St. Francis' Prayer - "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning
Francis Bacon - "Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."

Francis Bacon - "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." 

Francis Bacon - "All good moral philosophy is but the handmaid of religion."

Francis Bacon - "But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and the angels to be lookers on."

Francis Bacon - "He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other." 

Francis Bacon - "Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing." 

Francis Bacon - "There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power."

Francis Bacon - "There never was found, in any age of the world, either philosophy, or sect, or religion, or law, or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good of the community, and increase private and particular good as the holy Christian faith. Hence, it clearly appear that it was one and the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave the laws of nature to the creatures."

Francis Marion - "Who can doubt that God created us to be happy, and thereto made us to love one another? It is plainly written as Gospel. The heart is sometimes so embittered that nothing but Divine love can sweeten it, so enraged that devotion can only becalm it, and so broken down that it takes all the forces of heavenly hope to raise it. In short, the religion of Jesus Christ is the only sure and controlling power over sin."

Francis Schaeffer - "All men bear the image of God. They have value not because they are redeemed, but because they are God's creation in God's image."

Francis Schaeffer - "It is only as we consciously bring each victory to His feet, and keep it there as we think of it - and especially as we speak of it - that we can avoid the pride of that victory, which can be worse than the sin over which we claim to have had the victory."

Francis Schaeffer - "If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions."

Francis Schaeffer - "If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong."

Francis Scott Key - "The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find his Word in his greatest darkness, 'a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.' He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation..."

Franklin D. Roosevelt - "We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic... Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity."

Franklin Graham - "I believe when we are in the Lord's will and following Christ, we are His responsibility, and He will look after us. Until He has accomplished His purpose through us, nothing can touch us without His permission - we're 'bullet-proof', so to speak."

Franklin Pierce - "It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged  dependence upon God and his overruling providence."

Franz Joseph Haydn - "When I think of my God, my heart dances within me for joy, and then my music has to dance, too."

Fred Stoecker - "Praise is God's sunlight in the heart, it destroys sin germs. It ripens the fruits of the Spirit. It is the oil of gladness that lubricates life's activities. It keeps the heart pure and the eye clear. Praise is essential to the knowledge of God and His will. The strength of a life is the strength of it's song. Pressure is permitted to strengthen the attitude and spirit of praise. It takes a man to sing in the dark when the storm and battle are raging, and it is such singing that makes the man."

Fred Thomas - "Beauty is often birthed in struggle."

Frederick Buechner - "It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle."

Frederick Buechner - "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredome and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladneess: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

Frederick Buechner - "Much as we wish, not one of us can bring back yesterday or shape tomorrow. Only today is ours, and it will not be ours for long, and once it is gone it will never in all time be ours again. Thou only knowest what it holds in store for us, yet even we know something of what it will hold. The chance to speak the truth, to show mercy, to ease another's burden. The chance to resist evil, to remember all the good times and good people of our past, to be brave, to be strong, to be glad."

Frederick Buechner - "Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... Remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God's busineess... Even your own life is not your business. It also is God's Business. Leave it to God."

Frederick Buechner - "To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything God doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the Golden Gate Bridge."

Frederick Buechner - "The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."

Frederick Buechner - "The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich... The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world."

Frederick Buechner - "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Frederick Buechner - "What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly are and fully are... because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier... for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own."

Fredrich Nietzche - "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how."

Fyodor Dostoevsky - "Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is a mysterious thing. There God and the Devil strive for mastery, and the battleground is the heart of men."

Fyodor Dostoevsky - "If there is no God, then everything is permissible."

Fyodor Dostoevsky - "If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once." 

Galileo Galilei - "I am inclined to think that the authority of Holy Scripture is intended to convince men of those truths which are necessary for their salvation, which, being far above man's understanding, can not be made credible by any learning, or any other means than revelation by the Holy Spirit."

George Bancroft - "Puritanism had exalted the laity... For him the wonderful counsels of the Almighty had appointed a Saviour; for him the laws of nature had been compelled and consulted, the heavens had opened, the earth had quaked, the Sun had veiled his face, and Christ had died and risen again."

George Bernard Shaw - "This is the true joy of life; the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature, instead of a feverish selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

George Hanson - "The simple faith of the Christian who believes in the Resurrection is nothing compared to the credulity of the sceptic who will accept the wildest and most improbable romances rather than admit the plain witness of historical certainties. The difficulties of belief may be great; the absurdities of unbelief are greater."

George MacDonald - "Where did you come from, Baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry spikes left in.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than anyone knows.

Whence that three-corner'd smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.

Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
From the same box as the cherub's wings.

How did they all come just to be you?
God thought of me, and so I grew.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought of you, and so I am here."

George Santayana - "Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace."

George Santayana - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Washington - "... happily the Government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."

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

George Washington - "of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable support."

George Washington - "The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this (the course of the war) that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations; but it will be time enough for me to turn Preacher when my present appointment ceases"

George Washington - "We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself have ordained."

George Washington - "While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian. The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good."

George Washington Carver - "Years ago I went into my laboratory and said, "Dear Mr. Creator, please tell me what the universe was made for?" The Great Creator answered, "You want to know too much for that little mind of yours. Ask for something more your size, little man." Then I asked. "Please Mr. Creator, tell me what man was made for?" Again the Great Creator replied, "You are still asking too much. Cut down on the extent and improve your intent." So then I asked, "Please, Mr. Creator, will you tell me why the peanut was made?" "That's better, but even then it's infinite. What do you want to know about the peanut?" "Mr. Creator, can I make milk out of the peanut?" "What kind of milk do you want? Good Jersey milk or just plain boarding house milk?" "Good Jersey milk." And then the Great Creator taught me to take the peanut apart and put it together again. And out of the process have come forth all these products!"

George Whitefield - "As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing, than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers; so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world, is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskillful guides."

George Whitefield - "Come away, my dear brethren, fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ; fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your heart; beg of God to convince you of your actual sins; beg of God to convince you of your original sin; beg of God to convince you of your self-righteousness; beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ."

George Whitefield - "If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation; how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose lives have been one continual rebellion against God?"

George Whitefield - "Know, by sad experience, what it is to be lulled to sleep with a false peace. Long was I lulled asleep; long did I think myself a Christian, when I knew nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Gerard Rudolph Ford - "Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first - the most basic - expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be."

Gigi Graham Tchividjian - "A fish is free as long as it stays in the water. If it suddenly declares that it wants its freedom to fly in the air like a bird, disaster occurs. A train is free as long as it stays on the track. However, if it demands freedom to take off down a major highway, the result is destruction and devastation. We too can only experience true freedom in its fullest if we remain within the framework of freedom. Often this requires accepting responsibility and practicing discipline."

Gigi Graham Tchividjian - "Whether your gift is mighty or humble, whether you exercise it in the marketplace or at the podium, in the executive suite or in the schoolroom, in the office or at home, your main task or gift or ministry is to be a light in a dark world."

G. K. Chesterton - "All denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern [skeptic] doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and the writes another book... in which he insults it himself... As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie... The man of this school goes first to a political meeting where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is forever engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything."

G. K. Chesterton - Courage is almost a contradictory term. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall take it.' is not a piece of mysticism

G. K. Chesterton - "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

G. K. Chesterton - "I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that ,while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."

G. K. Chesterton - "Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness come from being weary of pleasure."

G. K. Chesterton - "Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth is to shut it again on something solid."

G. K. Chesterton - "People havae fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There was never anything so perilous or exciting...It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad."

G. K. Chesterton - "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

G. K. Chesterton - "The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of without losing them."

G. K. Chesterton - "The triangle of truism, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it."

G. K. Chesterton - "When people stop believing in the truth, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything."

Gordon Dalbey - "As they prayed, [the pastor] on impulse invited the man to recall the dream, even in all its fear. Hesitantly, the man agreed , and soon reported that indeed, the lion was in sight and headed his way. [The Pastor] then instructed the man, 'When the lion comes close to you, try not to run away, but instead, stand there and ask him who or what he is, and what he is doing in your life...can you try that?' Shifting uneasily in his chair, the man agreed, then reported what was happening. 'The lion is snorting and shaking his head, standing right there in front of me... I ask him who he is... and - Oh! I can't believe what he's saying! He says, 'I'm your courage and your strength. Why are you running away from me?''"

Gouverneur Morris - "Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "Foundations to be reliable must always be unshakable."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "God's slavation is not a purchase to be made, nor wages to be earned, nor a summit to be climbed, nor a task to be accomplished; but it is simply and only a gift to be accepted, and can only be accepted by faith."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "If our hearts are full of our own wretched "I ams" we will have no ears to hear His glorious, soul-satisfying "I Am."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "Our lives are full of supposes. Suppose this should happen or suppose that should happen; but what could we do and how would we bear it? But, if we are living in the "high tower" of the dwelling place of God, all these supposes will drop out of our lives."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "Put together all the tenderest love you know of, multiply it by infinity, and you will begin to see glimpses of the love and grace of God."

Hannah Whitall Smith - "The Bible is a statement, not of theories, but of actual facts... things are not true because they are in the Bible, but they are only in the Bible because they are true."

Harry S. Truman - "We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God... With God's help the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace."

Harvey Mackay - "A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves."

Henri Nouwen - "Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved'"

Henry Blackaby - "Regardless of what we say, it's what we do that reveals what we as a church or individual actually believe about God and His will for us."

Henry Blackaby - "Watch to see where God is working and join Him!"

Henry Blackaby - "When we hear His call and respond accordingly, there will be no limit to what God can and will do through His people. But if we do not even recognize when He is speaking, we are in trouble at the very heart of our relationship to Him."

Henry Drummond - "All fruits grow - whether they grow in the soil or in the soul; whether they are fruits of the wild grape or the True Vine. No man can make things grow. He can get them to grow by arranging all the circumstances and fulfilling all the conditions. But the growing is done by God."

Henry Drummond - "Banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is subtraction. It does not tell us to give things up, but rather gives us something so much better that they give themselves up."

Henry Drummond - "Be in the company of good books, beautiful pictures, and charming, delightful, and inspiring music; and let all that one hears, sees, reads, and thinks lift and inspire higher."

Henry Drummond - "He is training us to a kind of faithfulness whose high quality is unattained by any other earthly means."

Henry Drummond - "He told us - and it is only because we are so accustomed to it that we do not wonder more at the magnificence of the conception - that when our place in this world should know us no more there would be another place ready for us."

Henry Drummond - "It is your business to restore the integrity and the righteousness in the high places of this land, and let the people see examples which will be helpful to them in their Christian life."

Henry Drummond - "It matters little whether we go to foreign lands or stay at home, as long as we are sure that we are where God puts us."

Henry Drummond - "Let a man remember that the great thing is not to think about religion, but to do it."

Henry Drummond - "One has to do a great deal more than display his Christianity. He must not only talk it, but live it."

Henry Drummond - "So Godlike a gift is intellect, so wondrous a thing is consciousness, that to link them with the animal world seems to trifle with the profoundest distinction in the Universe."

Henry Drummond - "When a man is wrapped up in himself, seeking only his own, he finds he is seeking a very shallow object, and very soon gets to the end of it; hence all the springs of life have nothing to act upon, and depression follows."

Henry Ford - "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right."

Henry Ward Beecher - "A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school to Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better."

Henry Ward Beecher - "Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'"

Henry Ward Beecher - "'I can forgive but I cannot forget' is only another way of saying 'I cannot forgive.'"

Henry Ward Beecher - "If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere."

Henry Ward Beecher - "Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and still man's obligation to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be gone; the same voyage to make, but his chart and compass would be overboard."

Henry Ward Beecher - "There is not much practical Christianity in the man who lives on better terms with angels and seraphs, than with his own children, servants, and neighbors."

House Committee on the Judiciary report by Mr. Meacham in 1854 - "What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed, defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances, which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications, to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the non-conformist. There never was an established religion without all these... Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people. Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. Any attempt to level and discard  all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. The object was not to substitute Judaism or Mohammedanism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among the sects to the exclusion of others. It must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment, - without a firm belief that there is a power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions."

Howard Hendricks - "Children are not looking for perfect parents, but they are looking for honest parents."

Howard Hendricks - "Has it ever occurred to you that love is the greatest positive force in existence?"

Howard Hendricks - "Show me a man's closest companions and I can make a fairly accurate guess as to what sort of man he is, as well as what sort of man he is likely to become."

Howard Hendricks - "The home marks a child for life."

Howard Hendricks - "The genius of the Word of God is that it has staying power; it can stand up to repeated exposure. In fact, that's why it is unlike any other book. You may be an expert in a given field. If you read a book in that field two or three times you've got it. But that's never true of the Bible. Read it over and over again, and you'll see things that you've never seen before."

Hugh Huwitt - "Jonathan Swift wrote that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. It is also better to repeat yourself and be thought a scold than to speak only once and never be heard."

Hupert Yockey - "We are not dealing with anything like a superficial resemblance between DNA and a written text. We are not saying DNA is like a message. Rather, DNA is a message. True design thus returns to biology."

Bishop of Ignatius of Antioch - (Upon hearing he was to be killed by being thrown to the lions) - "I am the wheat of Christ: I am going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread."

Bishop Ignatius of Antioch - "Jesus Christ who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and those under the earth; who moreover was truly raised from the dead, His Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe on Him."

Bishop Ignatius of Antioch - "Now I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing, of visible or invisible things, so that I may but win Christ. Let fire and the cross, let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, only may I win Christ Jesus!"

Immanuel Kant - "In the life and the Divine doctrine of Christ which are recorded in the Gospel, example and precept conspire to call men to the regular discharge of every moral duty for its own sake, and to the universal practice of pure virtue. "He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." The Sermon on the Mount, in particular, which Jesus obviously had the intention of introducing among the Jews, that we can not avoid considering it the Word of God. Beyond doubt, Christ is the Founder of the first true Church; that is, that Church which, purified from the folly of superstition and the meanness of fanaticism, exhibits the moral kingdom of God upon the earth as far as can be done for man."

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

James Abram Garfield - "Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation.. it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."

J. I. Packer - "But man's eyes are blind through sin, and he can discern no part of God's truth till the Spirit opens them. Inner illumination, leading directly as it does to a deep, inescapable conviction, is thus fundamental to the Spirit's work as a teacher."

J. I. Packer - "But that is not because these principles are traditional; it is because they are biblical. There is certainly an arrogant, hide-bound type of traditionalism, unthinking and uncritical, which is carnal and devilish. But there is also a respectful willingness to take help from the Church's past in order to understand the Bible in the present; and such traditionalism is spiritual and Christian."

J. I. Packer - "But to read all Scripture narratives as if they were eye-witness reports in a modern newspaper, and to ignore the poetic and imaginative form in which they are sometimes couched, would be no less a violation of the canons of evangelical literalism than the allegorizing of the Scholastics was."

J. I. Packer - "Fanciful spiritualizing, so far from yielding God's meaning, actually obscured it. The literal sense is itself the spiritual sense, coming from God and leading to Him."

J. I. Packer - "For dishonest thinking, however well-intentioned, can only discredit the cause it serves, and must in the long run boomerang disastrously on those who indulge in it."

J. I. Packer - "God's Word is not presented in Scripture in the form of a theological system, but it admits of being stated in that form, and, indeed, requires to be so stated before we can properly grasp it - grasp it, that is, as a whole. Every text has its immediate context in the passage from which it comes, its broader context in the book to which it belongs, and its ultimate context in the Bible as a whole; and it needs to be rightly related to each of these contexts if its character, scope and significance is to be adequately understood."

J. I. Packer - "God then does not profess to answer in Scripture all the questions that we, in our boundless curiosity, would like to ask about Scripture. He tells us merely as much as He sees we need to know as a basis for our life of faith."

J. I. Packer - "Infallible denotes the quality of never deceiving or misleading and so means wholly trustworthy and reliable; inerrant means wholly true. Scripture is termed infallible and inerrant to express the conviction that all its teaching is the utterance of God who cannot lie, whose word, once spoken, abides for ever, and that therefore it may be trusted implicitly."

J. I. Packer - "It is Deism which depicts God as the passive onlooker rather than the active governor of His world, and which assures us that the guarantee of human freedom lies in the fact that men's actions are not under God's control. But the Bible teaches rather that the freedom of God, who works in and through His creatures, leading them to act according to their nature, is itself the foundation and guarantee of the freedom of their action."

J. I. Packer - "It is not his business to argue men into faith, for that cannot be done; but it is his business to demonstrate the intellectual adequacy of the biblical faith and the comparative inadequacy of its rivals, and to show the invalidity of the criticisms that are brought against it. This he seeks to do, not from any motive of intellectual self-justification, but for the glory of God and His gospel."

J. I. Packer - "Moreover, the whole purpose of God's mighty acts is to bring man to know Him by faith; and Scripture knows no foundation for faith but the spoken word of God, inviting our trust in Him on the basis of what He has done for us."

J. I. Packer - "The biblical authors wrote of God's sovereignty over His world, and of man's experiences within that world, using such modes of speech about the natural order and human experience as were current in their days, and in a language that was common to themselves and their contemporaries. This is saying no more than that they wrote to be understood. Their picture of the world and things in it is not put forward as normative for later science, andy more than their use of Hebrew and Greek is put forward as a perfect model for composition in these languages."

J. I. Packer - "The Church, therefore, has two constant needs; instruction in the truths by which it must live, and correction of the shortcomings by which its life is marred."

J. I. Packer - "The Evangelical is not afraid of facts, for he knows that all facts are God's facts; nor is he afraid of thinking, for he knows that all truth is God's truth, and right reason cannot endanger sound faith."

J. I. Packer - "The gospel does in truth proclaim the redemption of reason. Obscurantism is always evil, and wilful error is always sin., All truth is God's truth; facts, as such, are sacred, and nothing is more un-Christian than to run away from them."

J. I. Packer - "The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study."

J. I. Packer - "The very quality of books to read and facts to master with which the twentieth-century man is confronted encourages him to think broadly and superficially about much, but hinders him from thinking deeply and thoroughly about anything."

J. I. Packer - "The words and lives of Christian men must be in continual process of reformation by the written Word of their God. This means that ecclesiastical traditions and private theological speculations may never be identified with the word which God speaks, but are to be classed among the words of men which the Word of God must reform."

James Madison - "Because the policy of the bill (Establishment of Religion by Law) is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who ought to enjoy this precious gift, ought to be, that it may by imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it, with the number still remaining under the dominions of false religions, and how small is the former! Does the policy of the bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of Truth, from coming into the regions of it. Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered."

James Madison - "Religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless under color of religion any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other."

Jared Williams - "A memory is worth a thousand tears. Tears of joy or tears of sorrow; that is up to you."

Jared Williams - "Although it would be great to live in a world with no hate, pain or evil, I would not trade it out for the world if it meant loosing the love, joy, and beauty of this world."

Jared Williams - "An education is only as good as how you use it."

Jared Williams - "Don't miss today on account of yesterday's sorrows."

Jared Williams - "Eternity is not a number. Eternity likewise cannot be a measurement of time. Therefore, to save sanity, time must have a beginning. For if time is eternal, time ceases to exist."

Jared Williams - "Failure is not the act of falling down, but giving up. The disaster is not when you fall, but when you fail to get up."Jared Williams - "Faith is a relationship, not a roadmap. Let God lead you. Trouble will come, Let God lead you through it. It may be a torrid storm, but after comes a rainbow and the bounty of the harvest."

Jared Williams - "Hope and Love can triumph over despair, but it is the object of that hope, and the person of that love that makes all the difference in the world."

Jared Williams - "I say there is hope not because hope is the only thing that can keep me going but I say there is hope because it is true. I do not say it is true on some blind faith clinging to some purpose I have failed to obtain but because it has been promised by a reliable source outside of myself."

Jared Williams - "It's because the Bible is God's word that we cannot shy away from the hard questions. I go ahead and ask the hard questions because perseverance may bring answers. Answers may bring understanding and understanding opens windows into the heart of God."

Jared Williams - "Just like priorities, faith is set by the mind, but it is realized through your actions."

Jared Williams - "Knowledge is useless unless you have the wisdom to know how to use it, the understanding to know where to use it and the discernment to know when to use it."

Jared Williams - "Only one thing is more burdensome than the tears of a child, only one thing more heart-wrenching - that is the tears of the mother."

Jared Williams - "Our love is not true without obedience, but our obedience is pointless without love."

Jared Williams - "Reflection in the still waters brings direction in the storms, but it is only in the maelstrom that the truth is tested."

Jared Williams - "Experiences from the senses without logic to balance it is highly deceiving, but logic without  the use of the senses is a mind caught in a fantasy."

Jared Williams - "Pain and strength are two sides of the same coin. You cannot go very far in one without finding the other."

Jared Williams - "People often say you should make sure to follow your passions: but rather you should make sure your passions follow you."

Jared Williams - "Tears in the eyes of a child brings tears to the heart of the Father, but the laughter in the heart of a child brings tears to the eyes of the Father."

Jared Williams - "The difference between being single in the world and being a Christian single: in the world, they search for someone to fill the void in their heart, in Christianity they search for someone to share the overflow of their heart."

Jared Williams - "The eternal perspective pales all deference and fear."

Jared Williams - "The greatest evidence against Christianity is Christians. Much of the time it is the Christians who destroy and distort the Truth of the Bible by the actions and words of their witness. Thank goodness Christianity is not founded upon it's followers, but upon what the Bible says about the Savior and who He is." 

Jared Williams - "The laughter of a child is like a drop of rain in a barren land, as to a breath of light amongst this despotic world."

Jared Williams - The wonder of being created for community is that being servant-ly is kingly."

Jared Williams - "Think where you live, otherwise you will constantly dance upon the lines of insanity."

Jared Williams - "To forget where you came from is to forget who you are. Who you will be, well now that is up to you."

Jared Williams - "To ignore the future is to walk into a brick wall, but to ignore the past is like walking into the brick wall... again"

Jared Williams - "True honor is humility. To nobly give out of strength even when it does not benefit you. Charity is not giving in expectation of receiving but receiving contentment in giving of your complete accord."

Jared Williams - "When Agape love is on top, all others fall in line. It matters not recognition or what others do for you, you are called to love unconditionally, continuously giving of yourself. Focus on Agape, and all else will fall in line. Focus on Agape, and nothing else will matter."

Jared Williams - "When denominations Capitalize on the small stuff, they misspell the name of Jesus. They spell it jesUS. When you call yourself a Christian, whether or not you want to be, you become ambassadors of Christ. People around you see you as a Christian and they will measure you up as such and by you will judge Christianity. So when all the Churches speak of this great jesUS, all they see is a typo... jest us. They see that it's just us. And that is a travesty."

Jaroslav Pelikan - "Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of supermagnet, to pull out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray."

Jay Strack - "Jesus loves you just as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way."

Jean Jacques Rousseau - "Everything is good when it leaves the hands of the Creator; everything degenerates in the hands of man."

Jedidiah Morse - "Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

Jeff Myers - Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is action in spite of fear. Courageous people never really overcome their fears. They just become determined to push through them and to use that adrenaline to their advantage." 

Jeff Myers - "When the people of a nation stop communicating, they lose the common purpose that made them great. Their cities become ghost towns. People live aimlessly because they have no cause for which they are willing to die. The cry of the populace is 'Just leave me alone'. Perhaps the ultimate hell is that the wish will be granted. It is not unlikely that our own nation will collapse not through an explosive roar, but through a deafening silence. This silence must be broken in our generation. We may never get another chance."

Jennifer Roback Morse - "And the health risks associated with these hormonal contraceptives are so well known that the World Health Organization has classified them as a "Class One carcinogen": that is, a substance known to cause cancer in humans. But we continue to prescribe powerful and dangerous hormones to perfectly healthy young women. Many doctors stopped prescribing hormone replacement therapy to post-menopausal women, because it increases the risk of strokes and heart attacks. But doctors seemingly have no qualms about prescribing very similar hormones to younger women for contraception. The women whose health has been compromised or damaged by hormonal contraception are victims of the Suxual Revolution."

Jennifer Roback Morse - "At the center of the universe, is a deep abiding love. We are called to be part of it. We Catholics and Christians are not ashamed to believe this. We invite everyone to accept the challenge to live as if we were all loved into existence."

Jennifer Roback Morse - "The modern world is living out the Revolutionary view of sexuality and of the cosmos. We act as if we believe that we are alone in a meaningless and indifferent universe, as if we ourselves have no intrinsic value, that our sexual acts have no meaning apart from the meaning we assign them, that our sexual acts are simply the actions of mindless particles bumping into each other from no particular cause at all, and with no particular purpose in mind. In other words, the hook-0up culture is a metaphor for our beliefs about the cosmos. And the rich and powerful people of our country are enforcing this view of the cosmos and of sexuality upon us all, whether we like it or not."

Jennifer Roback Morse - "The Sexual Revolution offered us women this deal: you can particiapate in higher education and the labor market, as long as you agree to chemically neuter yourselves during your twenties, and endure expensive, humiliating, and possibly dangerous infertility treatment during your thirties and forties."

Jennifer Roback Morse - "Yet the women's misery is socually invisible. Despite our education and accomplishments, we are expected to keep our mouths shut and accept our infertility treatments as consolation prize. Our jobs are supposed to be our highest priority. We are expected to overlook the connection between our disappointment, the impossible ideology of equality, and the contraception that makes that ideology appear to be possible."

Jim Elliot - "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Jim Rohn - "Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become."

Joe Clark - “Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.”

Joe Wright - a prayer before the Kansas state legislature in 1996 - "Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word in the name of pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it "multiculturalism". We have endorsed perversion and called it an "alternative lifestyle". We have exploited the poor and called it "a lottery". We have neglected the needy and called it "self-preservation." We have rewarded laziness and called it "welfare" in the name of "choice" we have killed the unborn. In the name of "right to life", we have killed abortionists....Search us, O God, and know our hearts today. Try us, and show us any wicked way in us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free..."

Johann Kepler - "O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee! Nothing holds me! I will indulge in my sacred fury, I will triumph over mankind by the proud confession that I have stolen the golden vases to build up a tabernacle for my God, far away from the confines of Egypt. If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you be angry, I can bear it. The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

Johannes Kepler - "I was merely thinking God's thoughts after him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."

Johann Sebastian Bach - "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in ever greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires; beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the gospels, it will not go."

Lord John Acton - "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Lord John Acton - "That great political idea, sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of others as their own and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years."

John Adams - "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

John Adams - “Have you ever found in history, one single example of a nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue?... And without virtue, there can be no political liberty... will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effiminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?” John Adams - "Statesmen, my dear sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty."

John Adams - "Statesmen, my dear sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty."

John Adams - "The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy, that ever was conceived upon earth. It is the most republican book in the world."

John Adams - "The general principles, upon which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite... and what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence. Now I will avow,k that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System."

John Adams - "... we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams - "We see every day that our imaginations are so strong and our reason so weak, the charms of wealth and power are so enchanting, and the belief of future punishments so faint that men find ways to persuade themselves to believe any absurdity, to submit to any prostitution, rather than forgo their wishes and desires. Their reason becomes at last an eloquent advocate on the side of their passions, and bring themselves to believe that black is white, that vice is virtue, that folly is wisdom and eternity a moment..."

John Adams - "Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell."

John Adams - "Without virtue, people may change governments, but in so doing they only trade one tyranny for another."

John Calvin - "But as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God."

John Calvin - "Every person, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find Him."

John Calvin - "Satan, who is a wonderful contriver of delusions, is constantly laying snares to entrap ignorant and heedless people."

John Calvin - "Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself."

John Calvin - "The flesh is willing to flatter itself, and many who now give themselves every indulgence, promise to themselves an easy entrance into life. THus men practice mutual deception on each other and fall asleep in wicked indifference."

John Calvin - "We cannot rely on God's promises without obeying his commandments."

John Climacus - "I would not consider my spirituality worthwhile that wants to walk in sweetness and ease and run from the imitation of Christ."

John Coleman - "Our crops and our forests are thriving because of increased carbon dioxide. But when the fossil fuels burn to power cars or plants, they emit carbon dioxide, and that's supposedly a very bad thing according to the global-warming crowd."

John Eldridge - "If a man has lost this desire, says he doesn't want it, that's only because he doesn't know he has what it takes, believes he will fail the test. And so he decides it's better not to try. For reasons I hope to make clear later, most men hate the unknown, and, like Cain, want to settle down and build their own city, get on top of their life. But you can't escape it - there is something wild in the heart of every man."

John Flavel - "As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet."

John Flavel - "Christ comes with kingly power, to rescue sinners, as a prey from the mouth of the terrible one."

John Flavel -"Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ; the nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyhment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes."

John Flavel - "He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ."

John Flavel - "He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him."

John Flavel - "My soul is of more value than ten thousand worlds."

John Flavel - "The soul of man, like the bird in the shell, is still growing or ripening in sin or grace, till at last the shell breaks by death, and the soul flies away to the piece it is prepared for, and where it must abide forever."

John Flavel - "The soul of the poorest child is of equal dignity with the soul of Adam."

John Flavel - "We are not distinguished from brutes by our senses, but by our understanding."

John Gresham Machen - "According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to the liberal church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of man."

John Gresham Machen - "And God grant that His fire be not quenched! God save us from any smoothing over of these questions in the interests of a hollow pleasantness; God grant that great questions of principle may never rest until they are stettled right! It is out of such times of questioning that great revivals come. God grant that it may be so today! Controversy of the right sort is good; for out of such controversy, as Church history and Scripture alike teach, there comes the salvation of souls."

John Gresham Machen - "If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain."

John Gresham Machen - "Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith."

John Gresham Machen - "Let us not fear the opposition of men; every great movement in the Church from Paul down to modern times has been criticized on the ground that it promoted scensoriousness and intolerance and disputing. Of course the gospel of Christ, in a world of sin and doubt will cause disputing; and if does not cause disputing and arrouse bitter opposition, that is a fairly sure sign that it is not being faithfully proclaimed."

John Gresham Machen - "Light may seem at times to be an impertinent intruder, but it is always beneficial in the end."

John Gresham Machen - "The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life."

John Hancock - "I have the most animating confidence that the present noble struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously for America. And let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God; whilst we are using the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteousness and hateth iniquity. And having secured the approbation of our hearts by a faithful and unwearied discharge of our duty to our country, let us joyfully leave our concern in the hands of Him who raiseth up and pulleth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as He pleases; and with cheerful submission to His Sovereign will, devoutly say, 'Although the fig tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield not mean, the flocks shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will joy in the God of our salvation.'"

John Locke - "Our Saviour's resurrection... is truly of great importance in Christianity; so great that His being or not being the Messiah stands or falls with it: so that these two important articles are inseparable and in effect make one. For since that time, believe one and you believe both; deny one of them, and you can believe neither."

John MacArthur - "Truth without love has no decency; it's just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it's just hypocrisy...Know the the truth and uphold it in love."

John Milton Hay - Sinai and Calvary  "But Calvary stands to ransom/ The earth from utter loss;/ In shade than light more glorious/ The shadow of the Cross/ To heal a sick world's trouble,/ To soothe its woe and pain,/ On Calvary's sacred summit/ The Pascal Lamb was slain./ Almighty God! direct us/ To keep Thy perfect Law!/ O blessed Saviour, help us/ Nearer to Thee to draw!/ Let Sinai's thunder aid us/ To guard our feet from sin,/ And Calvary's light inspire us/ The love of God to win."

John Montgomery - "...the New Testament documents can be relied upon to give an accurate portrait of Him [Jesus]. And he [the historian] knows that this portrait cannot be rationalized away by wishful thinking, philosophical presuppositionalism, or literary maneuvering."
John Piper - "Apathy is passionless living. It is sitting in front of the television night after night and living your life from one moment of entertainment to the next. It is the inability to be shocked into action by the steady-state lostness and suffering of the world. It is the emptiness that comes from thinking of godliness as the avoidance of doing."

 John Ortberg - "Acceptance is an act of the heart. To accept someone is to affirm to them that you think it's a very good thing they are alive."

John Ortberg - "At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Jesus said the essence of the spiritual life is to love God and to love people. Pride destroys our capacity to love."

John Ortberg - "Our beliefs are not just estimates of probabilities. They are also the instruments that guide our actions."

John Ortberg - "Never try to have more faith - just get to know God better. And because God is faithful, the better you know Him, the more you'll trust Him."

John Ortberg - "There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they're useful to you and being someone's friend."

John Piper - "A real Christian is a  walking miracle. Supernatural power has entered his life. His arrogance has been shattered. His paralyzing or swagger-producing fear of failure has been replaced with the promises of God. He is forgiven, accepted, loved by God Almighty. He is secure enough in who he is not to be destroyed when, for Christ's sake, he is shamed. 'They left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name (Acts 5:41). If he is knocked down in the quest for justice, he will get up - not with a swagger but with humble Christ-exalting courage to bear all things for the sake of Jesus' name."

John Piper - "Behold the image of God in man, and bridle your tongue by the mercy of God. Make the mule of your tongue serve the mercy of your heart."

John Piper - "God  says not a critical word against Moses for marrying a black Cushite woman. But when Miriam criticizes God's chosen leader for this marriage, God strikes her skin with white leperosy. If you ever thought black was a biblical symbol for uncleanness, be careful how you use such an idea; a white uncleanness could come upon you."

John Piper - "If you wait till you are beyond criticism to pursue your dream, you will never do it... Few things paralyze good people more than their own imperfections."

John Piper - "James gets in the face of left-leaning Democrats, and James gets in the face of right-leaning Republicans. To the one, he says: "Care about private morality - chastity, honesty, fidelity, modesty, purity." To the other, he says: "care about social justice and works of compassion.""

John Piper - "To be a Christian is to move toward need, not comfort."

John Piper - "The gospel is not a heavenly demand of what we must do to be saved; it is a heavenly declaration of what God has done to save us."

John Piper - "This is how Paul responds to the question: Shall we sin that grace may abound? The self that loves sin has died. The new self is not yet perfect. It sins. But it does not make peace with sin. It hates sin. It confesses sin and makes war on sin."

John Piper - "Will it be harder... Maybe. Maybe not. But since when is that the way a Christian thinks? Life is hard. And the more you love, the more painful it gets. It's hard to take a child to the mission field. The risks are huge. It's hard to take a child and move into a mixed neighborhood where he may be teased or ridiculed. It's hard to help a child be a Christian in a secular world where his beliefs are mocked. It's hard to bring children up with standards: "You will not dress like that, and you will not be out that late." It's hard to raise children when Dad or Mom dies or divorces . And that's a real risk in any marriage. Whoever said that marrying and having children was supposed to be trouble-free? It's one of the hardest things in the world. It just happens to be right and rewarding. Christians are people who move toward need and truth and justice, not toward comfort and security. Life is hard. But God is good. And Christ is strong to help."
John Wesley - Rule  "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."

John Stott - "A deaf church is a dead church: that is an unalterable principle."

John Stott - "Do not be content with a static Christian life. Determine rather to grow in faith and love, in knowledge and holiness."

John Stott - "Envy is the reverse side of a coin called vanity. Nobody is ever envious of others who is not first proud of himself."

John Stott - "When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship - our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions and recreations."

John White - "You can't follow Christ if you stand still."

John Quincy Adams - "Duty is ours; results are God's"

John Wingate Thorton - "The highest glory of the American Revolution, said John Quincy Adams, was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

Jonathan Edwards - "A cup of cold water given to a disciple in sincere love, is worth more in God's sight, than all one's goods given to feed the poor, yea, than the wealth of a kingdom given away, or a body offered up in flames without love."

Jonathan Edwards - "As gold that is tried in the fire, is purged from its alloy, and all remainders of dross, and comes forth more solid and beautiful; so true faith being tried as gold is tried in the fire, becomes more precious and thus also is 'found unto praise, and honor, and glory'."

Jonathan Edwards - "Eternity depends upon the proper use of time."

Jonathan Edwards - "Everything in the gospel is ordered by God to extend the maximum grace and mercy to His people."

Jonathan Edwards - "Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul. It is destructive in its nature, and if God should leave it without restraint, nothing else would be needed to make the soul miserable."

Jonathan Edwards - "The heartfelt praises of one true believer are more precious to God than all 220,000 oxen and the 120,000 sheep that Solomon offered to God at the dedication of the temple."

Jonathan Edwards - "What an indecent self-exaltation and arrogance it is, in poor, fallible, dark mortals, to pretend that they can determine and know, who are realy sincere and upright before God, and who are not!"

Jonathan Mayhew - "People are not usually deprived of their liberties all at once, but gradually, by one encroachment after another, as it is found they are disposed to bear them."

J. R. Miller - The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. What a man is survives him. It can never be buried."

Joseph Epstein - "Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left, and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil."

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story - " The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government."

Joseph Story - "There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation."

Joseph Story - "We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity (which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution)... probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."

Joseph Stowell - "A true Christian experiencehas its source in and is motivated by a personal relationship that saves me, but a relationship that determines my behavior, responses, thoughts, and actions in ways that would be particularly pleasing to Him."

Joseph Stowell - "Authentic Christianity is not just about keeping and protecting the faith and keeping the rules. It is even more than living to deepen your relationship with Jesus. Authentic Christianity, the real deal, is about embracing all of these important elements."

Joseph Stowell - "If Christianity is dull and boring, if it is a burden and not a blessing, then most likely we are involved in a project, not a Person - a system not a Savior, rules rather than a relationship."

Joseph Stowell - "Perhaps the greatest self-deceit is to tell ourselves that we can be self-sufficient."

Josh McDowell - "Christ can be trusted to keep His Word that He will exchange our drab existence for joyous living, abundant life! And while true love, total acceptance, and complete security are rare in our frantic world, the biblical evidence that our desires in these areas will be fulfilled in Christ is abundant."

Josh McDowell - "Christ did not come to earth to teach Christianity - Christ is Christianity."

Josh McDowell - "My heart and mind were created to work in harmony together. Never has an individual been called upon to commit intellectual suicide in trusting Christ as Savior and Lord."

Josh McDowell - "The Christian faith is faith in Christ. Its value or worth is not in the one believing but in the One believed - not in the one trusting, but in the One trusted."

Josh McDowell - "This is an important distinction, because most of the modern philosophies that deny that we can know reality, and ultimately truth, make the mistake of constructing epistemological systems to explain how we know reality without first acknowledging the fact that we do know reality. After they begin within the mind and find they can't construct a bridge to reality, they then declare that we can't know reality. It is like drawing a faulty road map before looking at the roads, then declaring that we can't know how to get from Chicago to New York!"

Josh McDowell - "Truth is objective because God exists outside ourselves; it is universal because God is above all; it is constant because God is eternal. Absolute truth is absolute because it originates from the original."

Josh McDowell - "You can laugh at Christianity; you can mock and ridicule it. But it works. It changes lives. If you trust Christ, start watching your attitudes and actions, because Jesus Christ is in the business of changing lives."

Joshua Harris - "Marriage is not to be, in the words of an old wedding sermon, 'enterprised lightly or wantonly to satisfied man's carnal lusts and appetites, but reverently, discretely, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained.'"

Joyce Kilmer - "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.../ Poems are made by fools like me,/ But only God can make a tree."

J. T. Fisher - "If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene - if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage - if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here...rests the blueprints for successful human life with optimism, mental health, and contentment."
that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."