Sometimes a little saying haunts us for the rest of our lives. This
collection is aimed at the casual reader with the intent that some
phrase might strike an inner chord that will open new doors of wisdom
and change one’s life for the better. However it should also be used by
preachers for as it is said “Those who never quote will never
themselves be quoted.” In the end I would like to apologize for that
these quotations are in English and not in Romanian; but, the wisdom of
many of these passages is hidden in the complex beauty of some "subtle
play" of the English language and it is beyond my level of skill to
successfully attempt to equivalently translate them into Romanian.
However, I consider it a very worthwhile endeavor to continue as such
and I’m sure that those who can understand the quotations will be
blessed.
1) I had rather be in hell with Christ, than be in heaven without Him – Martin Luther
2) Hold Thou Thy cross
before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom
and point me to the skies;
Heaven’s morning breaks,
and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord,
abide in me. – Henry Francis Lyte
3) It is not enough to be good if you have the ability to be better – Alberta Lee Cox
4) Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born. – Ronald Reagan
5) Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. – Elizabeth Bibesco
6) Lord grant that the FIRE of my heart may melt the lead of my feet.
7) If there is no wind row – Latin proverb
8) I have so much to do that I am going to bed – Savoyard proverb
9) Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
10) Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue – Francis Bacon
11) Adversity is the diamond dust heaven polishes its jewels with. – Robert Leighton
12) They gave our Master a crown of thorns – Why do we hope for a crown of roses? – Martin Luther.
13) The man who does not learn to wait upon the Lord and have his
thoughts molded by Him will never possess that steady purpose and calm
trust, which is essential to the exercise of wise influence upon
others, in times of crisis and difficulty. – D. E. Hoste
14) Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present – proverb
15) If you ask enough people, you can usually find someone who will
advise you to do what you were going to do anyway. – Weston Smith
16) Do not open your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who fears God – Thomas à Kempis
17) God’s wounds cure, sin’s kisses kill – William Gurnall
18) Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man’s search for
God. For me, they might as well talk about the mouse’s search for a
cat. – C.S. Lewis
19) Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. – Elbert Hubbard
20) Only those who attempt the absurd achieve the impossible.
21) Failure to plan is knowingly planning to fail.
22) The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.
23) Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God. – William Carey
24) Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. – Robert F. Kennedy
25) If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
26) If you think you’re too small to have an impact try going to bed with a mosquito in the room. – Anita Roddick
27) Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. – JFK
28) The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. – Abraham Lincoln
29) Human action can be modified to some extent but human nature cannot be changed. – Abraham Lincoln
30) You can see what God thinks of money when you see the people he gives it to. – Abraham Lincoln
31) When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
32) You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the
people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. –
Abraham Lincoln
33) The things that will destroy America are peace at any price,
prosperity at any cost, safety first instead of duty first, the love of
soft living, and the getting-rich-quick theory of life. – Theodore
Roosevelt.
34) Do what you can, with what you have, were you are. – Theodore Roosevelt
35) Worry, the interest paid by those who borrow trouble – George Washington
36) Never give advice
A wise man won’t need it
A fool won’t heed it.
37) The mind ought sometimes to be diverted that it may return the better to thinking. – Phaedrus
38) The real character of a man is found out by his amusements. – Joshua Reynolds
39) Anger is one letter short of danger
40) The sun must not set upon anger, much less will I let the sun set upon the anger of God towards me. – John Donne
41) Anybody can become angry – that is easy; but to be angry with
the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and
for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within
everybody’s power and is not easy.
42) Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.
43) Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength. – C.H. Spurgeon
44) The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke
45) In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. – Martin Luther King Jr.
46) A stiff apology is a second insult. – G.K. Chesterton
47) Discussion is an exchange of intelligence; argument is an exchange of ignorance.
48) I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget – Benjamin Disraeli
49) It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. – William G McAdoo
50) I tried atheism for a while but my faith just wasn’t strong enough.
51) Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching?
52) If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. – Dale Carnegie
53) There are two kinds of men who never amount to very much. Those
who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else. –
Cyrus H. K. Curtis
54) Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. – Zig Ziglar
55) If you would abolish avarice, you must abolish its mother, luxury.
56) Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear; but around in awareness. – James Thurban
57) Beauty is a flower, fame a breath. - Latin proverb
58) Anyone can carry his burden for one day. Anyone can be pleasant,
courteous, and friendly for one day. And that continued is all there is
to life.
59) Behave towards your inferiors as you would wish your betters to behave to you. – Seneca
60) A Christ-centered life is like a good watch: open face, busy hands, pure gold, and full of good works.
61) He that knows nothing will believe anything. – Thomas Fuller
62) You never know how much you really believe anything until its
truth or falsehood become a matter of life and death to you. – C. S.
Lewis
63) Make sure the thing you’re living for is worth dying for. – Charles Mayes
64) If God created us in His image we have certainly returned to compliment. – François de Voltaire
65) Give me a candle and a Bible, and shut me up in a dark dungeon, and I will tell you what the whole world is doing.
66) “Bible” It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet.
67) Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. – Jerome
68) The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the
one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for
that. – James McCosh
69) Back to the Bible, or back to the jungle. – Luis Palau
70) Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do
not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do
understand. – Mark Twain
71) The greatest proof that the Bible is inspired is that it has stood so much bad preaching. – A. T. Robertson
72) In 1728 potatoes were outlawed in Scotland because they were not mentioned in the Bible.
73) In the Old Testament we have Jesus predicted. In the Gospels we
have Jesus revealed. In Acts we have Jesus preached. In the Epistles we
have Jesus explained. In the Revelation we have Jesus expected.
74) Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself. – C. H. Spurgeon
75) Either the Bible will keep you away from sin, or sin will keep you away from the Bible. – C. S. Lewis
76) The Bible does not have to be rewritten but reread.
77) Avoid truth decay – read your Bible.
78) Many read the Bible the way a mouse tries to remove the cheese from a trap without getting caught. – Kierkegaard
79) Until we love the Lord as to do what He tells us, we have no
right to an opinion about what one of those men meant; for all they
wrote is about things beyond us. – George Macdonald
80) Do not have your concert first and tune your instruments afterwards. Begin the day with God. – James Hudson Taylor
81) What a world this would be if we could forget our troubles as easily as we forget our blessings.
82) God can do wonders with a broken heart; if we give Him all the pieces.
83) How else but through a broken heart may the Lord Christ enter in. – Oscar Wilde
84) It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.
85) Never mistake motion for action. – Ernest Hemmingway
86) Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong. – Holly Near
87) The world doesn’t care what you know until they know that you care. – David Havard
88) The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. – Tacitus
89) I have nothing to give but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. – Winston Churchill
90) The only thing constant is change.
91) Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change. – Confucius
92) The boys and girls who are going to make great men and women, or
are going to count in any way after life, must make up their minds not
merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a
thousand repulses and defeats. – Theodore Roosevelt
93) [Charismatic] The fanaticism which discards the Scripture under
the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of
every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of
the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may
make room for their own falsehoods. – John Calvin
94) Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naïve. – Ogden Nash
95) I have a great need for Christ; I have a great Christ for my need. – Spurgeon
96) I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am
not even what I hope to be. But by the cross of Christ, I am not what I
was. – John Newton
97) Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it has a
God who knew His way out of the grave. – G. K. Chesterton
98) The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with
small does of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.
– Leslie Dixon Weatherhead
99) There are many sheep without, many wolves within. – Augustine of Hippo
100) There are four kinds of church members: the tired, tireless, tiresome and retired.
101) The difference between involvement and commitment is like and
eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was involved – the pig was
committed.
102) If God is thy father, man is thy brother. – Alphonse de Lamartine
103) The best exercise for strengthening the heart is reaching down and lifting people up. – Ernest Blevings
104) Skill and confidence are an unconquered army. – George Herbert
105) Never wrestle with a pig. You both get all dirty and the pig likes it.
106) A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. – Doug Larson
107) In order to attain the citadel of contemplation you must begin
by exercising yourself in the field of labor. – Gregory the Great
108) The only ultimate disaster that can befall us is to feel ourselves at home here on earth. – Malcom Muggeridge
109) [Conversion] You can’t tell the exact moment when night becomes day, but you know when it is daytime.
110) When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians. When he left
in 1872 there were no heathen. – Memorial to John Geddie in Aneityum
111) Christ had no interest in gathering vast crowds of professed
adherents who would melt away as soon as they found out what following
Him actually demanded of them. In our own presentation of Christ’s
gospel, therefore, we need to lay a similar stress on the cost of
following Christ and make sinners face it soberly before we urge them
to respond to the message of free forgiveness. In common honesty, we
must not conceal the fact that free forgiveness in one sense will cost
everything. – J. I. Packer
112) If it’s painful for you to criticize your friends, you’re safe
in doing it; if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time
to hold your tongue. – Alice Duer Miller
113) If one man calls you a horse, ignore him;
If two men call you a horse, consider it;
If three men call you a horse, buy a saddle. – Persian proverb
114) No statue has ever been erected to a critic. – Jean Sibelius
115) The cross is “I” crossed out.
116) Necessity is the mother of invention.
117) Through a tree we were made debtors to God; so through a tree we have our debt canceled. – Irenaeus
118) The cross symbolizes a cosmic, as well as historic truth: Love
conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one. – Reinhold
Niebukr
119) Carry the cross patiently, and with perfect submission; and in the end it shall carry you. – Thomas à Kempis
120) Many who plan to seek God at the eleventh hour die at 10:30.
121) It is curious that people who are filled with horrified
indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the
killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at
all. – Dorothy Sayers
122) All cruelty springs from weakness. – Seneca
123) God is peopling eternity, and I must not restrict him to old men and women. – Jim Elliot
124) Remember death and the attractions of life will fade away before you. – Shenouda III
125) Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. – Mark Twain
126) An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. – William Hazlitt
127) Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why
the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite
importance. – C. S. Lewis
128) Anything that dims my vision for Christ, or takes away my taste
for Bible study, or cramps me in my prayer life, or makes Christian
work difficult, is wrong for me; and I must, as a Christian turn away
from it. – J. Wilbur Chapman
129) I am resolved never to do anything which I should be afraid to
do if it were the last hour of my life. – Jonathan Edwards
130) We are consecrated and dedicated to God; therefore, we may not
hereafter think, speak, meditate, or do anything but with a view to His
glory. We are God’s; to Him therefore, let us live and die. – John
Calvin
131) No one who really wants to count for God can afford to play at Christianity. – H. A. Ironside
132) Many are willing that Christ should be something, but few will
consent that Christ should be everything. – Alexander Moody Stuart
133) Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual. – C. H. Spurgeon
134) Despair is the conclusion of fools. – Benjamin Disraeli
135) Most of the important things in the world have been
accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be
no hope at all. – Dale Carnegie
136) It is still one of the tragedies of human history that the
“children of darkness” are frequently more determined and zealous than
the “children of light” – Martin Luther King
137) O Lord, You give us everything, at the price of an effort. – Leonardo Da Vinci
138) When you close your eyes to the devil, make sure that it is not a wink. – John C. Kulp
139) A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age. – Robert Frost
140) The greatest lesson in life it to know that even fools are right sometimes. – Winston Churchill
141) The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all
things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the
counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the
counterfeit.
142) You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension,
and discipline are taken out of your life. – Jones G. Bilkey
143) A small but always persistent discipline is a great force; for
a soft drop falling persistently hollows out hard rock. – Isaac from
Syria
144) It hurts when God has to PRY things out of our hand! – Corrie Ten Boom
145) Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and
thinking what nobody has thought. – Albert von Szent-Gyorgy
146) It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from
God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness is
not of God. – George Whitefield
147) Doubt sees the obstacles
Faith sees the way;
Doubt sees the blackest night
Faith sees the day;
Doubts dreads to take a step
Faith soars on high;
Doubt questions, “Who believes?”
Faith answers, “I”
148) Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. – Robert Frost
149) The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up. – J. M. Power
150) Without dreams you may continue to exist, but you have ceased to live – Mark Twain
151) Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
152) Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a
duty. The second duty will already have become clearer. – T. Carlyle
153) Duty is ours: consequences are God’s. – General Stonewall Jackson
154) Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the
golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. –
Mark Twain
155) Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
156) There is work that is work and there is play that is play;
there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of
these lies happiness. – Gelett Burgess
157) The secret of education is respecting the pupil. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
158) Spoon feeding is the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. – E. M. Forster
159) Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. – Roger Lewin
160) Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. – C. S. Lewis
161) Children’s games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play. – Montaigne
162) Let me teach for a generation, and I will become ruler of the state. – Napoleon
163) All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today. – Chinese proverb
164) A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight
car; but if he has a university education he can steal the whole
railroad. – Theodore Roosevelt
165) The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. – Mark Twain
166) If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. – Abigail Van Buren
167) I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour is that moment when
he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the
field of battle, victorious. – Vince Lombardi
168) If a man does his best, what else is there? – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)
169) A really intelligent man feels what other men only know. – Charles Montesquieu
170) The really great man is the man who makes every man feel great. – G. K. Chesterton
171) Let’s get rid of the inhuman philosophy which only allows
necessities. Not only does it wrongly deprive us of legitimate
enjoyment of God’s generosity, but it cannot be effected without
depriving man of all his senses, reducing him to a block. – John Calvin
172) Enthusiasm is as good a thing in the Church as fire is in a cook stove. – Billy Sunday
173) Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn. – John Wesley
174) Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. – Thomas Jefferson
175) If we escape one error, we usually glide into its opposite. – C. H. Spurgeon
176) Evangelicalism is like a swimming bath: most noise at the shallow end. – J. Blanchard
177) Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?
Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn, and give no hand?
Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
- Leonard Ravenhill
178) Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to
conclusions, summing up bills, stretching the truth, bending over
backward, lying down on the job, side stepping responsibility and
pushing their luck.
179) Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. – Charles F. Banning
