Tony Cooke Ministries - Tony Cooke Ministries' Free Resource Area

CALLING
“Life is very sweet to me, and there is no position of power or wealth that could tempt me from the throne God has given me.”
- D.L. Moody

“I suppose they say of me, ‘He is a radical; he is a fanatic; he only has one idea.’ Well, it is a glorious idea. I would rather have that said of me than be a man of ten thousand ideas and do nothing with them.”
- D.L. Moody

CARING
“Deep down, your players must know you care about them. This is the most important thing. I could never get away with what I do if the players didn’t know I care. They know, in the long run, I’m in their corner.”
- Bo Schembechler (University of Michigan football coach)

CHANGE
“In times of change learners will inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
- Eric Hoffer

“The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”
- Unknown

CHARACTER
“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take on wings, those who cheer today will curse tomorrow; only one thing endures—character.”
- Horace Greeley

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

“We have all heard the story of the man who preached so well and lived so badly, that when he was in the pulpit everybody said he ought never to come out again, and when he was out of it they all declared he never ought to enter it again.”
- Charles Spurgeon (from “Lectures to My Students”)

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.”
- Aristotle

"We set young leaders up for a fall if we encourage them to envision what they can do before they consider the kind of person they should be."
- Ruth Barton

"The line of least resistance makes crooked rivers and crooked men."
- Bob Murphey

"Character is the most effective means of persuasion."
- Aristotle

"Character is power."
- Booker T. Washington

"Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to stay there."
- John Wooden

"To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful."
- Edward R. Murrow

"Character is what you are in the dark."
- D.L. Moody

"Your character is what you really are. Your reputation is only what others think you are."
- John Wooden

“The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”
- Thomas B. Macaula

“If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.”
- Dwight L. Moody

"Character, not circumstance, makes the person."
- Booker T. Washington

“The best index to a person’s character is (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.”
- Abigail van Buren

"A man's character is his fate."
- Heraclitus

“You must decide whether or not you will design your life after the pattern of Jesus, or design your life around the best thinking the world has to offer.”
- C. Gene Wilkes

CHANGE
“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”
- Winston Churchill

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

“Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.”
- Unknown

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."
- Woodrow Wilson

"When you’re through changing, you’re through."
- Bruce Barton

"Many men today will change wives, children, businesses, anything, rather than change themselves. Real men face change and reality."
- Ed Cole

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
- George Bernard Shaw

“The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.”
- D.L. Moody

CHARACTER
“Christianity isn’t worth the snap of your finger if it doesn’t straighten out your character.”
- D.L. Moody

CHEERFULNESS
"You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others?”
- Lydia M. Child

CHILDREN
“It is a commonplace how easily a child of 3 or 4 picks up a foreign language if exposed to it without any formal teaching. Yet we are unwilling to admit that a child of the same age picks up our unconscious attitudes and prejudices without being taught--and often retains these longer than any of his formal education.”
- Sidney J. Harris

“Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built into the hearts of children as they grow up.”
- George S. Benson

“People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage.”
- Martin Luther

CHOICES
"Life is the sum of all your choices."
- Albert Camus

CHRIST
“If you make a great deal of Christ, He will make a great deal of you; but if you make but a little of Christ, Christ will make but a little of you.”
- R.A. Torrey

“I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek . . . at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died for. And that is what He died about. That is where church-men ought to be and what church-men ought to be about.”
- George MacLeod

CHRISTIAN LIVING
“Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow.”
- Theodore Epp

CHRISTIANITY
“The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”
- Unknown

“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
- Benjamin Franklin

CHRIST-LIKENESS
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
- Mohandas Gandhi

CHURCH
“Big wind, lotta dust, no rain.”
- American Indian chief after attending church

“The church has but one mission in this world: to lead people destined to spend eternity in hell to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and an eternity in heaven.”
- John MacArthur

“I’ve learned that you can’t possibly build a God-honoring church with a congregation full of consumers.”
- Bill Hybels

"The church is only the church when it exists for others."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The church is the only cooperative society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members.”
- William Temple

"We're no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium, and we spend most of our time swiping fish from each other's bowls."
- Dr. Kermit Long

"I have no objection to churches so long as they do not interfere with God’s work.”
- Brooks Atkinson

“Farewell to those who want an entirely pure and purified church. This is plainly wanting no church at all.”
- Martin Luther

CIRCUMSTANCES
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them."
- George Bernard Shaw

CITIZENSHIP
"A Christian's first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code to the polls and vote them... If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease... it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country."
- Mark Twain

"If America is to survive, we must elect more God-centered men and women to public office; individuals who will seek Divine guidance in the affairs of state."
- Billy Graham

COMFORT
“If I had my ministry over again, I would devote far more time to the ministry of comfort and encouragement.”
- F.B. Meyer

COMMITTEE
"Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to Adam."
- A. Whitney Griswold

COMMITMENT
"There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when it is convenient. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses."
- Ken Blanchard

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
- The last sentence of the Declaration of Independence

COMPANIONSHIP
“A true companion is someone who dedicates his life to helping others follow God’s will for their lives. A companion is there to affirm, to encourage, to pray and support—often at great personal cost.”
- Henry Blackaby

COMPARISON
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

COMPASSION
"He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
- Shakespeare

"Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad."
- Longfellow

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."
- George Washington Carver

“Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
- George Washington Carver

COMPETITION
"The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself."
- Washington Allston

"Are we driven people, propelled by the winds of our times, pressed to conform or compete? Or are we called people, the recipients of the gracious beckoning of Christ when he promises to make us into something?"
- Gordon MacDonald

COMPETITIVENESS
"I never did say that you can't be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I'd trip her up."
- Leo Durocher

COMPLAINING
"I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain."
- Lily Tomlin

COMPOSURE
"My father used to say to me, 'Whenever you get into a jam, whenever you get into a crisis or an emergency...become the calmest person in the room and you'll be able to figure your way out of it.'"
- Rudolph Giuliani

COMPROMISE
"As Christians, we must never compromise our faith with evil. It is often appropriate, however, to compromise with each other when no sin or evil intent is involved."
- Norman Shawchuck

COMPULSION
"A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion… rarely having any time to appreciate the achievements to date. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship… not to speak of one with God."
- Gordon MacDonald

CONCLUSION
"A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
- Unknown

CONFIDENCE
“It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.”
- Jeremy Taylor

CONFLICT
"Never get in a spittin’ match with a skunk. Even if you win, you come out smelling bad."
- Unknown

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
“The option for human beings, however, is not whether to experience conflict or not. The only choice is whether this conflict will be managed constructively or destructively. The evidence is overwhelming that a persistent management style of avoidance or repression of conflict ultimately has a destructive effect on a person, a relationship, or an organization.”
- Douglas Lewis, “Resolving Church Conflicts.” Harper & Row, 1981.

CONDUCT
"Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg."
- Unknown

"Resolved: that all men should live to the glory of God. Resolved second: that whether others do or not, I will."
- Jonathon Edwards

CONQUEST
"We cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves."
- Todd Skinner, Mountain Climber

CONSCIENCE
"A good conscience is a continual Christmas."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Most of us follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. We push it in front of us in the direction we want to go."
- Billy Graham

Throughout his administration, Abraham Lincoln was a president under fire, especially during the scarring years of the Civil War. And though he knew he would make errors of office, he resolved never to compromise his integrity. So strong was this resolve that he once said, "I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me."

"Conscience," said an Indian, "is a three-cornered thing in my heart that stands still when I am good, but when I am bad, it turns around and the corners hurt a lot. If I keep on doing wrong, the corners wear off and it does not hurt anymore."

"There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience."
- French Proverb

CONSECRATION
“We cannot sincerely pray, ‘Thy kingdom come’ until we have legitimately prayed, ‘My kingdom go.’”
- Tommy Tenney

“The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a man without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God.”
- W.T. Richardson

“No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through one solitary life, wholly yielded, adjusted, and obedient to Him.”
- D.L. Moody

"Because I know that I am not my own master, I offer my heart as a true sacrifice to the Lord."
- John Calvin

A group of ministers were once talking about a minister they could bring in for a city-wide revival. D.L. Moody's name was brought up and many concurred.
One minister said, "D.L. Moody doesn't have a monopoly on God."
Another responded: "No, but it's obvious that God has a monopoly on D.L. Moody."

"The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a person without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God."
- Bishop Wescott

CONSISTENCY
"I have observed very frequently that it is not the man who is so brilliant who delivers in times of stress and strain, but rather the man who can keep on going indefinitely doing a good, straightforward job".
- D.D. Eisenhower

“It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What’s tough is being good every day.”
- Willie Mays

CONTENTMENT
"It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy."
- George Horace Lorimer

“You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

CONTRIBUTION
"When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

“When you stop giving and offering something to the rest of the world, it’s time to turn out the lights.”
- George Burns

CONTROL
“Control is when you leverage the strength of your position or personality against the weakness of someone else’s in order to get that person to meet your selfish agenda.”
- Tim Kimmel

CONSEQUENCES
"If you do what you should not, you must bear what you would not."
- Benjamin Franklin

“The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
- Herbert Spencer

CORRECTION
When we as youngsters, would accuse our mother of picking on us her wise reply was, "All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you."
- Judith Crist

CORRUPTION
Instead of praying for the people, the priests were preying on the people! The temple was not a “house of prayer” (Isa. 56:7); it was a “den of thieves” (Jer. 7:11).
- W.W. Wiersbe

COVETOUSNESS
"Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men."
- Charles Cale Colton

COURAGE
“Life is a battle I which we fall from wounds we receive in running away.”
- William L. Sullivan

“Courage is being scared to death – and saddling up anyway.”
- John Wayne

"A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for ten minutes longer."
- Emerson

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
- Winston Churchill

“Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.”
- Franklin P. Jones

COURTESY
"Treat everybody with politeness, even those who are rude to you. Show courtesy to others, not because they are gentlemen, but because you are one."
- Unknown

CREATION
"I look at the universe and know there’s an architect."
- Jack Anderson

CREATIVITY
“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.”
“What mood is that?”
“Last minute panic.”
- Calvin and Hobbes comic (Created by Bill Watterson)

"We bury the men who do the nation’s creative work under layers of administrators and mountains of memoranda. We shrivel creativity by endless frustrations."
- Admiral H G Rickover

"In creating, the only hard thing is to begin; a grass blade’s no easier to make than an oak."
- James Russell Lowell

"Necessity is the mother of invention."
- Jonathan Swift

"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father."
- Roger von Oech

"The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- Albert Einstein.

"Creative solutions are, by definition, solutions that are untried. They involve risk and require you to make decisions that often do not meet with immediate, universal acceptance."
- Marc Oldach

CRISIS
“The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.”
- H.G. Wells

CRITICISM
"To escape criticism—do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
- Elbert Hubbard

"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."
- Norman Vincent Peale

"The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"A wise man gets more out of his enemies than a fool gets out of his friends."
- Baltasar Gracian

"When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece."
- John Ruskin

"Cynics and critics wake us up. Kindness often covers up the truth and allows us to sleep on in our ignorance."
- Wilfred A Peterson

One time many years ago preacher Dwight L. Moody was criticized because of the evangelistic methods he used. Moody replied, "I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it."

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him."
- David Brinkley

"Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, insinuations, and misrepresentations which are uttered against him."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"If I tried to read, much less answer, all the criticisms made of me, and all the attacks leveled against me, this office would have to be closed for all other business. I do the best I know how, the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing this, down to the very end. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I had been right would make no difference. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me now will not amount to anything."
- Abraham Lincoln

"Criticism is something you can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing."
- Aristotle

TV personality Gary Moore had a special way of handling criticism. Whenever he would receive a particularly nasty letter, he would send it back with a note: "The enclosed letter arrived on my desk a few days ago. I am sending it to you in the belief that as a responsible citizen you should know that some idiot is sending out letters over your signature."

"Get a friend to tell you your faults, or better still, welcome an enemy who will watch you keenly and sting you savagely. What a blessing such an irritating critic will be to a wise man, what an intolerable nuisance to a fool!"
– Charles Spurgeon

CULTURE
"The men in the Lewis and Clark expedition thought of themselves as explorers, not a war party. This has to be our attitude toward contemporary culture - we are not at war with them; we are explorers looking for the initiation of God’s kingdom in the culture, so we can come alongside it as ambassadors of His kingdom and partner with Him."
- Todd Hunter

CURIOSITY
"Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."
- Samuel Johnson

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tires merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
- Albert Einstein

CYNICISM
"Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick