Tony Cooke Ministries - Tony Cooke Ministries' Free Resource Area

TACT
“The original meaning of the word tact referred to the sense of touch, and came to mean skill in dealing with persons or sensitive situations. Tact is defined as ‘intuitive perception, especially a quick and fine perception of what is fit and proper and right.’ It alludes to one’s ability to conduct delicate negotiations and personal matters in a way that recognizes mutual rights, and yet leads to a harmonious solution.”
- Oswald Sanders, from Dynamic Spiritual Leadership

"Tact is like a girdle. It enables you to organize the awkward truth more attractively."
- Unknown

"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
- Abraham Lincoln

TALENT
“The real tragedy of life is not being limited to one talent, but in the failure to use the one talent.”
- Edgar Work

TEACHABLE
"Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon."
- Alexander Pope

TEACHING
"A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron."
- Horace Mann

TEAMWORK
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
- Michael Jordan

"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
- Vince Lombardi

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.”
- Andrew Carnegie

"No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first – ahead of personal glory.’
- Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant

"Some people believe you win with your five best players, but I found out that you win with the five who fit together best."
- Red Auerbach

"Generally speaking, individual performances don’t win basketball games."
- John Wooden

"The greatest players fit with the team. They play within the team’s style, rather than asking the team to change its style."
- Patrick Ewing

"There are people with a lot more talent than I have who have been weeded out of the league because they couldn’t put their egos aside to fill a role."
- Kurt Rambis

"I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow."
- Woodrow Wilson

“The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.”
- Bill Russell

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead

TELEVISION
"I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book."
- Groucho Marx

"Television: The device that brings into your living room characters you would never allow in your living room."
- Red Skelton

TEMPTATION
“It is true I may be an apparent loser by declining evil company, but I had better leave my cloak than lose my character; it is not needful that I should be rich, but it is imperative upon me to be pure. No ties of friendship, no chains of beauty, no flashings of talent, no shafts of ridicule must turn me from the wise resolve to flee from sin. The devil I am to resist and he will flee from me, but the lusts of the flesh, I must flee, or they will surely overcome me. May the horrible trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil, never overcome us!”
- Charles Spurgeon

“There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.”
- Mark Twain

THINGS
“The best things in life aren't things.”
- Art Buchwald

THINKING
“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.”
- Thomas S. Szasz

“The 'how' thinker gets problems solved effectively because he wastes no time with futile 'ifs'.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

THOUGHT
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei

“What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
- A.W. Tozer

"We should not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow."
- Woodrow Wilson

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."
- General George S. Patton, Jr.

"Thinking like we (always) have is what got us where we are. It is not going to get us where we are going."
- Albert Einstein

"He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave."
- Friedrich Klopstock

“Your mind will give back to you exactly what you put into it.”
- James Joyce

TIME
"In primitive societies, no one has a watch, but everyone has time. In advanced societies, everyone has a watch, but no one has any time."
- Gerhard Geschwandtner

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
- Benjamin Franklin

TRADITION
“Tradition is the living faith of those now dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of those now living.”
- Jaroslav Pelikan

TRAINING
"The only thing worse than training employees and losing them, is not training them and keeping them."
- Zig Ziglar

TRUTH
“Peace if possible, but truth at any rate.”
- Martin Luther

"I would rather stand alone in the light of truth than in the crowd filled with error."
- Adrian Rogers

“The truth is mightier than eloquence, the Spirit greater than genius, faith more than education.”
- Martin Luther

TOOLS
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. "
- Abraham Maslow

TOLERANCE
“If thou art a master, sometimes be blind; if a servant, sometimes be deaf.”
- Thomas Fuller

TREATMENT OF WOMEN
"Man cannot degrade woman without himself falling into degradation; he can not elevate her without at the same time elevating himself."
- Alexander Walker

TRUST
"When the train goes through a tunnel and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not. You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through."
--Corrie ten Boom

"All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them."
- J. Hudson Taylor

“Trust is built one block at a time, but when it is violated the entire wall comes crashing down.”
- David Branker

TRUTH
“Truth needs no crutches; if it limps it’s a lie.”
- Unknown

“Peace, if possible, but the truth at any rate.”
- Martin Luther

“A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.”
- Edgar J. Mohn

“There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths, and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.”
- Martin Luther

TOLERANCE
"God reserves the right to use people who disagree with me."
- Robert A. Cook

UNHAPPINESS
"Unhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it."
- Don Herald

UNITY
“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
- Winston Churchill

"The best moments any of us have as human beings are those moments when for a little while it is possible to escape the squirrel-cage of being me into the landscape of being us."
- Frederick Buechner

“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.”
- Vesta Kelly.

USEFULNESS
“We are like clay containers filled with a beautiful treasure. So often it has been the love of Jesus expressed through the life of someone I know that has made a difference in my life.”
- Roy Lessin

VALOR
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt

VALUE
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”
- C.S. Lewis

VARIETY
"A shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases."
- Carl Jung

VICTORY
Cheer up now thou faint-hearted warrior. Not only has Christ travelled the road, but He has slain thine enemies. Dost thou dread sin? He has nailed it to His cross. Dost thou fear death? He has been the death of Death. Art thou afraid of hell? He has barred it against the advent of any of His children; they shall never see the gulf of perdition. Whatever foes may be before the Christian, they are all overcome. God has taken away in the person of Christ all the power that anything can have to hurt us. Your victory shall be easy, and your treasure shall be beyond all count.
- Charles Spurgeon

Martin Luther was asked one time how he overcame the devil. He replied: "Well, when he comes knocking upon the door of my heart, and asks, 'Who lives here?' The dear Lord Jesus goes to the door and says, 'Martin Luther used to live here but he has moved out. Now I live here.' The devil, seeing the nail-pierced hands, and the nail-pierced side, takes flight immediately."

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat."
- Queen Victoria

VIRTUE
“There was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”
- Abraham Lincoln

"No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous."
- Samuel Johnson

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue."
- Daniel Webster

VISION
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
- Carl Sandburg

"Vision is the world’s most desperate need. There are no hopeless situations, only people who think hopelessly."
- Winifred Newman

"Make no little plans: They have no magic to stir men's blood."
- Daniel H Burnham

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

WEATLH
“Just as riches are an impediment to virtue in the wicked, so in the good they are an aid of virtue.”
- Ambrose

WILLINGNESS
"The world is a better place as a result of Michelangelo’s not having said, ‘I don’t do ceilings.’"
- Edward McCabe

WILLPOWER
“Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top—it is the willpower to that is the most important. This will power rises from your heart.”
- Junko Tabei (First woman on Mt. Everest)

WINNING
"There is something that can happen to every athlete and every human being; the instinct to slack off, to give in to pain, to give less than your best; the instinct to hope you can win through luck or through your opponent not doing his best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit where victory is always found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us, is the difference between winning and losing - and we all face that battle every day."
- Jessie Owens, winner of four gold medals at 1936 Berlin Olympics

WISDOM
“The chief aim of wisdom is to enable one to bear with the stupidity of the ignorant.”
- Winston Churchill

"From the example of the past, the man of the present acts prudently so as not to imperil the future."
- Titian

“Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.”
- Evangel

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”
- Norman Cousins

WONDER
"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."
- Albert Einstein

WORD OF GOD
“Out flashed the sword of the Spirit: our Lord will fight with no other weapon. He could have spoken new revelations, but he chose to say, ‘It is written.’ There is a power in the Word of God which even the devil cannot deny.”
- Charles Spurgeon

WORDS
"Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words makes them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their image on men’s souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer."
- Blaise Pascal

“Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
- Rudyard Kipling

WORK
“Working too long without a break is a form of pride.”
- Dave Williams (from his book, “Emerging Leaders”)

“It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

"Whatever your work, dignify it with your best thought and effort.”
- Esther Baldwin York

“The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
- Andrew Carnegie

“I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.”
- Harry Truman

"The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it."
- John Ruskin

“I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work—and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
- Lucille Ball

“I’m no miracle worker. I’m just a guy who rolls up his sleeve and goes to work.”
- Don Shula

“In the way of Christ the reward of work well done is more work to do.”
- William Barclay

WORKAHOLISM
“They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.”
- Aldous Huxley

WORKS
Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as you ever can.
- John Wesley

WORRY
"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
- Mark Twain

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.”
- Corrie Ten Boom

“Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do but won't get you anywhere.”
- Unknown

WORTH
"A true measure of a man’s worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success.”
- Cullen Hightower

YIELDEDNESS
“There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.” - John Calvin