Tony Cooke Ministries - Tony Cooke Ministries' Free Resource Area

ABSTINENCE
“Abstinence is easier than temperance.”
- Seneca

ACCEPTANCE
"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody."
- Mother Teresa

ACCOMPLISHMENT
“What gets rewarded, gets done.”
- Unknown

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do."
- Dwight L. Moody

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves."
- Thomas Edison

ACCOUNTABILITY
“My greatest thought is my accountability to God.”
- Daniel Webster

ACCOMPLISHMENT (HUMOR)
"We the willing, led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."
- Unknown

ACHIEVEMENT
“Four steps to achievement:
1. Plan purposefully.
2. Prepare prayerfully.
3. Proceed positively.
4. Pursue persistently.”
- William A. Ward

"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
- J. Harold Wilkins

"Achievers are resolute in their goals and driven by determination. Discouragement is temporary, obstacles are overcome, and doubt is defeated, yielding to personal victory. You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals. Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory."
- General George S. Patton

ACTION
“Above all, try something.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”
- Robert H. Schuller

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
- John Wooden

“Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.
- William Gilmore Sims

“Speak little, do much.”
- Benjamin Franklin

"No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as the neglect the contemplation of God."
- Augustine of Hippo

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little."
- Edmund Burke

"Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome."
- Samuel Johnson

"Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future run over him."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind."
- Leonardo da Vinci

"The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Have you a vision? And are you undeviatingly pressing and pushing toward its accomplishment? Dreaming alone will not get you there. Mix your dreams with determination and action."
- B.C. Forbes

"Well done is better than well said."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."
- Thomas Carlyle

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
- Frederick Douglass

"The only good thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good man to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

“The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”
- C. S. Lewis

“As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
- Andrew Carnegie

“You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling, than feel yourself into acting.”
- Jerome Bruner

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today.”
- Unknown

ADVENTURE
"Every forward step achieved by man has been due to the adventurous attitude. This attitude inspires dissatisfaction with the world as it is; it arouses the desire to change and improve things. The attitude of adventure is the flame that lights the fuse to explode new ideas."
- Wilfred A. Peterson

"Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare."
- Queen Mother Elizabeth

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
- Walt Disney

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do...Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
- Mark Twain

"The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore...unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible...it is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors...to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown."
- Ferdinand Magellan, Explorer

"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."
- Helen Keller

ADVERSITY
“That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
- Winston Churchill

"A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure."
- Unknown

"Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records."
- William A. Ward

"Adversity introduces a man to himself."
- Anonymous

ADVICE
“Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it most like it the least.”
- Samuel Johnson

AFFIRMATION
"Commendation heals; condemnation destroys."
- Carl Jung

“I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of cristicism.”

- Charles M. Schwab

AGE
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
- Henry Ford

"No matter how many years have passed since I was a boy, I am still that boy, and I will never be able to see myself as being old enough to break my hip in a fall, unless a linebacker landed on top of me. At 50, I know the way of all flesh intellectually, but a part of me still feels as immortal as a child."
- Bill Cosby

There are four ages of man:
(1) When you believe in Santa Claus.
(2) When you don't believe in Santa Claus.
(3) When you are Santa Claus.
(4) When you look like Santa Claus.

"Childhood: the time in life when you make funny faces in the mirror. Middle age: the time of life when the mirror gets even."
- Unknown

"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

AGING
“I have seen the aged linger, so round, and rich, and bright, and beautiful, as to make youth seem poor in treasure when compared with old age. It is a great thing so to have lived that the best part of life shall be its evening. October, the ripest month of the year, and the richest in colours, is a type of what old age should be.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

AGREEMENT
"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."
- Benjamin Disraeli

AMBITION
"Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach, we are never satisfied."
- Niccoló Machiavelli

"Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

ANONYMITY
“The best servant does his work unseen.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Let my name perish, and let Christ's name last for ever,"
- George Whitfield

"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."
- Ronald Reagan

F.D.R. once said that what he wanted on his staff was young men with a passion for anonymity.

ANGER
“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.”
- Laurence J. Peter

"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools."
- Albert Einstein

"Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame."
- Benjamin Franklin

"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."
-Marcus Aurelius

"The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough."
- Bede Jarrett

"When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry."
- Haliburton

"As a girl my temper often got out of bounds. But one day when I became angry at a friend over some trivial matter, my mother said to me, ‘Elizabeth, anyone who angers you conquers you.’"
- Elizabeth Kenny

"No person is important enough to make me angry."
- Carlos Castaneda

ANXIETY
"Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us."
- Billy Graham

“It has been well said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon

ANTICIPATION
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been.”
- Wayne Gretzky

ANYWAY
“People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway!
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway!
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway!
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway!
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway!
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdogs anyway!
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!
People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway!
Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway!”
- Unknown

APATHY
“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.”
- Charles Spurgeon

APPRECIATION
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
- William James

ASSOCIATION
“If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights.”
- Unknown

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
- Isaac Newton

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company."
- George Washington

"Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art."
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

ASSURANCE
“About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
- John Wesley, referring to his experience on Aldersgate Street

ASPIRATION
"When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either."
- Leo Burnett

ATHEISM
“If God does not exist, everything is permissible.”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

ATTITUDE
"A great attitude is not the result of success; success is the result of a great attitude."
- Earl Nightingale

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."
- Lou Holtz

"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are."
- Norman Vincent Peale

"The longer I live, the more I realize 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 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our Attitudes."
- Charles Swindoll

"The last of all human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s own attitude in any set of circumstances."
- Victor Frankl, Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor

"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."
- Thomas Jefferson

"I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure."
- Norman Vincent Peale

"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."
- Henry Ford

"Keep your heart right, even when it is sorely wounded."
- J.C. Macaulay

"The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Winston Churchill

“You are in charge of your own attitudeÅ\whatever others do or circumstances you face. The only person you can control is yourself….worry more about your attitude than your aptitude or lineage.”
- Marian Wright Edelman

AVOIDANCE
"There is no problem so big it cannot be run away from."
- Charles Schulz

AWE
"When the heart is not being fascinated, when the heart is not being won over, it will pursue anything to move it – and is therefore ripe for the seeds of compromise to be planted."
- Dwayne Roberts

BEGINNING
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
- Plato

BEHAVIOR
“Un-Christian behavior on the part of any Christian is a disgrace to all Christians.”
- F.F. Bruce

BELIEF
"I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent."
- Inscription on a wall in a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews who eventually perished were hiding from the Nazis.

"Believe in dreams. Never believe in hurts… You can’t let the grief and the hurts and the breaking experiences of life control your future decisions."
- Robert H. Schuller

"I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something people call God.
- Carl Jung

“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”
- Henry Ford

“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
- G.K. Chesterton

BENEVOLENCE
"Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."
- Abraham Lincoln

BIBLE
“It is easier for me to have faith in the Bible than to have faith in D.L. Moody, for Moody has failed me lots of times.”
- D.L. Moody

"Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them."
- E. Paul Hovey

“Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”
A.W. Tozer

“Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible nor can be proved by the Bible.”
- J.C. Ryle

“We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.”
- John Stott

BIBLE STUDY
“In our prayers, we talk to God, in our Bible study, God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
- D.L. Moody

BOOKS
"Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time."
- Edwin Percy Whipple

"It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
- Atwood H. Townsend

"Do not deny yourself the help of good books on the subject of your lessons. Buy, borrow or beg, if necessary, but obtain somehow the help of the best thinkers, enough at least to stimulate your own thought; but do not read without thinking. If possible, talk the lesson over with an intelligent friend; collision often brings light."
- John Milton Gregory

BURNOUT
“Some persons become apathetic because they burn out. These are ones who are apt to be long-term church members because they can’t carry their heavy responsibilities any longer. Burned out leaders are depleted idealists, persons who tend to be over committed and under encouraged. Their weariness pushes them to give up and drop out. In the wise words of Vince Lombardi, the late coach of professional football’s Green Bay Packers, ‘Fatigue makes cowards of us all.’”
- Robert D. Dale (Surviving Difficult Church Members, Abingdon, page 86-87)