my sunshine,
Not with my sky.
So when
the darkness came
You disappeared from view.
You fell in love
With my waves,
Not with my sea.
So when the
water diminished
You did too.
You fell in love
With my leaves.
I fell for your whole tree.
So
when the ground began to break
I did too.
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.
Nothing is ever good or bad except by comparison.
Believe you can. Decide you will.
(Re: Halloween) I am glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year.
Many people have wooed their own destruction, physical and mental, by neglecting to pay attention to ordinary matters.