NEED INTRODUCTION PARAGRAPH.
THE BEATITUDES
“If you ‘sow’ the “Beatitudes,” you will ‘reap’ the “fruit of the Spirit.”
[ Mark Besh ]
“There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.”
[ Elisabeth Elliot ] (“Through Gates of Splendor”)
“God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.”
[ Jim Elliot ]
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
[ Albert Camus ]
“Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.”
[ Groucho Marx ]
“Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is.”
[ Amy Carmichael ]
“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.”
[ Elizabeth Bibesco ]
“Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others.”
[ Swami Vivekananda ]
“Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one’s self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.”
[ Thomas Hughes ]
“Blessed is the man who’s lost it all.”
[ Switchfoot ]
“The Beatitudes are no spiritual “to do list” to be attempted by eager, rule-keeping disciples. It is a spiritual “done” list of the qualities God brings to bear in the people who follow Jesus.”
[ Ronnie McBrayer ]
“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.”
[ Elizabeth Bibesco ]
THE “GOOD LIFE”
FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
“One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed.”
[ Bernard Baruch ]
“The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal.”
[ Herbert Croly ]
“Marriage can be tough. It really is. But God is calling you to do everything you can. It’s just not you and your spouse. There’s a third person in your marriage. And God would like to bless and protect that marriage, and give you many fruitful days ahead.”
[ Tim Huelskamp ]
“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.”
[ Arnold Glasow ]
“I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
[ Henry Drummond ]
“Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.”
[ Billy Graham ]
“Faith is the silver thread upon which the pearls of the graces are to be hung. Break that, and you have broken the string — the pearls lie scattered on the ground.”
[ Charles Haddon Spurgeon ]
“The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.”
[ William Mather Lewis ]
“Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends.”
[ Dietrich Bonhoeffer ]
“Giving is an act of generosity. Giving is sowing a seed. The seed will produce great harvest of fruits.”
[ Lailah Gifty Akita ]
“CAUSALITY”
DEVELOPING HABITS
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
[ Albert Einstein ]
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
[ Aristotle ]
“Our daily lives are often a series of habits played out through the day, a trammeled existence fettered by the slow accretion of our previous actions.”
[ Leo Babauta ]
“Change will last when they are done in tiny, almost infinitesimal steps.”
[ Leo Babauta ]
“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.”
[ Mark Twain ]
REMINDERS
WILLPOWER
“Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.”
[ Dan Millman ]
“Indeed, the best way to think of willpower is not as some shapeless behavioral trait but as a sort of psychic muscle, one that can atrophy or grow stronger depending on how it’s used.”
[ Jeffrey Kluger ]
“We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then – and this is the best part – we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, we’re free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.”
[ Gretchen Rubin ]
“Most of life’s actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.”
[ Robert McKee ]
“Willpower is trying very hard not to do something you want to do very much.”
[ John Ortberg ]
“Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from indomitable will.”
[ Mahatma Gandhi ]
“Will is character in action.”
[ William McDougall ]
“Never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is power.”
[ Charles Simmons ]
“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”
[ Og Mandino ]
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”
[ Mario Andretti ]
“I’ve always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you’ve got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish.”
[ Chuck Norris ]
“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.”
[ Tommy Lasorda ]
“I’ve known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn’t know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don’t know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination.”
[ Harvey Mackay ]
“Time can be an ally or an enemy. What it becomes depends entirely upon you, your goals, and your determination to use every available minute.”
[ Zig Ziglar ]
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”
[ George A. Sheehan ]
“Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
[ Winston Churchill ]
“Without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing. We are as ships without the wind, branches without sap, and like coals without fire, we are useless.”
[ Charles H. Spurgeon ]
“Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits.”
[ Robert Brault ]
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
[ Calvin Coolidge ]
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
[ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
[ Gail Devers ]
“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”
[ Thomas Foxwell Buxton ]
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
[ William Feather ]
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”
[ Confucius ]
“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”
[ Winston Churchill ]
“Never stop. One stops as soon as something is about to happen.”
[ Peter Brock ]
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.”
[ Abraham Lincoln ]
“The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.”
[ Charles F. Kettering ]
“Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination.”
[ Grace Lichtenstein ]
“When you are possessed by evil spirits, it is crafty manipulations that you follow; but when you are posessed by the Holy Spirit of God, it is wise discretions you pursue!”
[ Israelmore Ayivor ]
“Act as if it were impossible to fail.”
[ Dorothea Brand ]
“Human will-power alone is not enough. Will-power is excellent and we should always be using it; but it is not enough. A desire to live a good life is not enough. Obviously we should all have that desire, but it will not guarantee success. So let me put it thus: Hold on to your principles of morality and ethics, use your willpower to the limit, pay great heed to every noble, uplifting desire that is in you; but realize that these things alone are not enough, that they will never bring you to the desired place. We have to realize that all our best is totally inadequate, that a spiritual battle must be fought in a spiritual manner.”
[ Martyn Lloyd-Jones ]
REFINEMENT
“Great design is iteration of good design.”
[ M. Cobanli ]
“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete.”
[ Mark Zuckerberg ]
“Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation.”
[ Sebastian Thrun ]
“The product team should research two iterations ahead, design one iteration ahead, and review the previous iteration.”
[ Cennydd Bowles ]
“Adam was refined dirt; Eve was a glorious refinement of humanity itself.”
[ John MacArthur ]
“The beauty of this picture is that the refiner looks into the open furnace, or pot, and knows that the process of purifying is complete, and the dross all burnt away, when he can see his image plainly reflected in the molten metal.”
[ James Neil ]
“The sitting posture shows that the refiner may seem indifferent, but He is not. He is carefully working with the silver, burning off and scraping away the dross that that the flames bring to the top. “I think I see in the sitting down of the refiner a settled patience, as if he seemed to say, ‘This is stern work, and I will sit down to it, for it will need care, and time, and constant watchfulness.’”
[ Charles Haddon Spurgeon ]
HOLY SPIRIT
“The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick.”
[ Max Lucado ]
“Sometimes I feel so helpless and inadequate, and wonder if I have done enough to make the Gospel clear. But I also know that only the Holy Spirit can open others’ eyes to the truth.”
[ Billy Graham ]
“Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit – that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us – that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.
When we dare to fully trust in the power of God’s Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur.”
[ Henri J.M. Nouwen ]
“The Holy Spirit does not speak to a soul that is distracted and garrulous. He speaks by His quiet inspirations to a soul that is recollected, to a soul that knows how to keep silence.”
[ Maria Faustina Kowalska ]
“Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God’s Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, with us.”
[ Henri J.M. Nouwen ]
