Find A Quote by Topic
To find a quote about a particular topic, please click on the appropriate letter below. For example, if you’re looking for a quote about “worry,” click on the “w.”
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
DEATH
“Live in Christ, die in Christ, and the flesh need not fear death.”
– John Knox
“While you have yet to deal with the business and duty of life, look to God for the grace these require; and while life is ebbing out, and your only thought is about landing on the eternal shore, then look to God your Savior for dying grace in dying moments.”
– Charles Spurgeon
“There’s no pain in death, the pain is in life: when a man dies there is an end of life’s pain: death is the pain killer, not the pain maker.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“Six feet of dirt makes all men equal.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“If we love still those whom we lose, can we altogether lose those whom we love?”
– Thackery
“We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon and the liberated butterfly.”
– Max Lucado
“A group of Christians from Africa view death from a heavenly perspective. They do not refer to Christians who have died as the departed. Instead, they refer to them by saying they have arrived. They speak of the deceased from a heavenly point of view.”
– Tony Cooke (From “Life After Death”)
“Death can hide but not divide.”
– Vance Havner
“And why are so many useful souls taken and useless cumberers of the earth left? We know not, but, after all, that is God’s business and we will not use earth’s fleeting time to unravel what only eternity can reveal.”
– Vance Havner
John Wesley was asked why the Methodist movement was so successful. He answered, “‘Our people die well’.”
King Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, had a palace servant whose duty it was to approach him every morning with the greeting, “‘Philip, remember that you must die.’”
“Death stung himself to death when he stung Christ.”
– William Romaine
DECEPTION
“The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God.”
– Jonathan Edwards
“Satan can move in the supernatural realm too, because he is a spirit being, as is God. You’ve got to be able to know whether a vision, dream, impression, or suggestion is from God or Satan. Those suggestions that do not line up with the Word are of the devil.”
– Kenneth E. Hagin
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
– Leonardo Da Vinci
“Nothing that comes from God will minister to my pride or self-congratulation. If I am tempted to be complacent and to feel superior because I have had a remarkable vision or an advanced spiritual experience, I should go at once to my knees and repent of the whole thing. I have fallen victim to the enemy.”
– A.W. Tozer
“I do not deny that the Devil has some pretty apples; I just say that all of them are fakes and that after you bite into them, you will find they have worms. All Satan’s apples have worms.”
– John R. Rice
“Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.”
– John Calvin
“I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.”
– George Washington
“The devil knows better than to appear ugly and black. He prefers to carry on his nefarious activities in the name of God. Hence the German proverb: ‘All mischief begins in the name of God.’”
– Martin Luther
DECISION
“It is even better to make some mistakes than to be ‘a man of two minds undecided in every step he takes.’ In making a decision, you give God a chance at least to correct it.”
– Vance Havner
“When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right – something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise. It will be too late then to choose your side.”
– C.S. Lewis
DECISIONS
“Every choice you make has an end result.”
– Zig Ziglar
“There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.”
– John Wooden
“The salvation of the soul, the choice of a life work and a life companion, these are life’s greatest decisions, and young people make them.”
-Vance Havner
“My life is not made by the dreams I dream but by the choices I make.”
“When you’re 100% certain, you’re too late.”
– Charles W. Robinson
“Life is the sum of all your choices.”
– Albert Camus
“You make decisions and decisions will make you.”
– Lester Summrall
“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”
– Roy Disney
“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
– Henry Kissinger
DEEDS
“Some people dream of worthy accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.”
– Unknown
DEDICATION
“God can do more through one man who is 100 percent dedicated to him than through 100 men who are only 90 percent.”
– Dawson Trotman
“Dedication is writing your name on the bottom of a blank sheet of paper and handing it to the Lord for Him to fill in”
– Unknown
“If a man will only come if there is a good road, I don’t want him. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”
– David Livingstone
DELEGATION
“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility on him and to let him know that you trust him.”
– Booker T. Washington
“The best executive is the one who has enough sense to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.”
– John Maxwell
“If you don’t know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues’ initials on ’em, and pass them along. When in doubt, route.”
– Malcolm Forbes
DEGREES
[On declining an honorary degree from Oxford University] “I had not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read.”
– Millard Fillmore
DELAYED GRATIFICATION
“We must be careful not to let our current appetites steal away any chance we might have for a future feast.”
– Jim Rohn
DEMOCRACY
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
– Abraham Lincoln
DENIAL
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
– Aldous Huxley
DEPENDABILITY
‘The greatest ability is dependability’.
– Curt Bergwall
DEPENDENCE
“A reporter who covered D.L. Moody’s meetings in Britain wrote, ‘I can see nothing whatever in Moody to account for his marvelous work.’ When Moody read the report, he chuckled. ‘Why, that is the very secret of the movement. There is nothing in it that can explain it but the power of God. The work is God’s, not mine.’”
– Oswald Sanders
DEPRAVITY
“The author squares man’s depravity with still being made in the image of God with this word picture. A vase that has held beautiful roses though now broken, will nevertheless hold something of the fragrance it once contained.”
– A. W. Tozer
“I used to say that civilization was going to the dogs, but I have to quit saying that out of respect for the dogs. Today, mankind is guilty of some things beneath the dignity of any dog.”
– Vance Havner
“Let us never put confidence in man, or in any sanctity of position, office, or dress. If apostleship did not make Judas a saint, neither will position, office, nor dress make thee a saint.”
– Johann Ferus
DEPRESSION
“What makes men depressed? Self-concentration, as a rule. When a man is wrapped up in himself, seeking only his own, he finds he is seeking a very shallow object, and very soon gets to the end of it; hence all the springs of life have nothing to act upon, and depression follows.”
– Henry Drummond
“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”
– Abraham Lincoln
DEPTH
“If the only tool you have in your tool kit is a hammer, it’s amazing how much everything looks like a nail.”
– Maslow
DESIRE
“The soul’s deepest thirst is for God Himself, who has made us so that we can never be satisfied without Him.”
– F. F. Bruce
“Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.”
– Robert Allen
“Delighting in the Lord alters the desires.”
– Billy Graham
“Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.”
– Walter Lippman
“As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.”
– George Bernard Shaw
The author Rudyard Kipling wrote, “If you don’t get what you want, it is a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price.”
“When we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. 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.”
– C.S. Lewis
DESPAIR
“It is a crime to despair. We must learn to draw from misfortune the means of future strength.”
– Winston Churchill
“Despair is the conclusion of fools.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
“There is one cardinal rule: ‘Never despair.’ That word is forbidden.”
– Winston Churchill
DESTINY
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
– William Jennings Bryan
“I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial…I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.”
– Winston Churchill
“Sow a thought, reap an act.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.”
– Samuel Smiles
DETAILS
“The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.”
– Charles Swindoll
“This typxwritxr is xxcxllxnt xxcxpt for onx kxy. The othxr 25 lxttxrs work finx; but just onx goof-off lousxs up thx wholx job.”
“For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail.”
– Unknown
DETERMINATION
“It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”
– Jim Rohn
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Never give in. Never, never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
– Winston Churchill
“We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the road will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track, but we have set our soul upon a certain goal ahead, and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back.”
– Vince Lombardi
DEVIL
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist and a magician with the same delight.”
– C.S. Lewis
DEVOTION
“Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.”
– Hudson Taylor
“The motto for every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be ‘Devoted for Life.'”
– Adoniram Judson
“Why do we seem to think we must choose between the two? Why so many Christians live as though they’ve been told, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve: scholarship or devotion?’ I maintain that a biblically balanced Christian has both a full head and a full heart, radiating both spiritual light and heat.”
– Donald S Whitney
“For however devoted you are to God, you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you.”
– Meister Eckhart
“What matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”
– Coach Paul Bear Bryant
DIET
“The second day of the diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it.”
– Jackie Gleason
DIFFICULT PEOPLE
“Every small group has at least one ‘difficult’ person in it. If you don’t immediately recognize who that person is — it’s probably you! ”
– Rick Warren
DIFFICULTIES
“These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
– Abigail Adams, (1744-1818), wife of John Adams, 2nd president of the U.S., and mother of John Quincy Adams, 6th president.
DILIGENCE
“It’s simple… go the extra mile and you will stand out from the crowd.”
– Robin Crow
“A professional is someone who does his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.”
– Alistair Cooke
“Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up in the morning, you had better be running.”
– Unknown
“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan. But when the action starts, you’re down to your reflexes. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, you’re getting found out now under the bright lights.”
– Joe Frazier
DIPLOMACY
“Diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths without giving offense.”
– Winston Churchill
“Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Make the fault easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.”
– Dale Carnegie
“Never cut what you can untie.”
– Joseph Joubert
DIRECTION
“To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.”
– William Carey
“The open door does not necessarily mean the easy pathway.”
– G. Campbell Morgan
DISAGREEMENT
“We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don’t.”
– Frank A. Clark
“Agreement makes us soft and complacent; disagreement brings out our strength. Our real enemies are the people who make us feel so good that we are slowly, but inexorably, pulled down into the quicksand of smugness and self-satisfaction.”
– Sydney Harris
“Just because nobody disagrees with you does not necessarily mean you are brilliant—maybe you’re the boss.”
– Construction Digest
“The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
“The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat—men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority, comes graceful and beloved as a bride!”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of a diplomat.”
– Robert Estabrook
“A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man; it is what he wants and must have to be good for anything. Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance.”
– John Neal
“Several years ago I met a gentleman who served on one of Walt Disney’s original advisory boards. What amazing stories he told! Those early days were tough; but that remarkable, creative visionary refused to give up. I especially appreciated the man’s sharing with me how Disney responded to disagreement. He said that Walt would occasionally present some unbelievable, extensive dream he was entertaining. Almost without exception, the members of his board would gulp, blink, and stare back at him in disbelief, resisting even the thought of such a thing. But unless every member resisted the idea, Disney usually didn’t pursue it. Yes, you read that correctly. The challenge wasn’t big enough to merit his time and creative energy unless they were unanimously in disagreement!”
– Charles Swindoll
“One of the marks of a mature person is the ability to dissent without creating dissension.”
– Don Robinson
“I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.”
– Dudley Field Malone
“One of the marks of maturity is the ability to disagree without becoming disagreeable.”
– Charles R. Swindoll
“God reserves the right to use people who disagree with me.”
– Dr. Bob Cook
DISAPPOINTMENT
“Sometimes break-ups are for wake-ups and not for make-ups! Discern the difference!”
– Dale Bronner
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
DISCERNMENT
“Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.”
– Charles Spurgeon
“Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to faultfinding.”
– Corrie Ten Boom
“Every believer must test all teachers today for himself, by the Word of God and their attitude toward the atoning work of Christ, and other fundamental truths of the Gospel, and not be misled into testing “teaching” by the character of the teacher. Good men can be deceived, and Satan needs good men to float his lies under the guise of truth.”
– Jessie Penn-Lewis
DISCIPLE
“The word ‘disciple’ means ‘a learner,’ but Jesus infused into that simple word a wealth of profound meaning. As used by Him and Paul, it meant ‘a learner or pupil who accepts the teachings of Christ, not only in belief, but also in lifestyle.’ It means learning with purpose to obey what is learned. It involves a deliberate choice, a definite denial, and a determined obedience.”
– Oswald Sanders
DISCIPLESHIP
“You can lead a man to Christ in twenty minutes to a couple of hours, but it takes twenty weeks to a couple of years to adequately follow him up.”
– Dawson Trotman
“In terms of spiritual commitment, what the world calls fanaticism and much of the church calls extremism, Jesus calls being a disciple.”
– Michael L. Brown
“Becoming a believer makes Him yours. Becoming a disciple makes you His.”
– Greg Mohr
“The true aim of discipleship is not merely the transmission of information, but the transformation of character.”
-Tony Cooke
“We are long on membership but short on discipleship. We are more anxious to gather statistics than to grow saints.”
-Vance Havner
“Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
DISCIPLINE
“In order to be the best we can be for God, we need to make some voluntary renunciations (Luke 14:33). If we wish to scale the heights for God, we must face up to this challenge of voluntary renunciation.”
– Oswald Sanders
“Nothing that does not occur daily will ever dominate your life.”
– Ralph Winter
“You will either pay the price of discipline or the price of regret.”
– Chad Stewart
“Spiritual disciplines do not transform, they only become relational opportunities to open the heart to the Spirit who transforms.”
– John H. Coe
“Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.”
– Julie Andrews
“A dream without the discipline to achieve that dream only makes us a daydreamer.”
– John Maxwell
“Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.”
– Roy L Smith
“We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not ‘disciplined?’”
– AW Tozer
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned, and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
– Thomas Huxley
DISCRETION
“If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.”
– Earl Wilson
“The easiest way to save face is to keep the lower half shut.”
– Unknown
“Isn’t it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now?”
– Arnot L. Sheppard Jr.
DISCONTENTMENT
“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.”
– Oscar Wilde
“From the discontent of man, the world’s best progress springs.”
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox
DISCOURAGEMENT
“If Satan’s arsenal of weapons were restricted to a single one, it would be discouragement.”
– C.S. Lewis
DISOBEDIENCE
“Many blush to confess their faults, who never blush to commit them.”
– William Secker
“In whatever man does without God, he must either fail miserably or succeed more miserably.”
– George MacDonald
DISORIENTATION
“I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was once bewildered for three days.”
– David Boone
DISSATISFACTION
“Dissatisfaction is the basis of progress.”
– J. Willard Marriott Sr.
DISTRACTIONS
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
– Winston Churchill
DIVERSITY
“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”
– John F. Kennedy
“We can welcome diversity; the Communists cannot. For we offer a world of choice; they offer a world of coercion.”
– John F. Kennedy
“The same breath is blown into flute, cornet and bagpipe, but different music is produced according to the different instruments. In the same way the one Spirit works in us.”
– Sundar Singh.
DIVISIONS
“I have never known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.”
– D.L. Moody
“When all is said (and truly said) about divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God’s mercy, an enormous common ground.”
– C.S. Lewis
DOCTRINE
“Biblical doctrine is to the soul as an anchor to the ship, that holds it steady in the midst of rolling waves of error.”
– Thomas Watson
“There are many doctrines of a less essential nature… In these, we may think and let think; we may ‘agree to disagree.’ But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials…”
– John Wesley
“That the ship may be kept from overturning, it must have its anchor fastened. Knowledge of biblical doctrine is to the soul as an anchor to the ship, that holds it steady in the midst of the rolling waves of error, or the violent winds of persecution.”
– Thomas Watson
“When encountering Satan and the Pharisees, Jesus said, ‘It is ALSO written…’ (John 8:17, NKJV) and ‘The Scriptures ALSO say…’ (Matthew 4:7, NLT). Don’t establish a doctrine on isolated proof-texts; build your faith on the whole counsel of God’s word.”
– Tony Cooke
“I am persuaded that the use of a good Catechism in all our families will be a great safeguard against the increasing errors of the times, and therefore I have compiled this little manual from the Westminster Assembly’s and Baptist Catechisms, for the use of my own church and congregation. Those who use it in their families or classes must labour to explain the sense; but the words should be carefully learned by heart, for they will be understood better as years pass.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“The most important part of doctrine is the first two letters.”
– David C. Egner
DOCTORS
[Doctors] are called devils by the faith healers. Do you ask what I would do if I were ill? Get the best doctor in town, trust in him, and trust in the Lord to work through him.
– Dwight L. Moody
DOUBLE MINDED
“A divided heart loses both worlds.”
– A.B. Simpson
DREAMS
“I do not dream at night, I dream all day, I dream for a living.”
– Steven Spielberg
“Great it is to dream the dream when you stand in youth by the starry stream…but a greater thing is to fight life through, and say at the end, the dream is true.”
– Edwin Markham
“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”
– Oscar Wilde
“When you stop having dreams and ideals—well, you might as well stop altogether.”
– Marian Anderson
DREAMING
“When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist.”
– Winston Churchill
DUTY
“Forward then. Forward! Let us go forward without fear into the future and let us dread naught when duty calls.”
– Winston Churchill
“All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.”
– General George S. Patton
EDIFICATION
“Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear then and while their hearts can be thrilled by them.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
EDUCATION
“A muttonhead, after an education at West Point—or Harvard—is a muttonhead still.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
John Wesley responded to a critic who was downplaying his education, “God may not need my education, but he doesn’t need your ignorance either.”
“When grace abounds, learning will not puff you up, or injure your simplicity in the gospel. Serve God with such education as you have and thank Him for blowing through you if you are a ram’s horn, but if there be a possibility of your becoming a silver trumpet, choose it rather.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“College is a foundation of knowledge where some come to drink, more come to sip, but, unfortunately, most come just to gargle.”
– Rob Gilbert
“When is man educated? When he knows how to live, how to love, how to hope, how to pray, and is not afraid to die.”
– Joseph Fort Newton
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”
– Mark Twain
“Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated.”
– Robert C. Savage
“The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.”
– Newton D. Baker
“Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.”
– Henry L. Doherty
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
– Derek Bok
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory. It’s knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it’s knowing how to use the information you get.”
– William Feather
EFFECTIVENESS
“Too often, not wanting to offend anyone, we end up reaching no one.”
– A. W. Tozer
“My prayer is that when I die, all hell rejoices that I am out of the fight.”
– CS Lewis
EFFICIENCY
“It is more than probable that the average man could, with no injury to his health, increase his efficiency 50 percent.”
– Walter Dill Scott
EFFORT
“Always do more than is required of you.”
– General George S. Patton
“I see no virtue where I smell no sweat.”
– Francis Quarles
“He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds are not found in polished stones. They are made.”
– Henry B. Wilson
“You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
– Wayne Gretzky
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
– Thomas Edison
“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.”
– George Halas
“There are no traffic jams on the second mile.”
– Zig Ziglar
EGO
“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”
– T. S. Elliot
EGO-CENTRICITY
“I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments.”
– Oscar Wilde
EGOTISM
Not only did Teddy Roosevelt want to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral,” but Winston Churchill said the following: “My idea of a good dinner is first of all to have good food, then discuss good food, and after this good food has been elaborately discussed, to discuss a good topic – with myself as the chief conversationalist.” Churchill also said, “Of course I am an egotist? Where do you get if you aren’t.”
The famous actor, John Barrymore, said, “One of my chief regrets during my years in the theater is that I couldn’t sit in the audience and watch me.”
Every man needs a blind eye and a deaf ear, so when people applaud, you’ll only hear half of it, and when people salute, you’ll only see part of it. Believe only half the praise and half the criticism.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.”
– Benjamin Franklin
ELOQUENCE
“True eloquence is that which holds us too mute for applause.”
– Bulwer
“True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said, and that only.”
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
ELECTION
“Mr. Moody used to say in his downright, sensible, matter-of-fact manner, ‘The elect are the whosoever wills; the non elect are the whosoever won’ts.'”
– Harry A. Ironside
EMOTION
“Feeling, then, is not the degenerate son of unbelief that is often painted by some of our Bible teachers. Our ability to feel is one of the marks of our divine origin. We need not be ashamed of either tears or laughter. The Christian stoic who has crushed his feelings is only two-thirds of a man; an important third part has been repudiated. Holy feeling had an important place in the life of our Lord. ‘For the joy that was set before Him’ He endured the cross and despised its shame. He pictured Himself crying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin.”
– A.W. Tozer
“Don’t come to me with your rubbish that there is no emotion in religion. You cannot have real religion without emotion.”
– Donald Gee
“Some people accuse us of too much emotionalism. I say we have too little. That is why we are losing church people to other interests. We need not only to capture their minds; we’ve got to touch their hearts. We’ve got to make people feel their faith.”
– Billy Graham
EMOTIONAL PAIN
“The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour.”
– Charles Spurgeon
EMPATHY
“Most Christians would rather be happy than feel the wounds of other peoples’ sorrows.”
– A.W. Tozer
“No one knows the scars other people are carrying.”
– Jack Hayford
“When we put ourselves in the other person’s place, we’re less likely to want to put him in his place.”
– Farmer’s Digest
EMPOWERMENT
“What God expects us to attempt, He also enables us to achieve.”
– Stephen Olford
“A reporter who covered D.L. Moody’s meetings in Britain wrote, ‘I can see nothing whatever in Moody to account for his marvelous work.’ When Moody read the report, he chuckled. ‘Why, that is the very secret of the movement. There is nothing in it that can explain it but the power of God. The work is God’s, not mine.'”
– Oswald Sanders
ENABLEMENT
“There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do, that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do, that I have not been able to accomplish.”
– George Washington Carver
ENCOURAGEMENT
“People will only go as far as they are encouraged to go.”
– Pastor Jim Cobrae
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
– Booker T. Washington
“With an old head and a young heart, you can be a source of real strength [to others] who need your cheer and encouragement.”
– Billy Graham
“Renewal is brought by the Holy Spirit. Believers will learn what it means to minister to one another and build each other up. No longer will our lives seem ordinary and indistinguishable from the rest of the world.”
– Billy Graham
“We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.”
– Peter De Vries
“Encouragement is oxygen to the soul.”
– George Adam
“If I had my life to live over, I would spend more time encouraging others.”
– F.B. Meyer
“One of the highest of human duties is the duty of encouragement…It is easy to discourage others. The world is full of discouragers. We have a Christian duty to encourage one another.”
– William Barclay
“A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.”
– James Monroe
“A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.”
– John C. Maxwell
“The right word spoken in the right spirit at the right time can penetrate a person’s isolation, drive out the darkness, and change his life forever.”
– Tony Cooke
“One of the highest of human duties is the duty of encouragement… It is easy to pour cold water on their enthusiasm; it is easy to discourage others. The world is full of discouragers. We have a Christian duty to encourage one another. Many a time a word of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer has kept a man on his feet.”
– Donald Bubna
“There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come through encouragement from someone else. I don’t care how great, how famous or how successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause.”
– George M. Adams
“One compliment can keep me going for a whole month.”
– Mark Twain
“When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.”
– Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into a flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”
– Albert Schweitzer
ENDURANCE
“The secret of endurance is to realize that your pain is temporary but your reward will be eternal.”
– Rick Warren
“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”
– William Barclay
“A preacher’s biggest problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart.”
– Vance Havener
“Champions aren’t made in a gym; champions are made from something they have deep inside them, a desire; a dream; a vision. They have to have last minute stamina. They have to be a little faster. They have to have the skill and the will, but the will must be stronger than the skill.”
– Mohammed Ali
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
ENERGY
“The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.”
– Thomas Fuller
“I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.”
– Sherlock Holmes
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.”
– Phillips Brooks
ENJOYMENT
“Our heavenly Father gives to us ‘richly all things to enjoy’ (1 Tim. 6:17). To look at some Christians, you would never suspect that the word enjoy is even in the Bible! Well, it is; and those of God’s children who really understand all that he has given them will radiate his joy through their lives.”
– Warren W. Wiersbe
ENTHUSIASM
“The worst bankruptcy in the world is the person who has lost their enthusiasm.”
– H. W. Arnold
“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
– Mark Twain
“Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”
– Watterson Lowe
“Man is made so that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.”
– Jean La Fontaine
“Every man is enthusiastic at times. One man has enthusiasm for thirty minutes, another man has it for thirty days, but it is the man who has it for thirty years who makes a success in life.”
– Edward B. Butler
“Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.”
– Stanley Baldwin
“Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence. It is no more or less than faith in action.”
– Henry Chester
“Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Men are nothing until they are excited.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“The world belongs to the energetic.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
ENVY
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”
– Aeschylus
“Men always hate most what they envy most.”
– H.L. Mencken
“Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do to ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“As rust corrupts iron, so envy corrupts man.”
– Antisthenes
“There is a strong disposition in youth, from which some individuals never escape, to suppose that everyone else is having a more enjoyable time than we are ourselves.”
– Anthony Powell
ERROR
“It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.”
– Augustine
“Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of every heresy.”
– J.C. Ryle
“It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.”
– Sophocles
“He (the devil) always sends errors into the world in pairs–pairs of opposites…He relies on your extra dislike of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.”
– C. S. Lewis
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
– G. K. Chesterton
“What good is it for a thirsty man to be served foul water from precious goblets? Yet so I drank in falsity from eloquent and esteemed men.”
– Augustine
“Schenck proceeds in a most monstrous manner, haranguing, without the least discernment, on the subject of sin. I, myself have heard him say in the pulpit… without any qualification whatever, ‘Sin, sin is nothing; God will receive sinners; He Himself tells us they shall enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Schenck makes no distinction between sins committed, sins committing, and sins to be committed, so that when common people hear him say, ‘Sin, for God will receive sinners’; they very readily repeat, ‘Well, we’ll sin then.’ ‘Tis a most erroneous doctrine. What is announced as to God’s receiving sinners, applies to sinners who have repented; there is all the difference in the world between agnitum peccatum (acknowledging sin), attended by repentance, and velle peccare (to want to do wrong) which is an inspiration of the devil.”
– Martin Luther (responding to false doctrine)
“Error never shows itself in its naked reality, in order not to be discovered. On the contrary, it dresses elegantly, so that the unwary may be led to believe that it is more truthful than truth itself.”
– Irenaeus of Lyons
ESCHATOLOGY
“Any theology that does not live with a sense of the immediate return of Christ is a theology that takes the edge off of the urgency of faith. But any theology that does not cause us to live as though the world will be here for thousands of years is a theology that leads us into social irresponsibility.”
– Tony Campolo
ETERNITY
“We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time.”
– Alexander MacLaren
“I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between two boundless oceans.”
– John Wesley
“85 years of food, clothing, health, peace, prosperity, and comfort, followed by eternal misery, is not a good life.”
– John Piper
“Eternity depends on the proper use of time.”
– Jonathan Edwards
“Oh God, stamp eternity upon my eyeballs.”
– Jonathan Edwards
“Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever.”
– C.S. Lewis
“A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“Nothing less than forever is long enough for us… The church must claim again her ancient dowry of everlastingness. She must begin again to deal with ages and millenniums rather than with days and years. She must not count numbers but test foundations. She must work for permanence rather than for appearance.”
– A.W. Tozer
“Leave nothing undone which ought to be done; do nothing which ought to be omitted. Point all of your views to the elevated scenes of an immortal existence, and remember that this life is but the dawn of your being.”
– Timothy Dwight (President of Yale, 1776)
“God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.”
– Jeremy Taylor
“Nothing is eternal but that which is done for God and others. That which is done for self dies.”
– James H. Aughey
“God has set Eternity in our heart, and man’s infinite capacity cannot be filled or satisfied with the things of time and sense.”
– F.B. Meyer
“I judge all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”
– John Wesley
“The best moment of a Christian’s life is his last one, because it is the one that is nearest heaven. And then it is that he begins to strike the keynote of the song which he shall sing to all eternity.”
– Charles Spurgeon
“A Christian funeral should be a coronation ceremony, a statement to the world about eternal life.”
– Billy Graham
“We’ll have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only one short hour before sunset to win them.”
– Robert Moffat
“He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.”
– Tillotson
“I love to live on the brink of eternity.”
– David Brainerd
ETHICS
“The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
– General Omar Bradley
EUROPE
“There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Europe.”
– Winston Churchill
EVANGELISM
“To leave this matter of saving souls to preachers is not only heartless; it is inexcusably wicked.”
– John R. Rice
“Evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ, the only Redeemer of men, according to the Scriptures, with the purpose of persuading condemned and lost sinners to put their trust in God by receiving and accepting Christ as Savior through the power of the Holy Spirit, and to serve Christ as Lord in every calling of life and in the fellowship of His Church, looking toward the day of His coming.”
– Congress on World Evangelism in Berlin, 1966
“Evangelism is a church growing where it is: Missions is a church growing where it isn’t.”
– Ralph Winter
“We are never closer to God than when we share His heart for the unevangelized.”
– Patrick Johnstone
“Sinners ought to be made to feel that they have something to do, and that is to repent; that is something which no other being can do for them, neither God nor man, and something which they can do, and do now. Religion is something thing to do, not something to wait for. And they must do now, or they are in danger of eternal death. Ministers should never rest satisfied, until they have ANNIHILATED every excuse of sinners.”
– Charles Finney
“Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men, but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus.”
– Elton Trueblood
“You are someone’s last stop on their way to eternity.”
– Dave Williams
“We all want to do the will of God, and we know that there is nothing nearer to His heart than the evangelization of the world.”
– Oswald J. Smith
“Evangelism without social work is deficient; social work without evangelism is impotent.”
– John R. Mott
“It is much easier to reach thieves and drunkards and vagabonds than self-righteous Pharisees. You do not have to preach to those men for weeks and months to convince them that they are sinners. When a man learns that he has need of God and that he is a sinner, it is very easy to reach him.”
– Dwight L. Moody
“So, does Jesus threaten people to get them to come to Him? I think it’s more accurate to say that Jesus died and rose again to get people to come to Him. However, He loves us too much not to tell us the truth. If someone’s house is on fire, I’m not “threatening them” when I tell them their house is on fire and they need to get out to avoid perishing…I’m telling them the truth.”
– Tony Cooke
“Sometimes, too, we must change our tone. Instead of instructing, reasoning, and persuading, we must come to threatening, and declare the wrath of God upon impenitent souls. We must lift the curtain and let them see the future. Show them their danger, and warn them to escape from the wrath to come. This done, we must return to the invitation and set before the awakened mind the rich provisions of infinite grace which are freely presented to the sons of men. In our Master’s name we must give the invitation, crying ‘Whosever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ Do not be deterred by the ultra-Calvinistic theologians who say, ‘You may instruct and warn the ungodly, but you must not invite or entreat them.'”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“I had found…with the higher classes especially…the greatest obstacle to be overcome was…they were too proud…Something was needed, to make the impression on them that they were expected at once to give up their hearts; something that would call them to act, and act as publicly before the world, as they had in their sins; something that would commit them publicly to the service of Christ…I had called them simply to stand up in the public congregations…to bring them out from among the mass…to a public renunciation of their sinful ways, and a public committal of themselves to God.”
– Charles Finney (speaking about altar calls)
“…he [George Whitfield] was the very first Englishman who seems to have thoroughly understood what Dr. Chalmers aptly called the aggressive system. He was the first to see that Christ’s ministers much do the work of fishermen. They must not wait for souls to come to them—but must go after souls, and ‘compel them to come in.’ He attacked sin and wickedness face to face, and gave them no peace. He dived into holes and corners after sinners! He hunted out ignorance and vice wherever they could be found. City missions, town missions, district visiting societies, open air preaching’s, home missions, special services, theater preaching’s, are all of evidences that the value of the ‘aggressive system’ is now thoroughly recognized by all the Churches.”
– J.C. Ryle (1816-1900)
“Infidels are seldom shaken by a mere abstract reasoning. The surest argument against them are gospel truth and gospel life.”
– J.C. Ryle
“Evangelism is more than simply encouraging decisions for Christ. It is urging people to become disciples – followers – of Jesus Christ. As such, the evangelist has a responsibility to make growth in discipleship possible for those who come to faith under his ministry.”
– Billy Graham
“Evangelism is not a calling reserved exclusively for the clergy. I believe one of the greatest priorities of the church today is to mobilize the laity to do the work of evangelism.”
“The vitality of the church may be measured by its interests in the evangelism of the world.”
– A.T. Pierson
“Oh Lord, give me souls, or take my soul!”
– George Whitefield
“No Christian is in a right condition if he is not seeking in some way to bring souls to Christ.”
– C.H. Mackintosh
“Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.”
– Johannes Gutenberg
A man once testified in one of D.L. Moody’s meetings that he had lived “on the Mount of Transfiguration” for five years. “How many souls did you lead to Christ last year?” Moody bluntly asked him. “Well,” the man hesitated, “I don’t know.” “Have you saved any?” Moody persisted. “I don’t know that I have,” the man admitted. “Well,” said Moody, “we don’t want that kind of mountaintop experience. When a man gets up so high that he cannot reach down and save poor sinners, there is something wrong.”
– Warren Wiersbe
“I would rather win souls than be the greatest king or emperor on earth; I would rather win souls than be the greatest general that ever commanded an army; I would rather win souls than be the greatest poet, or novelist, or literary man who ever walked the earth. My one ambition in life is to win as many as possible.”
– R. A. Torrey
“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
– William Booth (Founder of the Salvation Army)
EVIL
“In America today, it is considered worse to judge evil than to do evil.”
– Os Guinness
“Christ’s goodness is still a rebuke to our badness; His purity still shows up in our impurities; His sinlessness still reveals our sinfulness; and unless we allow [Jesus] to destroy the evil within us, the evil within us still wants to destroy Him. This is the conflict of the ages.”
– Billy Graham
EVOLUTION
“I believe in… gracious and divine and heavenly evolution—evolution out of sin into holiness, out of grief into gladness, out of mortality into immortality, out of earth into heaven! That is the evolution I believe in.”
– T. DeWitt Talmage
EXAGGERATION
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
– Mark Twain
EXAMPLE
“Example is leadership.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“What my words communicate, my life must validate.”
– Ed Russo
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day… the lectures you deliver may be very fine and true, but I’d rather get my lesson by observing what you do.”
– Edgar A. Guest
“It is a frightening thing for God to use the example of your life as a deterrent for others.”
– Henry Blackaby
“A man’s life is always more forcible than his speech… If his life and his doctrines disagree, the mass of on-lookers accept his practice and reject his preaching… It is very ridiculous to hear good truth from a bad man.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“We change our world with our example, not our opinion!”
– Randy Landis Sr.
“From a kid’s perspective, what parents do in their private and personal lives has an enormous impact on them.”
– Dr. Meg Meeker
“Young people need models, not critics.”
– John Wooden
“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”
– Catherine Franklin
“Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, or else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.”
– Matthew Henry
“Sometimes the last people to be favorably impressed by professing Christians are those who know them in their home life.”
– D.L. Moody
“No one is useless. They can always serve as a bad example.”
– Ruth Graham
“Show me that you are redeemed and then I will believe in your redeemer.”
– Frederich Nietzsche
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
– Mohandas Ghandi
“When I saw the unwearied patience, that unflagging zeal, those enlightened sons of Africa, I became a Christian at his side, though he never spoke to me about it.”
– Stanley, on observing David Livingstone
“There is just one way to bring up a child in the way he should go, and that is to travel that way yourself.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Your actions speak so loud, I cannot hear what you are saying.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“Don’t worry that your children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”
– Robert Fulghum
“Out of one hundred men, one will read the Bible, the other ninety-nine will read the Christian.”
– D.L. Moody
“When you see me stop following Christ, stop following me.”
– Howard Hendricks
EXCELLENCE
“In the race for quality, there is no finish line.”
– David T. Kearns
“There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself.”
– Max Lucado
“If my hand slacked, I should rob God.”
– Antonio Stradivari
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”
– Satchel Paige
“It is the willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate organization.”
– Peter F. Drucker
“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”
– George Washington Carver
“Far too often in a church staff environment, we incorrectly apply grace. Someone makes a mistake or falls short of a standard of excellence and we say, ‘Ah, that’s OK.’ It’s not OK. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for ‘OK.’ He deserves our best. You can be kind in your communication and patient in your coaching, but don’t lower your expectations. The cause of Christ is worth everyone’s best.”
– Dan Reiland
“And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
– Aristotle
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
– Booker T. Washington
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.”
– Ralph Marston
“God does not want us to do extraordinary things; he wants us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
– Rabbi Bernard S. Raskas
“There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.”
– B.C. Forbes
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
– Abraham Lincoln
EXCESS
“Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
EXCUSES
“An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.”
– Billy Sunday
“A man who wants to be something will find a way; a man who doesn’t will find an excuse.”
– Stephen Dolley Jr.
“When the Spirit is absent, our excuses always seem right, but in the presence of the Spirit our excuses fade away.”
– R.T. Kendall
“Excuses are the cradle … that Satan rocks men off to sleep in.”
– Dwight L. Moody
“I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at making anything else.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.”
– Don Wilder
“We are all manufacturers in a way — making good, making trouble, or making excuses.”
– H.V. Adolf
“The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.”
– Florence Nightengale
“Getting caught is the mother of invention.”
– Robert Byrne
“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
– George Washington Carver
EXERTION
“Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.”
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
EXHIBITIONIST
“Some people go to church and shout ‘amen’ louder than everyone else, thinking it proves how spiritual they are. In reality, it only proves they have a loud mouth and the disposition of an exhibitionist. They make themselves the center of attention instead of Jesus.”
– John Hagee
EXHILARATION
“Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what’s wrong with it.”
– Rex Harrison
EXPECTANCY
“Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.”
– Oswald Chambers
“Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles.”
– Edwin Louis Cole
“God has great things in store for His people; they ought to have large expectations.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we ask or think.'”
– Andrew Murray
EXPECTATION
“Let us expect that God is going to use us. Let us have courage and go forward, looking to God to do great things.”
– D.L. Moody
“Too many times we miss so much because we live on the low level of the natural, the ordinary, the explainable. We leave no room for God to do the exceedingly abundant thing above all that we ask or think.”
– Vance Havner
“He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it. When our virtues become more mature, we shall not be more tolerant of evil; but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms.”
– C. H. Spurgeon
“The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”
– William Carey
“Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
– Benjamin Franklin
EXPERIENCE
“War talk by men who have been in war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been to the moon is likely to be dull.”
– Mark Twain
“Words can never be understood in isolation. They can only be understood in a context, against a backdrop of experience.”
– Dale Bronner
“I know a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and he learned 40 percent more about cats than the man who didn’t.”
– Mark Twain
“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.”
– Indian Proverb
“It is tragic to go through our days making Christ the subject of our study but not the sustenance of our souls. To appropriate Christ Himself, the Bread of Life, is to live by faith and grow. You can starve reading books on bread.”
-Vance Havner
“I long to put the experience of fifty years at once into your young lives, to give you at once the key to that treasure chamber every gem of which has cost me tears and struggles and prayers, but you must work for these inward treasures yourselves.”
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
– Aldous Huxley
“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”
– Harold S. Geneen
“Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”
– Oscar Wilde
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
– John Wooden, Hall of Fame basketball coach
“Experience is the hardest teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.”
– Unknown
“The years teach much which the days never know.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A little experience often upsets a lot of theory.”
– Cadman
EXPENSES
“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”
– Benjamin Franklin
EXPERTS
“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.”
– Robert Heinlein
EXPRESSION
“Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world.”
– Johannes Gutenberg (inventor of the first moveable type printing press which resulted for the first time in the mass production of Bibles)
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