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MAJORITY
"A man with God is always in the majority."
- John Knox
MANAGEMENT
“Management is bottom-line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things?Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish?
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”
- Stephen R. Covey
“People don’t do what they’re expected to do; they do what they’re inspected to do.”
- Unknown
“Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.”
- John D. Rockefeller
MANHOOD
Phyllis George was interviewing Roger Staubach and asked him how he felt about having the All-American Boy image – did it bother him? Staubach replied, "I enjoy sex just as much as Joe Namath, I’ve just chosen to do it with one woman."
"According to statistics, if a man is the first in his family to accept Christ, 93 percent of his family members will follow his example."
- Baptist Press
MARRIAGE
“Socrates once advised a young man, ‘By all means get married. If you get a good wife you will be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher!”
“The Bible opens and closes with a wedding.”
- Selwyn Hughes
“You got married not to be happy but to make each other happy.”
- Roy L. Smith
“Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.”
- Martin Luther
“Never criticize your spouse's faults; if it weren't for them, your mate might have found someone better than you.”
"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."
- Mignon McLaughlin
“You do not marry an isolated individual. You marry all of the people who are significant to that individual. You marry all of the childhood memories; you marry the values and beliefs instilled in the person by the family, including values about marriage and parenting.”
- Tommy Nelson
"Marriage is when you agree to spend the rest of your life sleeping in a room that's too warm, beside someone who's sleeping in a room that's too cold."
- Unknown
"A good marriage is the union of two forgivers."
- Ruth Bell Graham.
"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me."
- Winston Churchill
"There is no lonelier person than the one who lives with a spouse with whom he or she cannot communicate."
- Margaret Mead
“Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.”
- Joseph Barth
“To have peace and love in marriage is a gift which is next to the knowledge of the Gospel.”
- Martin Luther
“Nothing is more sweet than harmony in marriage, and nothing more distressing than dissension.”
- Martin Luther
MATERIALISM
“Wealth is not the standard of worth. Some people put cash before character.”
- Billy Sunday
“If you have something you can’t do without, you don’t own it; it owns you.”
- Albert Schweitzer
MATERIAL POSSESSIONS
“I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall most promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time or eternity.”
- David Livingstone
MATURITY
"If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn't do anything to you, but since you aren't wise, you need us who are old."
Martin Luther
“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh - at yourself.”
- Ethel Barrymore
“At age twenty, we worry about what others think of us. At forty, we don’t care what they think of us. At sixty, we discover that they haven’t been thinking about us at all.”
- Jack Falson
“An important aspect of maturity is being able to respectfully and thoughtfully listen to another express perspectives different than your own.”
- Tony Cooke
“Maturity is the ability to do a job whether you’re supervised or not; finish a job once it’s started; carry money without spending it. And last, but not least, the ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.”
- Fred Cook
“Maturity begins when we’re content to feel we’re right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.”
- Sydney Harris
"The popular notion is that maturity comes with age. Not true. You get old with age. Maturity comes with the acceptance of responsibility in every area of your life."
- Ed Cole
MEDITATION
“I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses [of the Bible] all day than rinse my hand in several chapters.”
- Charles Spurgeon
MENTAL ASSENT
“It is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God's truth and remain in sin.”
- Oswald Chambers
“Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.”
- Blaise Pascal
MERCY
“I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”
- Mother Teresa
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
- Abraham Lincoln
MINISTRY
"Ministry need not be an office; it's a lifestyle devoted to attracting the lost to Christ and encouraging other believers in the faith."
– D.L. Moody
“There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult, done.”
- James Hudson Taylor
“If God calls you to be a minister, don’t stoop to becoming a king.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon
“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.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“Our office...subjects us to great burdens and labors, dangers and temptations, with little reward or gratitude from the world. But Christ himself will be our reward if we labor faithfully.”
- Martin Luther
“The essence of the minister lies in what God has created him to be rather than in what the church authorized him to do.”
- John Stacey
"The ministry is a weight from which even an angel might shrink"
- Augustine
MIRACLES
"Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles isn’t a realist!"
- David Ben Gurion
MISSION
"This lost world will never be reached and brought back to loyalty to God, until the children of God wake up to the fact that they have a mission in the world. If we are true Christians we should all be missionaries."
– D.L. Moody
MISSIONS
"Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love"
- Roland Allen
”The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary we must become.”
- Henry Martyn
MISTAKES
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
- George Bernard Shaw
“No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes.”
- William Gladstone
“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.”
- Edward John Phelps
MODERATION
“There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.”
- Calvin Coolidge
MONEY
"More people should learn to tell their dollars where to go instead of asking them where they went."
- Roger W. Babson
"Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant."
- P.T. Barnum
"Many persons think that by hoarding money they are gaining safety for themselves. If money is your only hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. Without these qualities, money is practically useless. The security even of money depends on knowledge, experience, and ability. If productive ideas are displaced by destructive ideas, economic life suffers."
- Henry Ford
"Money doesn't change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish, or arrogant, or greedy, the money brings that out, that is all."
- Henry Ford
"The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it."
- Horace Greeley
"Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men."
- Sydney J. Harris
"The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket."
- Kin Hubbard
"A man's treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character - how he makes it and how he spends it."
- James Moffatt
"When money speaks, the truth keeps silent."
- Russian Proverb
"Get all you can, without hurting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can."
- John Wesley
"If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed."
- Edmund Burke
"Many speak truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men."
- Charles Caleb Colton
"Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally."
- John Galsworthy
"...he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."
- Jeremiah 17:11 (KJV)
"By doing good with money, a man, as it were, stamps the image of God upon it..."
- J. Rutledge
“If a person gets his attitude toward money straitened out, then almost all other areas of his life will be straightened out.”
- Billy Graham
“Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness.”
- Henrik Ibsen
“To meet Jesus is to look yourself in the pocketbook, which is the most unmistakable way of looking yourself in the heart.”
- J. Robert Ross
"It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy."
- George Horace Lorimer
“If all the gold in the world were melted down into a solid cube, it would be about the size of an eight-room house. If a man got possession of all that gold—billions of dollars worth, he could not buy a friend, character, peace of mind, clear conscience, or a sense of eternity.”
- Charles F. Banning
“I'd say it's been my biggest problem all my life… it's money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.”
- Walt Disney
"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."
- Jonathon Swift
"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like."
- Will Rogers
“We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts.”
- George Washington Carver
MORALE
“Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
MORALITY
"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
- General Douglas MacArthur
“Modern man has not only thrown away Christian theology, he has thrown away the possibility of what our forefathers had as a basis for morality and law.”
- Francis A. Schaeffer
MOTHER
“My mother always seemed to me like a fairy princess: a radiant being possessed of limitless riches and power. She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly.”
- Winston Churchill
MOTIVATION
“History has been written not by the most talented but by the most motivated.”
- Peter Drucker
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing that's why we recommend it daily."
- Zig Ziglar
"It’s not up to anyone else to make me give my best."
- Hakeem Olajuwon
“Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players and motivate.”
- Vince Lombardi
MOTIVES
“It is not the being seen of men that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation. He does not want to be holy; he only wants to seem to be holy. He is more concerned with his reputation for righteousness than about actually becoming righteous. The approbation of men matters more to him than the approval of God.”
- Augustine
“We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.”
- La Rouchefoucauld
MUSIC
“Next to the Word of God music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through music.”
- Martin Luther
“The devil should not be allowed to keep all the best tunes for himself.”
- Martin Luther
“Secular music, do you say, belongs to the devil? Does it? Well, if it did I would plunder him for it, for he has no right to a single note of the whole seven.… Every note, and every strain, and every harmony is divine and belongs to us.… So consecrate your voice and your instruments.… Offer them to God, and use them to make all the hearts about you merry before the Lord.”
- William Booth
NATURE
“All of nature is God’s art.”
- Dante
NERVOUSNESS
“The only difference between the pros and the novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.”
- Edwin Newman.
NEW BEGINNINGS
"I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in doing so pollute a potentially wonderful day."
- Gary Chapman
NO
“When, against one’s will, one is high pressured into making a hurried decision, the best answer is always ‘no,’ because ‘no’ is more easily changed to ‘yes’ than ‘yes’ is to ‘no’.”
- Charles E. Nielson
NORMAL
"Being normal is grossly over-rated."
- Andrew Wommack
NORMALITY
“The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.”
- Joe Ancis
NOVELTY
“By nature, men love newfangledness.”
- Geoffrey Chaucer
OBEDIENCE
“He who cannot obey, cannot command.”
- Benjamin Frankin
“Woe to that man who runs when God has not sent him; and woe to him who refuses to run, or who ceases to run, when God has sent him.”
- Adam Clarke
OBSERVATION
"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."
- Andrew Carnegie
OBSTACLES
“As I look back on my life, I see it as one long obstacle course with myself as the main obstacle.”
- Jack Paar
“Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”
- Henry Ford
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”
- Hannah More
OFFENSE
"It’s a fact that it is much more comfortable to be in the position of the person who has been offended than to be the unfortunate cause of it."
- Barbara Walters
OPINIONS
“The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it.”
- Mark Twain
"Nothing is more dangerous... than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll - always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature."
- Winston Churchill
OPPORTUNTIES
“We are faced with great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
- Chuck Swindoll
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
- Francis Bacon
OPPORTUNITY
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
- Francis Bacon
"Remember the story of the Spanish prisoner. For many years he was confined in a dungeon... One day it occurred to him to push the door of his cell. It was open; and it had never been locked."
- Winston Churchill
There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.
- Douglas Macarthur
“Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.”
- Nelson A. Rockefeller
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
- Francis Bacon
“We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”
- Walt Kelley
"When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us."
- Alexander Graham Bell
"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are."
- John Burrows
"Gentlemen, we are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities."
- Pogo
"No great man ever complains of want of opportunity."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us."
- Alexander Graham Bell
"To young men who are looking for an opportunity and who complain there is no opening for them, permit me to say this: ‘Go where the poor and the under-privileged are. They will be glad to hear you. When you have learned to bless them, others will be calling for your services. Don't wait for opportunity to come walking up to you. Go to meet it.’"
- Gordon Lindsay
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overall and looks like work."
- Thomas Edison
OPPOSITION
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.”
- Mohatma Ghandi
“What a man needs to get ahead is a powerful enemy.”
- Wendell Wilkie
“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”
- Albert Einstein
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
- Albert Einstein
OPTIMISM
“Researchers have determined that it is impossible to develop eyestrain from looking on the bright side of things.”
"The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity."
- Winston Churchill
"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
- J. Harold Wilkins
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."
- Helen Keller
“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”
- Winston Churchill
ORATORY
"It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word."
- Winston Churchill
ORDINARY
“The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find Him at all.”
- Richard J. Foster
ORGANIZATION
“A first-rate organizer is never in a hurry. He is never late. He always keeps up his sleeve a margin for the unexpected.”
- Arnold Bennett
"Somehow ungodly men have developed systems of organization which permit them to work together in states of relative harmony and unity, whereas godly men, refusing to admit that these organizational structures are needed, live in states of chaos and disunity. The tragedy of this fact becomes evident when we realize that many of the successful systems of organization under which the godly men work and which the godly men refuse to accept are biblically based."
- Ted Engstrom and Alec Mackenzie
ORIGINALITY
“Originality is the act of forgetting where you read it.”
- Unknown
OUTLOOK
"Outlook determines outcome."
- Warren Wiersbe
OUTREACH
“So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does.”
- Oswald Chambers
PACE
“In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that You will slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all of eternity before us, make us take time to live — time to get acquainted with You, time to enjoy Your blessings, and time to know each other.”
- Peter Marshall
“Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”
- Unknown
PARENTING
“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.”
- Jacquelyn Kennedy
“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”
- Dennis Waitley
“It is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.”
- Ann Landers
"Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories."
- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
PARTNERSHIP
“There is a Zulu saying in Africa ‘Isandla Sihlamba Esinye’ - It means that a single hand cannot wash itself - It means that people need each other and cannot succeed separately.”
- Christopher Alam
"No man will work for your interests unless they are his."
- David Seabury
“Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.”
- Augustine
"The spirit of interdependence will not cost us more than it's worth. On the steep slope ahead, holding hands is necessary. And it just might be that we can learn to enjoy it."
- Paul Harvey
"I have long been profoundly convinced that in the very nature of things, employers and employees are partners, not enemies; that their interests are common not opposed; that in the long run the success of each is dependent upon the success of the other."
- John D. Rockefeller
"Few people are successful unless a lot of other people want them to be."
- Charles Brower
"It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone."
- Andrew Carnegie
“I will venture to go down, but remember that you must hold the ropes.”
- William Carey
PASSION
"I know when apostolic passion has died in my heart. It happens when I don't spend my quiet time dreaming of the time when Jesus will be worshiped in languages that aren't yet heard in heaven. I know it's missing from my life when I sing about heaven, but live as if earth is my home. Apostolic passion is dead in my heart when I dream more about sports, toys, places to go and people to see, than I do about the nations worshiping Jesus."
- Floyd Mclung
"You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle."
- George Lucas
“Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they found Him, the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking.”
- A.W. Tozer
PASSIVITY
“Only dead fish drift with the stream.”
- Malcolm Muggeridge
PAST
“We ought not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from the past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.”
- George Washington
“The only significance of analyzing the past is that it does give us some key to the future.”
-
John F. Kennedy
"A nation that forget its past has no future."
- Winston Churchill
“I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in doing so pollute a potentially wonderful day.”
- Gary Chapman
"Your past is always going to be the way it was. Stop trying to change it."
- Unknown
"You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past but not live in the past."
- Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe
PASTORAL QUALIFICATIONS
"Qualifications of a pastor: the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros."
- Stuart Briscoe
PASTORING
“A preacher must be both soldier and shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth and be able to bite and fight.”
- Martin Luther
"I like the saying that being a pastor is the worst of all jobs and the best of all callings."
- Jackson Carroll
PATIENCE
“Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.”
- Calvin Coolidge
The great New England preacher Phillips Brooks was noted for his poise and quiet manner. At times, however, even he suffered moments of frustration and irritability. One day a friend saw him feverishly pacing the floor like a caged lion. "What's the trouble, Mr. Brooks?" he asked. "The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, but God isn't!"
"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead."
- Bill McGlashen
"Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast."
- William Shakespeare
“Sometimes the ship that is longest on its voyage brings home the richest freight. If the promise tarries, wait for it. A promise long waited for is very precious in its fulfilment.”
- T. Coley
“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg—not smashing it.”
- Arnold Glasow
PEACE
“A light heart lives long.”
- William Shakespeare
“As the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first to be laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.”
- George Washington
“Peace is the fruit of believing prayer?”
- M.R. Vincent
"If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He will make peace within. The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble."
-Thomas Watson
“There is no peace in the border lands. The halfway Christian is a torment to himself and of no benefit to others.”
- Earnest Worker
"When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past."
- Unknown
PEACEMAKING
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can…. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
- Abraham Lincoln (speaking to lawyers)
PEOPLE
"Wherever there's light, there's bugs."
- Harry Ironside
"There are two kinds of people in the world—those who walk into a room and say, ‘There you are’—and those who say, ‘Here I am!’"
- Abigail Van Buren
“The crowd makes the ballgame.”
- Ty Cobb
PEOPLE SKILLS
“The ability to make someone like you is one of the most valuable talents you can possibly possess. Without it, your other talents - no matter how great - may be largely wasted. You may never get a chance to use them in a way that would do the greatest good, for yourself or for others.”
- John Luther
“Never speak of yourself to others; make them talk about themselves instead: therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everyone knows it and everyone forgets it.”
- Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
“A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.”
- Lisa Kirk
“Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.”
- Benjamin Disraeli
“People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.”
- Frank Romer
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"You can foul up on almost anything, and you'll get another chance. But if you screw up, even a little bit, on people management, you're gone. That's it, top performer or not."
- IBM Executive
"Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayst manage to guide an elephant with a hair."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
"I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than for any other ability under the sun."
- John D. Rockefeller
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you."
- Dale Carnegie
“You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.”
- Les Giblin
“Few things will pay you bigger dividends than the time and trouble you take to understand people. Almost nothing will add more to your stature as an executive and a person. Nothing will give you greater satisfaction or bring you more happiness.”
- George Kienzle and Edward Dare
“It’s more important to get along with people than to get ahead of them.”
- John Maxwell
PERFECTIONISM
“The maxim, ‘Nothing avails but perfection,’ spells paralysis.”
- Winston Churchill
“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.”
- Dr. David M. Burns
PERSEVERANCE
“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon
“Rule #1: Take one more step
Rule #2: When you don’t think you can take one more step, refer to Rule #1.”
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
-Calvin Coolidge
“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins. Not through strength, but through persistence.”
- Unknown
“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
“Your ability to face setbacks and disappointments without giving up will be the measure of your ability to succeed.”
- Calvin Coolidge
“We conquer by continuing.”
- George Matheson
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.”
- Louis Pasteur
“Don’t let go of the vine.”
- Johnny Weissmuller (Actor who played Tarzan, giving advice to acting students)
“The most common trait I have found in all successful people is that they have conquered the temptation to give up.”
- Peter Lowe
“If the biographer gives me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”
- William Carey
“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
“It is a hard rule of life, and I believe a healthy one, that no great plan is ever carried out without meeting and overcoming endless obstacles that come up to try the skill of man’s hand, the quality of his courage, and the endurance of his faith.”
- Donald Douglas
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
- Winston Churchill
“Never give in, 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
"How long should you try? Until."
- Jim Rohn
PERSISTENCE
“We Shall come through! We cannot tell when, we cannot tell how, but we shall come through.”
- Winston Churchill
PERSUASION
“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.”
- Blaise Pascal
PERSPECTIVE
“I remember when the Titanic sank in 1912, it was the ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. The only thing it ever did was sink. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were aboard - millionaires, celebrities, people of moderate means, and poor folks down in the steerage. But a few hours later when they put the list in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories - lost and saved. Grim tragedy had leveled all distinctions.”
-Vance Havner
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.”
- Henry Ford
“If the fire of hell is not literal, it is worse than actual fire, and if the gates of the Celestial City are not actual gold, they are far finer.”
- Vance Havner
“To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.”
- John Quincy Adams
"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.”
- Dean Smith
“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
- Anais Nin
PLANNING
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
- Mark Twain
POWER
“The descent to hell is easy, and those who begin by worshipping power soon worship evil.”
- C.S. Lewis
PERSISTANCE
“Consider the postage stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.”
- Josh Billings
“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
- Albert Einstein
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
"I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself - in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself."
- Henry Ford
PERSPECTIVE
“I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”
- Daniel Boone
"We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are."
- Anais Nin
"Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw mud, one saw stars."
- Unknown
PESSIMISM
"A pessimist is one who feels bad when he feels good for fear he’ll feel worse when he feels better."
- Anonymous
PESSIMIST
“The pessimist’s epitaph: ‘Just what I expected’.”
“There’s many a pessimist who got that way by financing an optimist.”
PEOPLE SKILLS
“Handling people need not be so difficult — all you need is inexhaustible patience, unfailing insight, unshakable nervous stability, an unbreakable will, decisive judgment, infrangible physique, irrepressible spirits, plus unfeigned affection for all people — and an awful lot of experience.”
- Eric Webster
PLAGIARISM
“Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist; but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an unconscious one.”
- Mark Twain
PLEASURE
“America’s greatest sin is the refusal to delay gratification.”
- Scott Peck
POPULAR OPINION
"Whereas our grandparents lived as if they had swallowed gyroscopes, we think and act as if we have swallowed Gallup polls."
- Os Guiness
POSITIVE
“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”
- Elbert Hubbard
POSSIBILITIES
“Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.”
- Hannah More
POTENTIAL
“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple. No one can count the apples in a seed.”
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
- William Morrow
“The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I could be… Because of all that I may become, I will close my eyes and leap.”
- Mary Ann Radmacher
“When you discover you’ve been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it.”
- Phillips Brooks
“The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.”
- Arnold Bennett
"Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are capable of greater things than we realize."
- Norman Vincent Peale
"Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits."
- Brian Tracy
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- William Morrow
“Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.”
- G.K. Chesterton
POTENTIAL (UNREALIZED)
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
- Henry David Thoreau
POWER
“Power shows the man.”
- Sophocles
“The only way to meet the modern demon-stration of the powers of darkness is by a demonstration of the power of God.”
- Vance Havner
“Nothing will divide the church so much as the love of power.”
- Chrysostom
“The essence of government is power; and power, lodged in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”
- James Madison
“There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.”
- William Henry Harrison
“Three things ruin a man. Power, money, and women. I never wanted power. I never had any money, and the only woman in my life is up at the house right now.”
- Harry S. Truman
“The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.”
- Thomas B. Macauley
“Power may be justly compared to a great river; while kept within its bounds it is both beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks, it brings destruction and desolation to all in its way."
- Andrew Hamilton
"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best."
- Edward Abbey
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power."
- Abraham Lincoln
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
- Margaret Thatcher
POWER/MONEY
“Two passions have powerful influence on the affairs of men: the love of power and the love of money.”
- Benjamin Franklin
PRACTICALITY
"Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities."
- Winston Churchill
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
- Henry David Thoreau
PRAYER
"It was not surprising ….that [my father] should seldom have long seasons of agonizing prayer such as some have experienced, for His closeness to God was not limited to special seasons, but was a continuous and uninterrupted service."
– William Moody (about D.L. Moody)
"My friends, if we are going to do a great work for God, we must spend much time in prayer; we have got to be closeted with God."
– D.L. Moody
"It is not the man that can preach the best that is the most successful, but the man who knows how to get his people together to pray."
– D.L. Moody
"There is no true prayer without confession. As long as we have unconfessed sin in our soul, we are not going to have power with God in prayer. He says if we regard iniquity in our hearts, He will not hear us, much less answer. As long as we are living in any known sin, we have no power in prayer. God is not going to hear it."
– D.L. Moody
"Pray as though everything depended upon God but work as though everything depended upon you."
– D.L. Moody
"It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"You are coming to a King, Large petitions with you bring, For his grace and power are such, None can ever ask too much."
- John Newton
“I would say to today’s young minister, ‘Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation’.”
-Vance Havner
“Prayer is not a means by which I seek to control God; it is a means of putting myself in a position where God can control me.”
- Charles L. Allen
“We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to preach; but He taught them how to pray.
- D.L. Moody
“Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance but cooperating with His willingness.”
- Richard C. Trench
“Forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time and help us to see that without prayer our work is a waste of time.”
- Peter Marshall
Give me Souls, O God, or I die!"
- John Hyde (Missionary to India)
“We ought to see the face of God every morning before we see the face of man.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“If you have so much business to attend to that you have no time to pray, depend upon it that you have more business on hand than God ever intended you should have.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“A man who prays much in private will make short prayers in public.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“Some men’s prayers need to be cut short at both ends and set on fire in the middle.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon
“When we work, we work; but when we pray, God works.”
- Max Lucado
“What is not accomplished through prayer either should not be done, or else will not matter in eternity.”
- Jerry Miller
“God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing prayer.”
- John Wesley
“Never have so many left so much to so few.”
- Leonard Ravenhill
“If you are a praying person, you are one of God’s gifts to mankind.”
- Unknown
“Prayer is not just getting ready for Christian service. Prayer is Christian service.”
- Adrian Rodgers
“The real victory in all service is won in secret beforehand by prayer.”
- S.D. Gordon
“Prayer is not designed to inform God, but… to humble man’s heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, and to raise his soul from earth to heaven.”
- Adam Clarke
“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”
- Corrie Ten Boom
“The petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed. No, in the soul's conflict, force and fervor, decision and devotion, valour and vehemence, must join their forces, and all will be well.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon
“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services, but few conversions; much machinery, but few results.”
- R.A. Torrey
Prayer is not a means by which I seek to control God; it is a means of putting myself in a position where God can control me.”
- Charles L. Allen
“Prayer is speaking truth to Truth.”
- Phillip James Bailey
“Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"Prayer is an investment. The time you dedicate to prayer isn't lost; it will return dividends far greater than what a few moments spent on a task ever could. If we fail to cultivate this discipline, prayer winds up being our last resort rather than our first response."
- Charles Swindoll
“Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.”
- A.W. Tozer
"The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray."
- Samuel Chadwick
"The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history."
- Andrew Murray
"I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach."
- Charles Spurgeon
“What the church needs today is not machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men of prayer.” And we might add, through women of prayer.”
- E.M. Bounds
“Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D.L. Moody, I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher.”
- R.A. Torrey
“It is obvious that Paul did not regard prayer as supplemental, but as fundamental—not something to be added to his work but the very matrix out of which his work was born. He was a man of action because he was a man of prayer. It was probably his prayer even more than his preaching that produced the kind of leaders we meet in his letters.”
- Oswald Sanders, from Dynamic Spiritual Leadership
“A sinning man will stop praying. A praying man will stop sinning.”
- Leonard Ravenhill
“Prayer as a relationship is probably your best indicator about the health of your love relationship with God. If your prayer life has been slack, your love relationship has grown cold.”
- John Piper
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”
- Corrie Ten Boom
"The less I pray, the harder it gets; the more I pray, the better it goes.”
- Martin Luther
“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love.”
- Richard Foster
“Do not attempt to assess the quality of your prayer. God alone can judge its value.”
- Macarious of Optino
"Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold of God’s willingness."
- Phillips Brooks
"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Heaven is full of answers to prayer for which no one ever bothered to ask."
- Billy Graham
"Unless I had the spirit of prayer, I could do nothing."
- Charles G. Finney
"Prayer is not a fruitless exercise that God asked us to perform to determine whether or not we're faithful. Prayer is the vehicle that releases God to move in the earth!"
- Joseph Cameneti Sr.
"Prayer is simple, as simple as a child making known its wants to it parents."
- Oswald Chambers
"God does nothing but in answer to prayer."
- John Wesley
"Prayer is striking the winning blow. . . . Service is gathering up the results."
- S.D. Gordon
"God shapes the world by prayer. The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work upon earth."
- E.M. Bounds
"Beloved, it is not our long prayers but our believing God that gets the answer."
- John G. Lake
"I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up by asking Him to do his work through me."
- James Hudson Taylor
"Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D.L. Moody, I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was a preacher."
- R.A. Torrey
"God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it."
- John Wesley
“To pray is to cast off your burdens, it is to tear away your rags, it is to shake off your diseases, it is to be filled with spiritual vigor, it is to reach the highest point of Christian health.”
- C.H. Spurgeon
"I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“You could remove the powerful preaching from our church and it would still continue. You could remove the administration of pastoral care through the cell group system and the church would still continue. But if you remove the prayer life of our church it would collapse.”
- David Yonggi Cho
“The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching. Light praying makes light preaching.”
- E.M. Bounds
PREACHING
"A good many preachers say I am lowering the pulpit. I am glad I am. I am trying to get it down to the level of men's hearts. If I wanted to hit Chicago I would not put the cannon on the top of this building and fire into the air. Too many preachers fire into the air."
– D.L. Moody
"If God has given you a message, go and give it to the people as God has given it to you. It is a stupid thing to try to be eloquent."
– D.L. Moody
"One of the greatest compliments to his preaching was that the sermon that would hold the rapt attention of the most intelligent of his congregation would also be listened to with great eagerness by the children present. Any one – every one – Understood what he said."
– Ira Sankey (about D.L. Moody)
"I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to go to church no more."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is great need today for the New Testament prophet who speaks to edification, exhortation, and comfort, a strengthening, stirring and soothing ministry.”
-Vance Havner
“God is on the lookout today for a man who will be quiet enough to get a message from Him, brave enough to preach it, and honest enough to live it.”
-Vance Havner
“You can’t preach it like it is if you don’t believe it like it was.”
-
Vance Havner
The Gospel...”It is not our responsibility to make it acceptable; it is our duty to make it available.”
- Vance Havner
“The gospel is for lifeboats, not showboats, and a man must make up his mind which boat he is going to operate.”
- Vance Havner
“No amount of facts in his head can compensate for the lack of fire on his lips.”
- Vance Havner
“A picture of Christ was hung in the back of a pulpit. When the minister rose to speak one Sunday morning, a little boy asked his mother, ‘Mother, who is that man who stands so we can’t see Jesus?”
- Vance Havner
“An old minister explained the smudges on his sermon outlines by saying they were caused by sweat and tears. And without those two marks, a sermon is not a sermon.”
- Vance Havner
“Does your message end with one point like a sword or does it end like a broom with a thousand straws?”
- Vance Havner
“Some preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons or more sermons into the fire.”
- Vance Havner
“The preacher who can’t broaden or deepen his sermons usually lengthens them.”
“When a man preaches to men, I want him to make it a personal matter, a personal matter, a personal matter”
- Daniel Webster
“To preach the fires of hell without the glories of Heaven is condemnation. To preach the glories of Heaven without warning people of the fires of hell is to lull them into a false security.”
- Keith Intrater
“A sermon is no sermon in which I cannot hear the heartbeat.”
- Henry Longfellow
“No man preaches his sermon well to others if he does not first preach it to his own heart.”
- John Owen
“To love to preach is one thing; to love to whom you preach is quite another.”
- D. Martin Lloyd-Jones
“How good we are as preachers depends - not altogether, but (make no mistake!) primarily - on how good we are as men.”
- John Knox
“A preacher’s throne is the pulpit; he stands in Christ’s stead; his message is the Word of God; around him are immortal souls; the Savior, unseen, is beside him; the Holy Spirit broods over the congregation; angels gaze upon the scene, and heaven and hell await the issue. What associations, and what vast responsibility!
- Matthew Simpson
“The fact is, I don’t like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees!”
- Abraham Lincoln
“Every honest minister preaches from a reservoir of guilt and grace.”
- Gary Gulbranson
“Every preacher who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.”
- J. Harold Smith
“Preaching is not the art of making a sermon and delivering it. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering him.”
- Bishop Quayle
“Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is the better.”
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Savior and our Gospel were grown stale.”
- Richard Baxter
“If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon.”
- John Calvin
“It’s been said that too many speakers are like Christopher Columbus. When he started out he didn’t know where he was going. When he got there he didn’t know where he was at. When he got back he did not know where he had been.”
- Dr. Larry Moyer
“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”
- George Burns
“His throne is the pulpit. He stands in Christ’s stead. His message is the Word of God. Around him are immortal souls. The Savior, unseen, is beside him. The Holy Spirit broods over the congregation. Angels gaze upon the scene, and heaven and hell await the issue. What associations and what vast responsibility!”
- Matthew Simpson
“Some preachers think only of their sermon; others think only of themselves: the man who wins the soul is the man who aims at it.”
- Dean Hook
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
- St. Francis of Assisi
"All work and no plagiarism makes for dull sermons!"
- Henry Ward Beecher
"Preach as if you had seen heaven and its celestial inhabitants, and had hovered over the bottomless pit, and beheld the tortures, and heard the groans of the damned."
- Frances Asbury
"I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday; rose again from the dead today; and is coming back tomorrow."
- Martin Luther
"I preach as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men."
- Richard Baxter
John Wesley said, "Catch on fire with enthusiasm, and people will come for miles to watch you burn." Wesley also said, "If I had three hundred men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and were determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified, I would set the world on fire."
"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
"A good sermon is an engineering operation by which a chasm is bridged so that the spiritual goods on one side - the 'unsearchable riches of Christ' - are actually transported into personal lives upon the other."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
“Your temper is uneven; you lack love for your neighbors. You grow angry too easily; your tongue is too sharp—thus the people will not hear you.”
- John Wesley (written to a preacher)
“It is not necessary for a preacher to express all his thoughts in one sermon. A preacher should have three principles: first, to make a good beginning, and not spend time with many words before coming to the point; secondly, to say that which belongs to the subject in chief, and avoid strange and foreign thoughts; thirdly, to stop at the proper time.”
- Martin Luther
“A sermon wept over is more acceptable with God than one gloried over.”
- Charles Spurgeon
PREDICTIONS
"The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." (A corporate memo from telegraph operator Western Union, 1876)
"Everything that can be invented, has been invented." (U.S. Patent Office Commissioner Charles Duell, 1899)
"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad." (The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer Horace Rackham not to invest in the Ford Motor Company. 1903)
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (Response from associates of RCA founder David Sarnoff, circa 1920’s, when he proposed investing in the young radio industry)
"[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." (Twentieth Century-Fox studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, 1946)
"There will never be a bigger plane built." (A Boeing engineer after the first flight of the 247, a twin-engine plane that carried ten people)
"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." (Business Week, August 2, 1968)
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’ the idea must be feasible." (Yale University management professor’s comment on a paper written by Fred Smith proposing an overnight delivery service, circa early 1970’s. Smith went on to start Federal Express)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." (Ken Olsen, President of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)
"That kid can’t play baseball." (Milwaukee Braves minor league manager Tommy Holmes, 1952, appraising Henry Aaron, who went on to break Babe Ruth’s all-time record for home runs)
"He’ll never be any good." (Baltimore Colts owner Robert Irsay, 1983, evaluating future Pro Bowl and Super Bowl champion quarterback John Elway)
"You will never amount to very much." (A Munich teacher to a ten-year-old Albert Einstein, 1889)
"Can’t act. Can sing. Balding. Can dance a little." (MGM executive, 1929, about Fred Astaire’s screen test)
"You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck." (Grand Ole Opry manager Jim Denny, 1954, firing Elvis Presley after one performance)
"We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out." (Decca Recording Company, 1962, upon turning down the Beatles)
"Get rid of the pointed ears guy." (NBC television executive to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, 1966, recommending the new show eliminate the Vulcan character Mr. Spock)
PREPARATION
“It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.”
- Whitney Young
“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”
- Joe Paterno
“I don't believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game.”
- Tom Landry
“If you are prepared, you will be confident, and will do the job.”
-
Tom Landry
“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”
- Johnny Wooden
“The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.”
- Benjamin Disraeli
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
- Louis Pasteur
"Work as if you were to live a 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow."
- Benjamin Franklin
PRESENT
"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”
- Winston Churchill
PRESSURE
“A diamond is just a piece of coal that made good under pressure.”
“With all the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”
- Abraham Lincoln
“No pressure, no diamonds.”
- Mary Case
PRIESTHOOD
“Every Christian is a priest, not offering a sacrifice for sins - since that has been done once and for all - but offering his person, praise, and possessions.”
- Vance Havner
PRIDE/ANGER
“Temper gets you into trouble. Pride keeps you there.”
- Unknown
PRIDE
“Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.”
- Charles Spurgeon
“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves....The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind... As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
- C. S. Lewis
“Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
- Abraham Lincoln
“A proud man is one who waits for a vacancy in the Trinity.”
- Mark Twain
“Mohamed Ali, when he was Cassius Clay, was on a plane. A flight attendant said, ‘Please fasten your seatbelt.’ He responded in pride, ‘Superman don’t need no seatbelt.’ She responded, ‘Superman don’t need no airplane either’.”
“Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing. The mischief of it is that when they swell, they do not swell enough to burst.”
- Woodrow Wilson
“When a man thinks he has got a good deal of strength, and is self-confident, you may look for his downfall. It may be years before it comes to light, but it is already commenced.”
- Dwight L. Moody
“Swallow your pride occasionally. It’s non-fattening.”
- Frank Tyger
“God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.”
- Dwight L. Moody
"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
- Abraham Lincoln
"We grow small trying to be great."
- E. Stanley Jones
PRINCIPLE
“Policies are many, Principles are few, Policies will change, Principles never do.”
- John C. Maxwell
“Men and times change—but principles—never.”
- Grover Cleveland
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
- Dwight David Eisenhower
"It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than it is to apply them."
- Winston Churchill
“Where principle was clearly at stake Paul was inflexible and would not yield for a moment, even if the person involved was the prestigious apostle Peter. Because the vastly important issue of Christian liberty was at issue, Paul told the Galatians, ‘We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you’ (Galatians 2:5). But when only a preference and not a principle was involved, he was prepared to make large concessions.”
- Oswald Sanders, from Dynamic Spiritual Leadership
"Principle - particularly moral principle - can never be a weathervane, spinning around this way and that with the shifting winds of expediency. Moral principle is a compass forever fixed and forever true."
- Edward R Lyman
"Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages. Just because the rains descend, and the winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
- Thomas Jefferson
PRIORITIES
"God wants us to prosper. Our need, however, is to evaluate things as they should be evaluated - to esteem earthly things lightly - to put first things first."
- Kenneth E. Hagin
“If you take care of the things that are dear to God, He will take care of the things that are dear to you.”
- Howard Taylor
“Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.”
- Stephen R. Covey
“What we love to do we find time to do.”
- John Spaulding
“If you don’t live by priorities, you’ll live by pressures. Either you determine what’s important in life or other people will determine it for you.”
- Rick Warren
PROBLEMS
“The question which we must ask ourselves is not whether we like or do not like what is going on, but what we are going to do about it.”
- Winston Churchill
“It’s no compliment to be a called a problem spotter, but the world loves problem solvers.”
- Mark Sanborn
"Beware the danger signals that flag problems: silence, secretiveness, or sudden outburst."
- Sylvia Porter
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
- Albert Einstein
PROCESS
“It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.”
- Blaise Pascal
PROCRASTINATION
“Do not put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well.”
- Mark Twain
PRODIGAL
“The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration.”
- Edwin Louis Cole
PRODUCTIVITY
"Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done."
- James Ling
PROFANITY
“Profanity is the effort of a feeble mind to express itself forcefully.”
PROGRESS
“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
- Alfred North Whitehead
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
- Frederick Douglass
“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”
- Gelet Burgess
“The quickest way to become an old dog is to stop learning new tricks.”
- John Rooney
“Progress is a tide. If we stand still we will surely be drowned. To stay on the crest, we have to keep moving.”
- Harold Mayfield
"Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops."
- Thomas J. Watson
“Change is not always progress. . . . A fever of newness has been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress.”
- Henry Ford
“The price of progress is trouble.”
- Charles F. Kettering
“Progress consists largely of learning to apply laws and truths that have always existed.”
- John Allan May
The Australian coat of arms pictures two creatures - the emu, a flightless bird, and the kangaroo. The animals were chosen because they share a characteristic that appealed to the Australian citizens. Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward, not back. The emu's three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving in reverse by its large tail. Those who truly choose to follow Jesus become like the emu and the kangaroo, moving only forward, never back.
"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."
- James B. Conant
"I walk slowly, but I never walk backwards."
- Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”
- Richard L. Evans
“I am prepared to go anywhere, so long as it is forward.”
- David Livingstone
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.”
- Abraham Lincoln
“Progress might have been all right once, but it’s been going on entirely too long.”
- Ogden Nash
“If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.”
- Elbert Hubbard
PROMISES
“God never made a promise that was too good to be true.”
- Dwight L. Moody
PROPHECY
"I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place."
- Winston Churchill
PROPHETS
"Every prophet has to come from some civilization, but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must have a strong impression of a complex variety and all that it has to give and he must serve a period of isolation and meditation. This is the process by which psychic dynamite is made."
- Winston Churchill
PROSPERITY
“Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
PROVISION
“Where God guides He provides. He is not responsible for expenses not on His schedule. He does not foot the bill when we leave His itinerary.”
- Vance Havner
PUBLIC SPEAKING
[on public speaking] “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“I am going to give a long speech today. I haven’t had time to prepare a short one.”
- Winston Churchill
“When Cicero finished an oration, the people would say, ‘How well he spoke.’ But when Demosthenes finished speaking, the people would say, ‘Let us march!’”
-
Adlai Stevenson on John F. Kennedy
"I am going to give a long speech today. I haven't had time to prepare a short one."
- Winston Churchill
"Don't deliver an essay with so many points. No one can absorb it. Just say one thing... Of course, you can say the point in many different ways over and over again with different illustrations."
- Winston Churchill
"It is sheer laziness not compressing thought into a reasonable space."
- Winston Churchill
“There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”
- Blaise Pascal
PURITY
“The pastor should always be pure in thought … no impurity ought to pollute him who has undertaken the office of wiping away the stains in the hearts of others … for the hand that would cleanse from dirt must be clean, lest, being itself sordid with clinging mire, it soil whatever it touches all the more.”
- Gregory the Great
“Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.”
- St. Augustine
PURPOSE
“ No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”
- Charles Dickens
“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.”
- Stewart B. Johnson
“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.”
- Richard Bach
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.”
- Charles Dickens
"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
“It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has never been able to find its way.”
-
Oscar Wilde
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
- Woodrow Wilson
"There is no purpose in living where there is nothing to do."
- Winston Churchill
“I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail.”
- Woodrow Wilson
"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship."
- Omar Nelson Bradley
“The times are very bad. Very well, you are there to make them better.”
- Thomas Carlyle
“The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.”
- Albert Einstein
"Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that person isn't fit to live!"
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The way to tell if your job is done: if you’re alive, you’ve got a job."
- Richard Bach
"Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them."
- Washington Irving
"There are two great days in a person's life -- the day we are born and the day we discover why."
- William Barclay
"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives."
- Albert Schweitzer
"Great minds have purposes, others have wishes."
- Washington Irving
"It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than you own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will not make sense."
- Rick Warren
“A life without cause is a life without effect.”
- Unknown
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
- Henry David Thoreau
PURSUIT
"With the catching ends the pleasure of the chase."
- Abraham Lincoln
QUESTIONS
A friend once asked Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She wasn’t so much interested in what he had learned that day, but she always inquired, “Did you ask a good question today?”
“Asking good questions,” Rabi said, “made me become a scientist.”
- Isidor I. Rabi
“The word ‘question’ originates from the Latin root, quaestio, which means ‘to seek.’ Inside the word ‘question’ is the word ‘quest,’ suggesting that within every question is an adventure, a pursuit which can lead us to hidden treasure.”
- Tom Wujec
“Sometimes it is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.”
“I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where And Who.”
- Rudyard Kipling
“No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.”
- Charles P. Steinmetz
QUALITY
“In the race for quality, there is no finish line.”
- David T. Kearns
QUOTATIONS
“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotation… The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts.”
- Winston Churchill
QUOTES
"The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own."
- Charles Spurgeon
“Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems.”
- Edward Hodnett
