c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The power of health and wealth lies in tithing.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
With a humble heart, great grace abound.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Lord of lords!
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Giving is the gateway to heaven.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
We testify about wonders of Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper.
— Pope Paul VI, Sacrosanctum Concilium: Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
Over the past two hundred years philosophy has shaken off Christian faith. It has not given up Christianity's cardinal error -the belief that humans are radically different from all other animals.
— John Gray, Perros de paja: Reflexiones sobre los humanos y otros animales
The Buddha promised release from something we all understand: suffering. By contrast, no one can say what was the original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it.
— John Gray, Perros de paja: Reflexiones sobre los humanos y otros animales
The spiritual fire defines the strength of faith.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The soul fire determines the strength of the spirit.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I have faith in your eternal, comprehensive plan, and I believe that someday I will be able to see that you have made my life a beautiful tapestry. Right now I can see only sections of the back, with all of its knots and loose ends. But I trust that someday in heaven I will see the front in its entirety—the picture of world history and my own life from your perspective. How amazing that will be! So today give me the grace to interpret unexpected and even unwelcome circumstances as part of your grand plan. When I do, I know I'll be able to embrace both the good and the bad, knowing that you are weaving a beautiful picture with my life.
— Amy E. Mason, 365 Pocket Prayers for Women: Guidance and Wisdom for Each New Day
You do not need to be perfect to be the best
— Ikechukwu Joseph
No one whose steps are truly ordered by God will ever attempt to walk over another human being.
— Johnnie Dent Jr.
Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.You know that people who live above a certain latitude and experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we'll open the door and let him.
— Chieko N. Okazaki
For years I viewed my interaction with the Bible as a debit account: I had a need, so I went to the Bible to withdraw an answer. But we do much better to view our interaction with the Bible as a savings account: I stretch my understanding daily, I deposit what I glean, and I patiently wait for it to accumulate in value, knowing that one day I will need to draw on it.
— Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds
...I believe that doubts, honestly expressed and wrestled with, produce a faith that is stronger and more intimate than doubts suppressed under the veneer of faith.
— Sheila Walsh
Whether Jesus calms the storm or calms us in the storm, His love is the same, and His grace is enough.
— Sheila Walsh, Extraordinary Faith: God's Perfect Gift for Every Woman's Heart
So many people concentrate on knowing who a good preacher or a bad preacher is and so many people concentrate on knowing what the word of God is! The former is good but the latter is noble. The latter is the best answer to the former. The real duty of man is never to know man but to know God through Christ Jesus! Knowing the word of God is the true way to knowing God!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
It is one thing to say that the Lord is my Shepherd
—  it is quite another to be lost and have Him guide me home.
Adam returned his gaze to the cross. The Jesus was hurting. Guilt simmered and then boiled in him. Jesus had a whole world of suffering and horror to worry about and here Adam was in all his punk puniness. He didn't want to add to Jesus's burdens, but...'Sorry about that. Look, I know you're busy and I don't want to get greedy with your time, but still, if you could just help me... If you could find a minute, please, please, please, dear sweet Jesus, fix me.
— Teresa Toten, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B
There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself. As if the Good Lord had nothing better to do than exist!
— C.S. Lewis
Mercy will always be greater than any sin, no one can put a limit on the love of the all-forgiving God. Just by looking at him, just raising our eyes from ourselves and our wounds, we leave an opening for the action of his grace. Jesus performs miracles with our sins, with what we are, with our nothingness, with our wretchedness.
— Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy
If... I focus only on what God commands for us as wives to do, it detracts nothing from God's commands for our men. His Word for them still stands.
— April Cassidy, The Peaceful Wife
I have mentioned the qualitative difference between Christianity as an ethic and Christianity as an identity. Christian ethics goes steadfastly against the grain of what we consider human nature: the first will be last, to him who asks give, turn the other cheek, judge not. Identity on the other hand appeals to a constellation of the worst human impulses. It is worse than ordinary tribalism because it assumes a more than virtuous “us” on one side and on the other a “them” who are very doubtful indeed, who are in fact a threat to all we hold dear.
— Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things: Essays
The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be easily fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom n love.
— Henrietta Newton Martin -Senior Legal Consultant & Author in law. (B.Com,LLB-goldmedalist, LLM-GoldM
Crucified Love lives with us today and till the end of times as He promised.Amen.The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom and love.
— Henrietta Newton Martin
The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be easily fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom and love.
— Henrietta Newton Martin -Senior Legal Consultant & Author in law. (B.Com,LLB-goldmedalist, LLM-GoldM
...Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine, forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more, or at least to dislike it less....Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God’s love for man and man’s love for God. About the second of these two, people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in them selves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, “If I were sure that I loved God what would I do? When you have found the answer, go and do it.
— C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis
The idea that you have to avoid teaching evolution or pretend you're not teaching it is unique in the industrial world. And the statistics are mind-boggling. Roughly half the population think the world was created a couple thousand years ago.
— Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World
These were all simple acts of obedience I missed. But not missed because I was unaware. They were missed because I was busy—caught in the rush of endless demands. And the rush makes us rebellious. I knew what to do and blatantly ignored it.Ignoring God's leading doesn't seem like such a big deal in these cases. In the grand scheme of the world, how big a thing is it that I didn't pick up that cup? After all, how can I be sure it was really God?I think a better question would be, How can I be sure it wasn't God?
— Lysa TerKeurst, The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands
If you believe, don't worry. If you don't believe you will get all dressed up with nowhere to go.
— Lyn Johnson
opportunity only shows you the door but not the end of the road
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Bible Faith Nuggets Series Box Set
The Almighty God is perfect and patient.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Whoever sees the light shall never walk in darkness.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I decided to throw out everything I thought I knew about following Christ, being a woman, being a godly wife, masculinity, and marriage.
— April Cassidy, The Peaceful Wife
The Word of God judges the thoughts. The word "judge" means to critique, to be or act as a critic. This is to say that Scripture is able to accurately audit a person's life and size it up for what it is. The Word of God is able to examine the unseen attitudes and motivations, expose the secret ambitions and desires, and then render the divine verdict. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. This sharp, two-edged sword is able to penetrate into the hidden crevices of the heart and judge what only God can see. The Word makes known what we alone know about ourselves - and often what we do not yet know of ourselves. Scripture plunges deep into the unseen places of the human spirit and judges the private matters of the heart. Only the razor-sharp Word of God can do this.
— Steven J. Lawson
Becoming a godly wife is not about following a bunch of rules... If I am feeling overwhelmed and overburdened, I am probably trying to do this in my power, apart from the Spirit's strength.
— April Cassidy, The Peaceful Wife
Shane lingered over a sickly sweet bit of doggerel comparing accepting Christ into one’s life with turning a pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern. “It sounds like God is seriously going to mutilate you.”Roselyn took the pamphlet from Shane, her eyes flickering over the text. “I always pictured it a bit more like a lobotomy than an evisceration.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Flies to Wanton Boys
I am able to separate the mythological aspects of my religion from the practical ones. Jesus, his sacrifice, the Gospels? Those are true to me. Angels, demons, burning bushes, Revelations? Primitive people trying to express the ineffable. I don’t need to be a biblical literalist to love my God.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Flies to Wanton Boys
Refusal to engage in spiritual warfare does not exempt you from being among the next casualties of war
— Steven Chuks Nwaokeke
The undermining of Christian faith, systematically pursued by Western cultural and political elites, does not lead to some sort of secular Utopia with its own “neutral” morality, but to the rise of religious beliefs other than Christianity, which will bring their own – often opposite - moral values. On the clean slate of atheism anything can be written, even sharia law.
— Giorgio Roversi, The Amorality of Atheism
If an unjust law is passed and enforced, then anyone coerced to comply with the law is a victim of injustice.
— R.C. Sproul, Abortion
If you are longing for something more than the hit-and-run relationship cycle, something beautiful and meaningful in your life, then I'm going to lay it on the line. You must let go of the captain's position in your life and trust Him. You must give up the little you're hanging on to now to gain something infinitely greater. You must let go of the helm and let Him lead.
— Eric Ludy, When God Writes Your Love Story: The Ultimate Approach to Guy/Girl Relationships
The supposed “secular” values atheists hold dear are in fact borrowed Christian values. Our society is respectful of any creed, or lack thereof, not because it embraces an illusory, non-existent secular morality, but because it is rooted in Christian faith. Christopher Dawson noted that “we cannot understand the inner form of a society unless we understand its religion.” Because moral values are always a religious product, and Western moral values are a product of Christianity. Our values, what we believe has a value beyond and above our self-interest, are grounded in religious faith or are not grounded at all.
— Giorgio Roversi, The Amorality of Atheism
God cares about our dietary choices. This should come as no surprise; you only have to read the first two chapters of Genesis to see God's concern for food. Humanity's first sin was disobedience manifested in a choice about eating. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat anything they wanted, except the one fruit they chose. And the New Testament makes clear that God cares about the most basic quotidian aspect of our lives. (Our God, after all, is the God who provides for the sparrows and numbers the hairs on our heads.) This God who is interested in how we speak, how we handle our money, how we carry our bodies - He is also interested in how we live with food.
— Lauren F. Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath
Atheism will appeal to psychology and sociology to explain human behavior, which is legitimate, but what explains human psychology? Atheism can only find explanatory power in evolution such that the mind is - paradoxically - a mindless organ that is forced to act according to its chemistry and cannot act otherwise.The fact that humans are capable of recognizing depravity in others, are offended by it, seek to reform it, feel guilt, and are capable of redemptive behavior all speak against this explanation.The fact that humans are capable of meta-cognition - thinking about thinking - and are therefore able to postulate their own mindlessness is counter-intuitive to say the least.
— Joel Furches, Christ-Centered Apologetics: Sharing the Gospel with Evidence
Once again, it is difficult to start from the premise of mindless evolution and end with the idea that humans are anything more than organisms bent on preserving and passing on their DNA. The fact that humans not only pursue art, philosophy, and science, but also exult in those things more than reproduction cannot easily be explained through materialism.
— Joel Furches, Christ-Centered Apologetics: Sharing the Gospel with Evidence
The point where you become free not to kill, not to exploit, not to destroy, not to compete, because you are no longer afraid of death or the devil or poverty or failure. If you discover this nakedness, you’d better keep it private. People don’t like it.
— Thomas Merton, Love and Living
No matter how much we try to keep things in order, life seems determined to scatter Legos under our bare feet.
— Sammy Rhodes
A good dad will fulfill his daughter's request—but only if it's the right gift, at the right time. Sometimes he may give the gracious gift of saying no. But always—always—he cares about his child's request.
— Stephanie Rische, I Was Blind (Dating), But Now I See: My Misadventures in Dating, Waiting, and Stumbling into Love
Everything God created is good, with the possible exception of cats.
— Michael Wittmer
If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is ever-lasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.
— C.S. Lewis
God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else--something it never entered your head to conceive--comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be Go without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side.
— C.S. Lewis
One of the ways I know I shouldn't be online is when I'm looking to get something that I already have in abundance as a child of God.
— Sammy Rhodes
Maybe that's the definition of true contentment: choosing to rest in who God is, regardless of the circumstances.
— Stephanie Rische, I Was Blind (Dating), But Now I See: My Misadventures in Dating, Waiting, and Stumbling into Love
God can turn stones into bread, and a sinner can turn bread into stones; the bread of life into the stone of stumbling.
— Thomas Watson, The Lord's Supper
Such as make the sacrament only a representation of Christ do aim short of the mystery, and come short of the comfort.
— Thomas Watson, The Lord's Supper
I read in your Word that the very best kind of pleasure is delighting in doing what you want. Your way is right and good and it brings life. You are pleased when I follow it, because you want the best for me.
— Amy E. Mason, 365 Pocket Prayers for Women: Guidance and Wisdom for Each New Day
Jews are obligated to fulfill the particularities of Mosaic law. They don't light Sabbath candles simply because candles make them feel close to God, but because God commanded the lighting of candles: Closeness might be a nice by-product, but it is not the point. Christians will understand candle-lighting a little differently. Spiritual practices don't justify us. They don't save us. Rather, they refine our Christianity; they make the inheritance Christ gives us on the Cross more fully our own... Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not make us Christians. Instead, the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians.
— Lauren F. Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath
A team is better 'cos your aptitude is multiplied in your members
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom: the tripartite force in the pursuit of Divine Access
Food is part of God's creating. A right relationship with food points us toward Him.... The table is not only a place where we can become present to God. The table is also a place where He becomes present to us.
— Lauren F. Winner
Any church that operates in prayerless and powerless Christianity spend their days and years conducting dust to dust rites in the burial grounds.
— Steven Chuks Nwaokeke
May I love Him whom to love is to live indeed.
— William of Saint-Thierry
God created places and things in the Old Testament to teach us about Jesus in the New Testament. These pictures are so simple, even a child can understand them. God graciously babbled at us so we can learn complex truths.
— Todd Friel, Jesus Unmasked: The Truth Will Shock You
-Waiting Time is time of preparation, planning pruning before time of manifestation (time of showing forth)
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Strategic Spiritual Warfare
We are the body of Christ. We are the continuing incarnation of the Divine. Look around and see Jesus. We who believe and trust and love each other are the manifestation of God in this place, at this time.
— Penelope J. Stokes, The Memory Book
The things that are essential to salvation are so exceedingly simple that no child need sit down in despair of understanding the things which make for his peace. Christ crucified is not a riddle for sages, but a plain truth for plain people. True it is meat for men, but it is also milk for babes.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Jesus Christ has already come to suffer in the hands of men and He shall least entertain anyone who will disturb Him in eternal eternity in the Kingdom of God! If you want to join Him, ponder!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
My feelings are important for many things. They are essential and valuable. They keep me aware of much that is true and real. But they tell me next to nothing about God or my relation to God. My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about Him or my neighbors.
— Eugene H. Peterson
Just a thought for all you God-fearin', gun-lovin', Bible-thumpin' 2nd Amendment patriots. If it turns out Heaven's a gun-free zone, what's plan B???
— Quentin R. Bufogle
Once a person learns to read the signs of love and thus to believe it, love leads him into the open field wherein he himself can love. If the prodigal son had not believed that the father's love was already waiting for him, he would not have been able to make the journey home - even if his father's love welcomes him in a way he never would have dreamed of. The decisive thing is that the sinner has heard of a love that could be, and really is, there for him; he is not the one who has to bring himself into line with God; God has always already seen in him, the loveless sinner, a beloved child and has looked upon him and conferred dignity upon him in the light of this love.
— Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible
The first thing the Cross does is cross out the world's word by a Wholly-Other Word, a Word that the world does not want to hear at any price. For the world wants to live and rise again before it dies, while the love of Christ wants to die in order to rise again in the form of God on the other side of death, indeed, IN death.
— Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible
Our faith is built in the dark, in the valleys, and during the back-breaking battles in life.
— Dana Arcuri, Reinventing You: Simple Steps to Transform Your Body, Mind, & Spirit
Above all the studies in the world, study your own hearts; waste not a minute more of your precious time about frivolous & unsubstantial controversies. My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you, to feed you with the heart strengthening bread of practical doctrine, and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths, feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts, than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination, or a dry syllogistical inference. Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands and know not how to employ it. Remember you are at the door of eternity, and have other work to do. Those hours you spend upon heart-work in your closets, are the golden spots of all your time and will have the sweetest influence up to your last hour.
— John Flavel
Satan’s chief device of temptation is to attack the truth of God.
— R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God
No wonder the summer solstice had been such a fun day in northern Europe before Christian missionaries arrived from the sunny south. If priests had not driven sex underground, what would the north have been like? Would art have flourished in the absence of sexual repression? What about artillery and fortification? The Reformation? The Thirty Years War? The French Revolution? The final perfection of murder as blood sport at Verdun and Dresden and in the Gulag?In short, where would we be without Jesus?
— Charles McCarry, Old Boys
The redeemed of God who are snatched from the flames by the hand of the Lord are still covered with ashes. We remain streaked with charcoal and blemished with soot. We are redeemed, but not sinless. Satan is quick to call attention to the dirt. He wants us to be more conscious of our sin than of God’s mercy.
— R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God
I've learned that sometimes during these lengthy times of waiting on God to show up, we can gain comfort by looking at the bigger picture because history proves that the bigger the suffering, the bigger the opportunity for God to really show off.
— Tracie Miles, Your Life Still Counts: How God Uses Your Past to Create a Beautiful Future
Sometimes, we just have to have enough faith to practice patience and not let our impatience morph into doubt.
— Tracie Miles, Your Life Still Counts: How God Uses Your Past to Create a Beautiful Future
Faith is active and action word.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Human nature is never satisfied.
— Becky Watson
Purity both of the body and the soul rests on the steadfastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an unwilling person.
— Augustine of Hippo, City of God
... The soul which is led by God and His wisdom, rather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never consent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by another's lust.
— Augustine of Hippo, City of God
Who is preaching the living word today?
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.
— God, The Bible
Don't diss being a wife and mother in favor of chasing after something that seems sexy and significant. Be open to what God has for you, and let him add the excitement.
— Lisa Anderson, The Dating Manifesto: A Drama-Free Plan for Pursuing Marriage with Purpose
Years ago a black man spoke about love and was crucified. Then Martin Luther King spoke about equality and was shot. Can you SEE why?
— Daniel Marques
Revere the Righteous One.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The Messiah was born in a manger in Bethlehem.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
A community is nothing else than a harmonious collection of individuals.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
The theater of God’s redemption is this world. It is to this world that God came in Christ. Christ refused to allow His disciples to hide in an upper room with the doors locked because of fear. No tabernacles were allowed on the Mount of Transfiguration. We are called to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jerusalem is in this world. Judea is in this world. Samaria is in this world. The ends of the earth are still on this earth. So we should not flee this world. But, oh, how many Christians try to do so. And in doing so, they may actually be displeasing the God who wants the world to be redeemed, not escaped.
— R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God
All these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the dead.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
The end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
The good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
...if He has a message to get across to us, He will continually reaffirm what He has said through a variety of ways.
— Tracie Miles, Your Life Still Counts: How God Uses Your Past to Create a Beautiful Future
To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
If Mohammed had been a false prophet. there is no reason why Christ should not have spoken of him as he spoke of Antichrist but if Mohammed is a true Prophet the passages referring to the Paraclete must inevitably concern him - not exclusively but eminently - for it is inconceivable that Christ, when speaking of the future, should have passed over in silence a manifestation of such magnitude. The same reasoning excludes a priori the possibility that Christ. when making his predictions, intended to include Mohammed under the general denomination of'' false prophets", for in the history of our era Mohammed is in no sense a typical example among others of the same kind, but on the contrary, a unique and incomparable apparition(1). If he had been one of the false prophets announced by Christ he would have been followed by others and there would exist in our day a multitude of false religions subsequent to Christ and comparable in importance and extension to Islam. The spirituality to be found within Islam from its origins up to our days is an incontestable fact. and "by their fruits ye shall know them." Moreover, it will be recalled that the Prophet in his doctrine has testified to the second coming of Christ without attributing to himself any glory. unless it be that of being the last Prophet of the cycle and history proves that he spoke the truth, no comparable manifestation having followed after him.
— Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions
In relation to Monotheism considered as such, Judaism stabilized but “confiscated” the Message; Christianity universalized but “altered” it; Islam in turn restored it by stabilizing and universalizing it.
— Frithjof Schuon
The work God carries out in us,' he said after a short pause, 'is not often what we expect. A great deal of the time the Holy Spirit seems to be working backward in us and wasting time. If a lump of iron could form an idea of the file that's slowly rough-shaping it, how furious it would be! Yet that's how God shapes us. Certain saints' lives seem horribly monotonous and desolate.
— Georges Bernanos, Under Satan's Sun
God might not be dead, but he's sure as hell missing in action.
— Quentin R. Bufogle
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.
— Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Some of the simplest of truths are also some of the most difficult of truths, but such is Christianity: 'If it's not about Christ, it's not about life.
— Criss Jami, Healology
There's no way to be a Christian at home by yourself.
— Sara Miles
A true prayer is an inventory of needs, a catalog of necessities, an exposure of secret wounds, a revelation of hidden poverty.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Bring thy lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt; look on Him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, “What have I done? What love, what mercy what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust’s sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great a salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation… I have despised them all and esteemed them as a thing of nought, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God’s fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?” Entertain thy conscience daily with this treaty. See if it can stand before this aggravation of its guilt. If this make it not sink in some measure and melt, I fear thy case is dangerous.
— John Owen
Christianity today is so subnormal that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian, he would be considered abnormal
— Leonard Ravenhill
The position occupied by Toporóff, involving as it did an incongruity of purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid of moral sensibility. Toporóff possessed both these negative qualities. The incongruity of the position he occupied was this: It was his duty to keep up and to defend, by external measures, not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be shaken by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution--the Holy Synod, managed by Toporóff and his officials. Toporóff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could not conquer.
— Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be truly yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
We live in a day of abounding vagueness and indistinctness on doctrinal subjects in religion. Now, if ever, it is the duty of all advocates of clear, well-defined, sharply-cut theology, to supply proof that their views are thoroughly borne out by Scripture.
— J.C. Ryle
Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of ever heresy. To be allowed to remove a few grains of ignorance, and to throw a few rays of light on God's precious word, is, in my opinion, the greatest honor that can be put on a Christian.
— J.C. Ryle
Thank God you have got a Father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when He is angry as when He smiles upon you.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Zeal, if it be well ordered, is most beautiful in a Christian; but if not, it is a thing of exceeding great danger: as fire in moderation is most comfortable, but in extremity most fearful.
— Nehemiah Rogers
Christ is to the souls of men what the sun is to the world. He is the center and source of all spiritual light, warmth, life, health, growth, beauty, and fertility. Like the sun, He shines for the common benefit of all mankind--for high and for low, for rich and for poor, for Jew and for Greek. Like the sun, He is free to all. All may look at Him, and drink health out of His light. If millions of mankind were mad enough to dwell in caves underground, or to bandage their eyes, their darkness would be their own fault, and not the fault of the sun. So, likewise, if millions of men and women love spiritual "darkness rather than light," the blame must be laid on their blind hearts, and not on Christ. "Their foolish hearts are darkened." (John 3:19; Romans 1:21.) But whether men will see or not, Christ is the true sun, and the light of the world. There is no light for sinners except in the Lord Jesus.
— J.C. Ryle
Learning to accept powerlessness has profound spiritual implications for your child. When we accept the reality of our human condition -- that we are ultimately powerless to change our fallen state, yet totally responsible for being in it -- we are driven to receive God's solution based on his Son's payment of a debt we can't pay.
— Henry Cloud
Her death...brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealousy of God. It saved her faith from assault.
— Sheldon Vanauken
I wanted to stand on the kind of holy ground that wasn't curated by church professionals, where a burning bush could blaze forth in defiance of safety regulations and outside of regular office hours.
— Sara Miles
Is it true, what Jesus believed, this Truth that he died for and lived for? Maybe the only way to know finally this side of falling off that precipice ourselves is to stop speaking and thinking and reading about it so much and to start watching and listening.
— Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets
Evolution,' proclaimed the Rev. Daniel Miner Gordon during his inaugural lecture at Presbyterian College in Halifax, 'with its concept of growth rather than mechanism, of life working from within rather than a power constructing from without, helps further illustrate the method of Him who is the life of all that lives.' Seen in this way, evolution gave evidence of God's existence and watchful Providence; it revealed that the Creator was omniscient and omnipresent. Christian evolution implied a God of immanence, a God who dwelled within and constantly guided the natural world. This contrasted sharply with the orthodox view of a transcendent God who ruled the world from afar and touched it only by the occasional intervention in nature or history - a miracle. It now seemed that God was within nature and history, and close to humankind. Moreover, God the harsh judge had been banished by scientific understanding. It was understood that God was an active benevolent spirit. Some of the mystery had been lifted. Evolution had cast new light upon nature, the destiny of humanity, and the ways of God. It seemed to have provided a more inspiring and certain Christian world-view. Ironically, the clergy could base their arguments regarding the existence and nature of God on science, the source of so much doubt regarding the truth of Christianity.
— David B. Marshall, Secularizing The Faith: Canadian Protestant Clergy And The Crisis Of Belief, 1850 1940
Whisper it softly, but many Greeks, including clergy, welcomed the Ottomans. On the whole Muslim rulers have been much more tolerant of infidels than their Christian counterparts have. As long as their subjects paid taxes and provided recruits to the harems and armies of the Sultan, they could have whatever religion they liked. Only when they joined religion with revolt did scimitars and stakes come out. Orthodox Christianity was under far greater threat from the Roman variety imposed by Venetians and Franks and Catalans. Jews too were safer from pogrom under the crescent than the cross. This is not a line of thought that goes down well in Greek company.
— John  Mole, It's All Greek to Me!: A Tale of a Mad Dog and an Englishman, Ruins, Retsina--and Real Greeks
The bible is history. Remember that it is not a book. It is a library. It contains many kinds of books, letters, songs, and histories, along with the poetry of mythology. We sometimes separate history from mythology, but the bible doesn't. Nor did C. S. Lewis when he wrote, Christianity is myth that is true.
— David C. Alves, We're the sons of God. . .So What?: Believe God About Who You Really Are!
Her mind circled Georgia, circled Ebenezer. It called up images and memories and things nearly home but never that final destination itself, as if it existed at the center of her mind, shining like a sun too radiant. She knew there was a face at the center of that radiance. A face too bright. A face she sought and longed for but could no longer bear the light of. She drifted into sleep, circling, circling, circling.
— A.S. Peterson, Fiddler's Green
In every sound convert the judgement is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.
— Joseph Alleine
Do you really think it's behaving like a Christian to be glad when you see death and ruin falling on your fellow men? Is that what Christ taught us?
— Costas Taktsis, The Third Wedding
For I am aware what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this shifting scene.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
Indeed, the only cause of their [Rome] perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish.
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
Some people think that going to church on Sunday and owning a dust-covered Bible makes a person a Christian. That is not true. A Christian is one in whom Christ dwells, and the person’s life will give evidence of this.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Christians are expected to carry the marks of the Lord Jesus, not adapt to the fashionable counterculture driven by marketing traps.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
If you are a true Christian . . .you will reveal through your daily life the fruit of the Spirit . . .and all the other Christian virtues which round out a Christlike personality.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
A born-again Christian should no more think of going back to the old life than an adult to his childhood.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Many Christians who profess Christ do not live as though they possess Him.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Within the New Testament, there is no indication that Christians should expect to be healthy, wealthy, and successful in this present age.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Many people ask about Christianity the same [way] they ask about everything else today: “What’s in it for me?” In our selfishness, we think of God as we think of everyone else. What can He contribute to us, personally?
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Just because a person claims to be a Christian does not necessarily mean that he is one.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
The Christian has a great obligation to be ethical and honest in all things, even sometimes at personal hazard. It is in the difficult situation that the qualities of a Christian are seen.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
The difference between the non-Christian and the Christian is that the non-Christian makes sin a practice
—  the true Christian does not.
A baby isn’t meant to stay a baby forever, and neither is a new Christian.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
The goal of a child’s life is maturity—and the goal of a Christian’s life is spiritual maturity.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Today our churches are filled, but how many are actually practicing Christianity in daily life?
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
My wife has said that a bitter, sour Christianis one of Satan’s greatest trophies—and she’s right.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Christians are becoming disengaged in following the Scripture that tells us not to conform to the world’s system.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Christians, saints of God, pray that the dew of heaven may fall on earth’s dry thirsty ground, and that righteousness may cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
I like the bumper sticker that reads, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” But that does not give us license to live below God’s standard.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
When confronted with the world’s problems, we Christians say automatically: “Christianity is the answer.” But this is not true! It is the application of Christianity that is the answer.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
We cannot inherit Christianity . . . God has no grandchildren.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
A contentious, belligerent Christian isn’t living according to the Spirit but according to the flesh. When we stubbornly insist on our own way and are insensitive to others, peace is not our goal.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
What makes Christians different from everyone else is that God Himself lives within them by His Holy Spirit. When we come to Christ and give our lives to Him, God actually takes up residence within us.
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes
Every Christian should become an ambassador of Christ . . .every Christian should be so intoxicated with Christ and so filled with holy fervor that nothing could ever quench his [passion] . . .Let us capture some of the magnificent obsession that [the] early Christians had!
— Billy Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes