Today I am mixing it up a little. Instead of the usual travelogue, restaurant review, history lesson, I wanted to share some quotes to chew on. These are quotes that I have pulled out of my reading lately and like to look at from time to time. I have done this before and will continue it whenever I have a pageful of quotes that I think are inspiring to pass on. They would probably make it into a sermon if I was still preaching regularly. No commentary – just something to think about.
Books, like people, should not be asked to save us. . . . All my crises are scrawled in the margins of the novels I’ve read over and over again, sometimes to feel safe, sometimes to sink willfully into further despair. Sarah Chihaya in Bibliophobia
I feel sorry for the man who cannot feel the whip when it is laid on the other man’s back. Abraham Lincoln
If Christians spent as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to grumble about. Anonymous
Our greatest need today is not more Christianity but more true Christians. Billy Graham
Worry is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere. Vance Havner
Beware lest we mistake our prejudices for our convictions. Dr Harry Ironside
A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine. DL Moody
Do your little bit of good where you are: it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. Desmond Tutu
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. Mother Teresa
If every single person [you have impacted] in your lifetime, were to light up on a map, it would create the most glitteringly beautiful network you could imagine. Throw in the strangers you’ve been kind to, the people you’ve made laugh, or inspired along the way…. You’re trailing a bright pathway that you don’t even know about. What a thing. What a thing indeed. Donna Ashworth
Prioritize God’s presence over our performance. Tara Johnson in Guideposts
Many churches decorated with words announcing salvation and new life are often little more than parlors for those who feel quite comfortable in the old life, and those who are not likely to let the minister’s words change their stone hearts into furnaces where swords can be cast into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. Henri Nouwen in Wounded Healer
The convinced proclamation of belief in Christ’s power to save brings about astonishing changes in people’s lives. Norman Vincent Peale in “The Positive Power of Jesus Christ”
My purpose isn’t anchored in what I do but in whose I am. Susanna Foth Aughtmon
The Americans … acquire no attachment to Place; But wandering about Seems engrafted in their Nature; and … they Should for ever imagine the Lands further off, are Still better than those upon which they are already settled. John Murray, Lord Dunmore, colonial governor of Virginia
Ann Weems in Psalms of Lament. Psalm 49:
My son lives in the heart of heaven,
And I live in the heart of earth,
But we live together in the heart of God.
One of the deepest drives of human nature is the desire to be appreciated. William James
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. William Butler Yeats “The Second Coming”
Do any of these quotes speak to you? Give you something to chew on? What is a quote that has inspired you lately?