Quotations

Email me your favorites at: quotations@levering.net

“I stayed because every time you threw a brick at my head or said I smelled; it hurt, but it could never hurt more than everyday of my life just being me. I stayed because I thought if anyone can change me, can make me not me, it was you!” Po to Master Shifu in “Kung Fu Panda”

“Of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” Tom Hanks as Coach Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own”

“Madam, do I not defeat my enemies when I make them my friends?” Abraham Lincoln

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” — Abraham Lincoln

"My father always tells us "Pray and duck.'" David Teubl son of Dr. William Teubl

We can do no great things, only small things with great love. - Mother Teresa

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. - Helen Keller

“The interface of violence and God is one to ponder by believers in the United States, the most violent society in the contemporary “developed world.” This society is saturated with violence, so much so that we scarcely notice except for the most dramatic occasions. No great imagination is needed, moreover, to suggest that widely practiced, accepted, and sanctioned violence has deep theological warrants behind it.”

Walter Brueggemann, Reverberations of Faith; A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012, p. 226.

“Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all the help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost... Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.”

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Publishing Company, 2007, p. 180.

“Religious membership has to do with the emerging out of nothing of the face of the infinite as it shines from real faces. Religious membership has to do with the intuition that the warmth of life itself, like the transmission of life from the world’s first father and mother, is alive in any hands you hold.”

Paul R. Fleishman, M.D,, The Healing Spirit; Explorations in Religion and Psychotherapy. New York: Paragon House, p. 95.

“Man is everywhere ready to oppose God and to fall away from him; he is in constant need of forgiveness, and of God’s support. Only very seldom, and then to some extent rather against his own nature, is he able to realize the special possibilities of the saving relationship offered him -- faith, obedience, and surrender.”

Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Vol. II. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1965, p. 348.

“Passion as the capacity and readiness to care, to suffer, to die, and to feel is the enemy of imperial reality. Imperial economics is designed to keep people satiated so that they do not notice. Its politics is intended to block out the cries of the denied ones. Its religion is to be an opiate so that no one discerns misery alive in the heart of God.”

Walter Breuggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd edition. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2001, p. 35.

There is no worse screen to block out the spirit than confidence in our own intelligence. John Calvin

It often takes more courage to change ones opinion than to keep it. Willy Brandt

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. Xenocrates

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. Abraham Maslow

Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change. Confucius

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. Ayn Rand

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you”. Thomas Merton

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you”. C.S. Lewis

“Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness”. Mother Teresa

“You can’t know a God who is the center of everything unless you know how to orbit around Him"- Tim Keller

If we have any resources, any power, any voice, any influence, any energy, we must convert them into blessing for those who have no power, no voice, no influence.

Remember what God says to Cain, in between the "What have you done?" part and the "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" part?

God says to Cain, “Listen!" Because everything begins with the cry. It begins with someone crying and someone else hearing.

And it’s hard to hear the cry when you’re isolated from it. -Rob Bell

" Never in the gospels do the disciples catch a single fish without help from Jesus"...Reynolds Price, from his essay on the Gospel of John for the essay Collection "Incarnation"; Viking;1990.

"What a pity, that so hard on the heels of Christ, come the Christians. There is no breather. The disciples turn into early Christians between one rushed verse and the next. What a dismaying pity that here come the early Christians already, flawed to the core, full of wild ideas and hurried self importance." Annie Dillard, from her essay on the Gospel of Luke for the essay Collection "Incarnation"; Viking;1990.

" I have seen it happen time after time: the church and synagogue fashion communities where people are welcomed without being evaluated or are evaluated by standards much more humane and less materialistic than those of the outside world." Harold Kushner; Who needs God, p.109, Summit Books, 1989.

I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou

Life isn’t about getting and having; it’s about giving and being. Kevin Kruse

Strive not to be successful, but rather to be of value. Albert Einstein

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now. Chinese Proverb

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why. Mark Twain

Eighty percent of life is about showing up. Woody Allen

Two roads diverged in a woods, and I - I took the one less traveled by. And that made all the difference. Robert Frost

"We underestimate the power we have just be being present in the life of someone." - Kerry and Chris Shook

"I am only one, but still I AM ONE. I can't do everything, BUT still I can do something; and because I can't do everything - I will NOT refuse to do something that I can do." - Helen Keller

"I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show let me do it now for I shall not [ass this way again." - Unknown

"The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in our way is a sign that God wants us to do something for him or her. It is NOT chance; it has been planned by God. We are bound by conscience to help." - Mother Theresa

"One life that will quickly pass - only what is done for Christ will last." - Unknown

"Nothing is ever wasted in God's economy." - Dr. Irene Cirillo

"Some people do not cross at the light." - Unknown

You first parents of the human race, who ruined yourselves for an apple...what might you have done for a truffled turkey? - Billiat Savarin

in the midst of winter, I finally learned there was, within me, an invincible summer...A. Camus

Talk happiness; talk faith; talk health. Say you are well, and all is well with you, and God shall hear your words and make them true.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Faith goes up the stairs love has built and looks out the window which hope has opened...

Charles Spurgeon

Let us serve the world soulfully. The pay we will receive for our service will be in the currency of gratitude. God's gratitude.

Sri Chinmoy

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep need meet.

Frederick Buechner

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.

Pierre Tielhard de Chardin

"Every tomorrow has two handles.

We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith."

Henry Ward Beecher

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom"

Sidonie Gabrielle

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same."

Don Williams, Jr.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare.

It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

Seneca

"People are like stained-glass windows.

They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,

but when the darkness sets in,

their true beauty is revealed

only if there is a light from within.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

The world is faced by the paradox that it craves for novelty and yet is haunted by terror at the loss of the past, with its familiarities and its loved ones.

A.N. Whitehead Process and Reality p. 400

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.

A.N. Whitehead Adventure of Ideas, p. 244

Transcendence of mere clarity and order is necessary for dealing with the unforeseen, for progress, for excitement. Life degenerates when enclosed with the shackles of mere conformation. A power of incorporating vague and disorderly elements of experience is essential for the advance into novelty.

A. N. Whitehead Modes of Thought, p. 79

By letting go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try the world is beyond the winning.

Lao-tsu

Gratitude is one of the chief graces of human existence and is crowned in heaven with a consciousness of unity.

A. N. Whitehead Science of Mind p. 49

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but fror those who love, time is eternity.

Henry Van Dyke

Trust is letting go of needing to know all the details before you open your heart.

Unknown

Travelers...there is no path. Paths are made by walking.

Marianne Williamson

While civility is not the highest end of humankind, it can get us by in times when we forget other more important values.

William H. Levering

Your calling from God is the intersection of your deepest passions and the deepest needs of the world.

Steve Bigner

To answer before listening— that is folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:13

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Helen Keller

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

Louis D. Brandeis

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

Albert Camus

Liberty is the breath of life to nations.

George Bernard Shaw

True contentment comes only from God, and enables believers to be satisfied and at ease in the midst of any problem.

John MacArthur

But our hope is in the never-changing truth that God gives us new beginnings and we can start over with God.When we wake up every morning, we are reminded of God’s love and mercy, giving us a new day as a gift and a new beginning for us."

Becca Eherlic

Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist there is no God.

Heywood Broun

In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinkling's are what eternity is made of. Moments when we human beings can say 'I love you,' 'I'm proud of you,' 'I forgive you,' 'I'm grateful for you.' That's what eternity is made of : invisible, imperishable good stuff.

Mr. Rogers

Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.

Kobi Yamada

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhardde Chardin

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Norman Vincent Peale

Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it nothing is possible. With it nothing is impossible.

Mary Mcleod Bethume

There are two great mistakes in thinking about yourself: The first is that your ideas are completely unique and that no one is like you. The second is that everyone thinks the way you do.

William H. Levering

War is never what it appears. It is less noble, more violent, less effective, and more self-destructive than we ever imagine. War further divides classes, exploiting the lives of the poor and profiting those who invest in the tools of war.

William H. Levering

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.

John Calvin

The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both. John Calvin

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

Albert Einstein

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Martin Luther

My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.

Billy Graham

Not everything deserves to be immortal. My daughter once posted a remark of mine on the internet many years ago. I became timeless for this less than noble saying. http://coolquotescollection.com/Laughs/17