These are quotes which stood out to me, possibly for use in a sermon someday. Their presence here does not mean I agree with them, it merely shows that I might want to reference them later. The default view is five random selections. Use the tag list on the right to view all quotes relevant to that theme.
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you yourself shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.
When Senator Howard Baker was a candidate in the 1980 presidential election, he ran across strong criticism of his support for Jimmy Carter's return of the Panama Canal to Panama from a Republican woman in Vermont. "Well, madam," replied the senator with sweet reasonableness, "I must have cast thousands of votes during my time in the Senate. You probably agree with almost all of them. Why focus on the one issue where we disagree?" "Pontius Pilate probably made lots of good decisions too," responded the lady. "But we only remember one." http://www.nationalreview.com/issue/jos200403021503.asp
When the famous missionary E. Stanley Jones asked Gandhi how to become a better missionary, Gandhi said, 'Become more like the man you follow.' By: Jeff Comment Source: Mission in the Marketplace, 1995, MITM Publishing, p. 42-43
Has anybody here seen “The Last Samurai?” That’s a great movie. I love samurais. I love ninja, too. But I really love samurai. There’s something cool about them—they’re these fierce warriors who live by a strict code of honor and assiduously cultivate their artistic sides. They do calligraphy and painting and poetry and all sorts of cool stuff. I think that’s one of the reasons that King David of Israel is one of my favorite heroes. He’s like a Jewish samurai. I mean think about it—this is a guy who leads the way in warfare no matter what the odds, who is passionately devoted to virtue and values, and who is one of the most famous poets in all of history. He’s totally a samurai. Now here’s the amazing thing. In Acts 13:22 we read God’s opinion of David, the warrior king of Israel: “‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; ” That’s cool—God likes samurais, too.
The key to the life and behavior of the historical Alexander the Great lies in his belonging to a pre-Christian, thoroughly pagan world. He remained culturally and psychologically committed to an archaic Homeric time of heroic behavior. Alexander belonged to an age of gods and heroes. It was a harsh, pitiless world of unremediated severity and cruelty, in which the laws of war, by which whole populations could be wiped out or sold into slavery, prevailed. It was a superstitious ambience requiring that the gods be propitiated, but these divinities were lacking in any ethical consciousness. It was a world in which women were abused and prostitution was commonly acceptable. It was a moment in time when pedophilic abuse passed without comment. Falling-down drunkenness was similarly viewed as manly and socially acceptable. This culture produced Alexander, a man of incomparable heroism, who gloried in his physical strength and his battle-ready glamour. Overall the time was marked by a reckless, harsh ethos embedded in savage cruelty. This was Alexander's world, and he strutted on its stage as a colossus.