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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
“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
DECISIONS
“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
“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”
“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
DENIAL
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
Aldous Huxley
DEPENDABILITY
‘The greatest ability is dependability’.
- Curt Bergwall
DEPRAVITY
“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
“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
“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 form 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
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be wished for, it is something to be attained."
- William Jennings Bryan
“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
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"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."
- Benjamin Franklin
DETERMINATION
“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
DEVOTION
“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
“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
DISAGREEMENT
"God reserves the right to use people who disagree with me."
- Robert A. Cook
“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
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
DISCERNMENT
“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
DISCIPLESHIP
“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
“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
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.
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
DIVISIONS
“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
“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
“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”
- Oscar Wilde
“When you stop having dream 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
“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
“The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.”
- Newton D. Baker
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-CENTRIC
“I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments.”
- Oscar Wilde
EGOTISM
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
EMOTION
“Don’t come to me with your rubbish that there is no emotion in religion. You cannot have real religion without emotion.”
- Donald Gee
EMPATHY
“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
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
"What God expects us to attempt, He also enables us to achieve."
- Stephen Olford
ENCOURAGEMENT
“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
“Our duty is not to see through one another, but to see one another through.”
“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
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
- Booker T. Washington
"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
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
ENDURANCE
“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
"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory."
- William Barclay
"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 it seems you can’t go on, hold on, for that’s just the place and the time that the tide will turn."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
“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
ENTHUSIASM
“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
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“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
"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
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
ERROR
“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
ETERNITY
“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
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
“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
EXAGGERATION
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
- Mark Twain
EXAMPLE
"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 loudly, that I cannot hear what you say."
- 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
“What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When you see me stop following Christ, stop following me.”
- Howard Hendricks
EXCELLENCE
“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
“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
“Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
- George Washington Carver
“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
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
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
“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
“I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned forty percent more about cats than the man who didn’t.”
- Mark Twain
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)
EXTREMISM
"All great movements, every rigorous impulse that a community may feel, may become perverted and distorted as time passes... A wide humanitarian sympathy in a nation easily degenerates into hysteria. A military spirit tends toward brutality, Liberty leans to license, restraint to tyranny. The pride of race is distended to blustering arrogance. The fear of God produces bigotry and superstition."
- Winston Churchill
