"Intensity is a key ingredient in the lives of people who win. "
--Dave Ramsey

"Except maybe where I itch, almost everything we know is second-hand."
--Tom Pittman

"I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking.  ... If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you.  Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience.  It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God."
-- A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Chapter 6 - The Speaking Voice

"Studying the Bible in Greek and Hebrew gets us closer to the original, but the languages we learned to get there are still only as taught, and the manuscripts are but (slightly) imperfect copies. The English translations -- all of them, even the New World -- are very faithful. They have errors and misinterpretations, but not much. Therefore you can both begin and get very far down the path of understanding the Bible just by reading a good modern translation (like NLT). But you have to want to."
-- Tom Pittman, personal email (2010)

"For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant."
--Martin Luther (1483-1546), Preface to the Prophets [1532]

"If we don't know what the Bible says then we don't know God's will or His character very well, and then it becomes easy for us to be led astray by false doctrines that make sense to our minds. The apostle John said that the Word was with God and the Word was God, and then the Word became flesh and dwelt with us (John 1:1, 14). God and His Word cannot be separated, so if you do not know the Word of God very well then you do not really know God very well. ... In fact, some Bible teachers point out that you do not love God more than you love the Word of God, so if you treat the Word of God with disrespect by not reading it and not feeding your spirit with it then you are treating God with disrespect."
--David Emerson Root, Jr

Source for all quotes below:  http://bibleresources.bible.com/Bquotes.php

"At this time I both read and studied all kinds of literature: cosmography, histories, chronicles, and philosophy and other arts , to which our Lord opened my mind unmistakably to the fact that it was possible to navigate from here to the Indies, and He evoked in me the will for the execution of it; and with this fire I came to Your Highnesses. All those who heard of my plan disregarded it mockingly and with laughter. All the sciences of which I spoke were of no profit to me nor the authorities in them; only in Your Highnesses my faith, and my stay. Who would doubt that this light did not come from the Holy Spirit, anyway as far as I am concerned, which comforted with rays of marvelous clarity and with its Holy and Sacred Scriptures."
--Christopher Columbus

"A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know the price of rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved."
--Benjamin Franklin

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
--George Washington

"The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty...students' perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands."
--Thomas Jefferson

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...so great is my veneration of the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens in their country and respectful members of society."
--John Adams (FB 6/7/10)

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
--Patrick Henry

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man."
--Abraham Lincoln

"My advice to Sunday Schools no matter what their denomination is: Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your heart, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future. 'Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34)'."
--Ulysses S. Grant

"That Book (the Bible) is the rock on which our Republic rests."
--Andrew Jackson

"It is impossible to enslave mentally or socially a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom."
--Horace Greeley, founding Editor of the NY Times (FB 6/6/10)

"The existence of the Bible is a book for the people. It's the greatest benefit the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity."
--Immanuel Kant

"The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and the oppressed. The human race is not in a position to dispense with it."
--Thomas Huxley

"The Bible is no mere book, but it's a living creature with a power that conquers all who oppose it."
--Napoleon

"There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history." .... "I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."
--Sir Isaac Newton

"Bible reading is an education in itself."
--Lord Tennyson

"The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world."
--Charles Dickens

"The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the Bible."
--W.H. Seward

"The Bible was written in tears, and to tears it yields its best treasures."
--A.W. Tozer

"It is clear that there must be difficulties for us in a revelation such as the Bible. If someone were to hand me a book that was as simple to me as the multiplication table, and say, 'This is the Word of God. In it He has revealed His whole will and wisdom,' I would shake my head and say, 'I cannot believe it; that is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom.' There must be, in any complete revelation of God's mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand; and the wisest and best of us are but beginners."
--R.A. Torrey

"The Bible is...as necessary to spiritual life as breath is to natural life. There is nothing more essential to our lives than the Word of God."
--Jack Hayford

Notes & Quotes from reading The God Conversation

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains:  it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." 

--C.S. Lewis

"It is worth noting that the whole point of Christianity lies not in interference with the human power to choose, but in producing a willing consent to choose good rather than evil." 

--J.B. Phillips

"The chief difference betwen Christianity and othe theistic religions lies just here:  according to the Christian Gospel, God is willing to enter into and share the sufferings of his creatures, in order to redeem them and his world." 

--Alvin Plantinga (philosophyer)  (see Heb 4:14-16)

"Ironically, there can be a problem of evil only if there is a God.  Theists may have a problem of evil, but atheists have a problem of goodness -- how could there be goodness in a godless universe? If there is no God, the only answer to 'Why did that earthquake kill 30,000 people?' is 'Why not?'  We would have no reason to think that things like this shouldn't happen. The occurrence of evil would no longer be strange.  In a godless ujniverse, stuff happens and that's the end of the matter."  

--The God Conversation p. 35

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"Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there. God and the spiritual world are real.  We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us.  Spiritual thing are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention and challenging our trust."
--A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God (FB 7/24/10)

"The path of spiritual growth in the riches of Christ is not a passive one. Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Effort is action. Earning is attitude."
--Dallas Willard in Live Life to the Full

"Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945) German theologian and Hitler resister

"God is far more interested in who we are than what we accomplish."
--Jeff Jones, 5/30/2010 "The Fine Print" sermon series

In our culture, and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well-informed," "brilliant," or "smart."  Far too often he is regarded as hardly conscious. He is taken as a mere icon, a wraith-like semblance of a man living on the margins of the "real life" where you and I must dwell. He is perhaps fit for the role of sacrificial lamb or alienated social critic, but little more. But can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what Christian's take him to be in other respects and not be the best informed and most intelligent person of all: the smartest person who ever lived, bringing us the best information on the most important subjects.
--Dallas Willard in Who is Your Teacher?

"Your redemption is already paid for. You have already been bought and washed. Get out of yesterday's mud and get busy on the present/future by doing what's on your plate after it got wiped clean on the Cross."
--Tom Pittman (paraphrase from personal email)

"Sooner or later, the world breaks everyone, and those who are broken are strongest in the broken places."
--Earnest Hemingway (Source:  p. 235 of Ortberg's "the me I want to be")

"He who begins by loving Christianity, better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Aids to Reflection [1825]

"In necessariis unitas, In dubiis libertas, In omnibus autem caritas."
Translation:  In necessary things (essentials), unity; in doubtful things (non-essentials), liberty; in all things, charity (love).
-- 17th century Lutheran theologian Peter Meiderlin (often misattributed to St. Augustine of Hippo)

"Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."
-- C.S. Lewis

"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance to your thinking."
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

 --Jesus speaking in John 14:6

"Truth without love is like sodium without chloride: Poison, not salt."
-- Marvin Olasky

"Logic is a good mistress but a very bad master."
-- John G. Reisinger

"Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the
valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory. Let me learn by
paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is
the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that
to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the
crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the
deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine; let me find Thy light in
my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace
in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley."
~A Puritan Prayer

"We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis."
-Spock in "The Mark of Gideon" (The Original Series - Season 3)

"When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayers a 'break' requires, now or down the line, that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can however, determine who pays for lunch."
--Warren Buffett

"From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step."
-- Friedrich Hayek in The Road to Serfdom (p. 62)

"In social evolution nothing is inevitable but thinking makes it so."
-- Friedrich Hayek in The Road to Serfdom (p. 54)

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1783

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried."
 -- Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
 -- James Madison

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."
--Alexander Hamilton

"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac ."
--Henry Kissinger

"If we will not be governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants."
--William Penn

Quotes below were copied from Wise Sayings: Government

1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress. -- John Adams

2. If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. -- Mark Twain

3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -- Winston Churchill

5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw

6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy

7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard

8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -- Douglas Casey (FB 5/29/10)

9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke

10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat

11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan

12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. -- Will Rogers

13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. -- P.J. O'Rourke

14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -- Voltaire

15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. -- Pericles (430 B.C.)

16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

17. Talk is cheap... except when Congress does it. -- Anonymous

18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -- Ronald Reagan

19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill (FB 5/29/10)

20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain

21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

22. There is no distinctly native American criminal class... save Congress. -- Mark Twain

23. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -- Gerald Ford

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
 -- Thomas Jefferson 1802 (unverified)

"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is  no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of  economic law on the side of destruction - and does it in a manner in which  not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
-- John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace