| Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. -I Corinthians 4:1 |
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A Collection of Quotations From Across the
World and Throughout the Time
Discipleship
Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of
our thanksgiving. -W. T. Purkiser
First be purified and then purify others, first allow yourself to be instructed by
wisdom and then instruct others, first become light and then enlighten others, first
draw close to God and then guide others to him, first be holy yourself and then
make others holy. -St. Gregory Nazianzen
Only the man who has misery in his heart can console the miserer. -St. Bernard of
Clairvoux
Such is the power of love, that it transforms the lover into the Beloved. -Hugh of St.
Victor
The first form of humility can be seen in the clothes that we wear, which should be
of an appropriate style and clean, and in the place where we live. The second is
apparent in the way that we behave towards others, whether we are loving in all
circumstances and in all things. The third kind of humility appears in the senses and
in the way that we use and love all things rightly. The fourth kind of humility lives
in the soul, which is the self-effacing humility which creates so much sweet wonder
in the loving soul. And it is this humility which makes us rise up to Heaven. -
Mechtild of Magdeburg
Stay humble. -Ralph Zetzl, o.f.m.
Twofold is the fruit of sacred reading, because it either instructs the mind with
knowledge or it equips it with morals. It teaches what it delights us to know and
what it behooves us to imitate. -Hugh of St. Victor
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. -St.
Francis of Assisi
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling
look. -St. Francis of Assisi
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are
better things ahead than any we leave behind. -C. S. Lewis
If my life is motivated by an ambition to leave a legacy, what I would probably
leave is a legacy of ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of God's
Spirit in me and the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to
guide my motives, that's the only time I think we really leave a great legacy. -Rich
Mullins
We can never know how much good a simple smile can do. -Mother Teresa
Perfection consists in doing His will, in being that which He wants us to be. -St.
Therese of Lisieux
Enjoyment
If you are accustomed to take your pleasure in the progress of your people, you will
never be at a loss for a source of enjoyment. -Desiderius Erasmus
Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable.
Without it, life just doesn't taste good. -Lucia Capocchione
For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when
the mighty Founder was a child himself. -Charles Dickens
Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. -Karl Barth
...[W]e should learn never to confuse real festivity with mere intoxication. Authentic
festivity can never be cooked up with pharmacological catalysts. Nor does their
absence prevent its arrival. The spirit of festivity, like a muse, has a mind of its
own. It can fail to show up even when elaborate preparations have been made,
leaving us all feeling a little silly. It may pop in when no one is expecting it. In this
respect, it reminds us of the grace of God, unmerited and often unanticipated. It
cannot simply be turned on and off at will. -Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools: A
Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy, 108.
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling
look. -St. Francis of Assisi
Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress
rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination. -Barbara
G. Harrison
Before the divine, man is as a child, even as a boy is before a man. -Heraclitus
Permit thyself a few jests in the midst of thy serious work, but even thy jesting
should be carried out in a worthy manner. -Hildebert de Le Mans
The ‘child’ is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely
powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The ‘eternal
child’ in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a disadvantage, and a
divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or
worthlessness of a personality. -Jung
As in my life, so in my studies I consider it most fitting for a true man to mingle a
mild and cheerful spirit with my more serious mood, so that seriousness should not
fall away into mere melancholy nor jest into mere license. Guided by this principle, I
now and then interupt my more serious work with jollity and play. -Pliny the
Younger
In a word, all that appertains to play is only a rehearsal for what is serious. -Hugo
Rahner
Therefore, unmitigated seriousness betokens a lack of virtue because it wholly
despises play, which is as necessary for a good human life as rest is. -St. Thomas
Aquinas
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they
should be. Now put the foundations under them. -Henry David Thoreau
Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -Gloria Steinem
We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop
playing. -Unknown
Games
Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. -Blaise Pascal
There is no remorse like the remorse of chess. -H.G. Wells
You cannot play at chess if you are kind-hearted. -French Proverb
Chess is a good way to learn, to keep the brain fit and the ego in check, a mental
form of your local gymnasium. -Peter Abelard
There is no other game so esteemed, so pround and so venerable as chess. In the
realm of play, it stands along in dignity. -Ely Culbertson
Chess is the touchstone of the human intellect. -Goethe
Humorous, But Poignant
Don't believe anything you can't put in colored pictures. -G. K. Chesterton
Always put off for tomorrow what you shouldn't do at all. -Fr. Walter Takuski
Don't put all your hands in a chicken. -Tony Neusch
He ought to have been born either a king or a fool. -Desiderius Erasmus
I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size. -J.R.R. Tolkein
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead. -James
Thurber
The people laugh at me but I applaud myself. -Horace
If this were a logical world, men would ride sidesaddle. -Rita Mae Brown
I'm not confused, I'm just well-mixed. -Robert Frost
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. -Unknown
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. -Unknown
Every one is entitled to be stupid. Some just abuse the privlege. -Unknown
She didn't know it couldn't be done so she did it anyway. -Unknown
If you meet any of the devout, tell them I've built a church; if you meet pleasant
people, tell them I've finished a theatre. -Voltaire
Jesus
Christ is everything for us. If you wish to cure a wound, he is doctor; if you burn
with fever, he is fountain; if you are oppressed by iniquity, he is justice; if you are in
need of help, he is strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you desire heaven, he is
the way; if you flee from darkness, he is light; if you seek food, he is nourishment. -
St. Ambrose of Milan [On Virginity 99]
King Arthur
It [the legend of King Arthur] is a story that has great hope; but since it is a story
that emerges from the Christian tradition, it is also a story of how we are fallen
creatures. Camelot is the best that human beings can make until we find not an
earthly Jerusalem, but a heavenly one. -Bonnie Wheeler
Life
There is none more praiseworthy than the one who can be praised by all. -St.
Ambrose of Milan, On Virgins 1.2.6
Better not to be at all / Than not to be noble. -Alfred Lord Tennyson
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. -Aristotle
Anger dies quickly with a good man. -English Proverb
A goose quill is more dangerous than a lion's claw. -English Proverb
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is
breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then
starting on the first one. -Mark Twain
Power is never good, unless the one who has it is good. -King Alfred the Great
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge. -Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Always demanding the best of oneself, living with honor, devoting one's talents
and gifts to the benefits of others—these are the measures of success that endure
when material things have passed away. —Henry Ford
The span of life should measured not by years but by our deeds well performed.
Length of life has no bearing on man's happiness. It is how well he lived that
counts. -Desiderius Erasmus
The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but
that it is too low and we reach it. —Michelangelo
A man loves his town not because it is great, but because it is his. -An ancient Greek
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the
advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great
goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door
of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply
never leave. Our lives are measured by these. -Susan B. Anthony
To shorten one’s sleep at night, to exploit to the full every hour of the day, to use
oneself to the bone and then understand that it is all a jest - that is to be serious
indeed. -J. Bernhart
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world. -Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Where a man can live, he can also live well. -Marcus Aurelius
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. -
Unknown
Don't just be another member of society; be a living example of your dreams and
goals. -Unknown
Don't let other people tell you what you want. -Unknown
To dream of the person you wish to be is to waste the person you are. -Unknown
If we don't like the world we're in, there is always the option to create the world
we desire with our acts of kindness. -Unknown
Study
Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is the more studious we
are. -Henry David Thoreau
He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his
understanding while he is the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless
life where all shall be made clear. - King Saint Alfred the Great
All men by nature desire knowledge. -Aristotle
I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught. -Sir Winston
Churchill
The noblest exercise of the mind within doors, and most befitting a person of
quality, is study. -William Ramsay
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature. -Cicero
The more we study the more we discover our ignorance. -Percy Bysshe Shelley
One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and
to suffer all those pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts. -
Sydney Smith
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy,
deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. -Francis Bacon
The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and
the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his
servants. -Andrew Carnegie
The saddest thing for a man is that he be ignorant; the most exciting is that he
knows. -King Saint Alfred the Great [emphasis mine]
The acquisition of Christian books is necessary for those who can use them. For the
mere sight of these books renders us less inclined to sin and incites us to believe
more firmly in righteousness. -Abba Epiphanius
Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous. -Hugh of St.
Victor
Foolhardy is he who attempts what is beyond his strength. -Saint Bonaventure
Do not extend yourself beyond the point your intelligence can reach; but neither
remain short of it. -Saint Bonaventure
True friendship is like sound health: the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. -
Charles Caleb Colton
How unjust it is to allow every other walk of life its relaxations but none at all to
learning, especially when trifling may lead to something more serious! - Desiderius
Erasmus
The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men. -J.C. and A.W.
Hare
True wisdom is never scowling or severe, nor is it full of worry and misgivings. On
the contrary, it is gay and friendly, full of heartsease and joy. These qualities have
moved many a man to witty jest, yet behind such jesting countertones of gravity
and dignity must be audible, blending into a single harmonious whole, like the
music of a well-tuned lyre. -Philo of Alexandria
As in my life, so in my studies I consider it most fitting for a true man to mingle a
mild and cheerful spirit with my more serious mood, so that seriousness should not
fall away into mere melancholy nor jest into mere license. Guided by this principle, I
now and then interupt my more serious work with jollity and play. -Pliny the
Younger
It is those times when we least deserve a hug and support that we need it most. -
Glennis Weatherall
Wisdom
A wise man recognizes the gleam of truth whoever utters it. - Saint Gildas
There is far less for the man who follows the course of nature and of honor to do,
than for him who owes his existence to trickery or deceit. -Desiderius Erasmus
If you only think of the great tasks you have undertaken, you will never be at a loss
for something to do. -Desiderius Erasmus
All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing
from another. —Plotinus
To shorten one’s sleep at night, to exploit to the full every hour of the day, to use
oneself to the bone and then understand that it is all a jest - that is to be serious
indeed. -J. Bernhart
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin! -Quintus Horatius Flaccus
World and Throughout the Time
Discipleship
Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of
our thanksgiving. -W. T. Purkiser
First be purified and then purify others, first allow yourself to be instructed by
wisdom and then instruct others, first become light and then enlighten others, first
draw close to God and then guide others to him, first be holy yourself and then
make others holy. -St. Gregory Nazianzen
Only the man who has misery in his heart can console the miserer. -St. Bernard of
Clairvoux
Such is the power of love, that it transforms the lover into the Beloved. -Hugh of St.
Victor
The first form of humility can be seen in the clothes that we wear, which should be
of an appropriate style and clean, and in the place where we live. The second is
apparent in the way that we behave towards others, whether we are loving in all
circumstances and in all things. The third kind of humility appears in the senses and
in the way that we use and love all things rightly. The fourth kind of humility lives
in the soul, which is the self-effacing humility which creates so much sweet wonder
in the loving soul. And it is this humility which makes us rise up to Heaven. -
Mechtild of Magdeburg
Stay humble. -Ralph Zetzl, o.f.m.
Twofold is the fruit of sacred reading, because it either instructs the mind with
knowledge or it equips it with morals. It teaches what it delights us to know and
what it behooves us to imitate. -Hugh of St. Victor
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. -St.
Francis of Assisi
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling
look. -St. Francis of Assisi
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are
better things ahead than any we leave behind. -C. S. Lewis
If my life is motivated by an ambition to leave a legacy, what I would probably
leave is a legacy of ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of God's
Spirit in me and the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to
guide my motives, that's the only time I think we really leave a great legacy. -Rich
Mullins
We can never know how much good a simple smile can do. -Mother Teresa
Perfection consists in doing His will, in being that which He wants us to be. -St.
Therese of Lisieux
Enjoyment
If you are accustomed to take your pleasure in the progress of your people, you will
never be at a loss for a source of enjoyment. -Desiderius Erasmus
Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable.
Without it, life just doesn't taste good. -Lucia Capocchione
For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when
the mighty Founder was a child himself. -Charles Dickens
Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. -Karl Barth
...[W]e should learn never to confuse real festivity with mere intoxication. Authentic
festivity can never be cooked up with pharmacological catalysts. Nor does their
absence prevent its arrival. The spirit of festivity, like a muse, has a mind of its
own. It can fail to show up even when elaborate preparations have been made,
leaving us all feeling a little silly. It may pop in when no one is expecting it. In this
respect, it reminds us of the grace of God, unmerited and often unanticipated. It
cannot simply be turned on and off at will. -Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools: A
Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy, 108.
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling
look. -St. Francis of Assisi
Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress
rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination. -Barbara
G. Harrison
Before the divine, man is as a child, even as a boy is before a man. -Heraclitus
Permit thyself a few jests in the midst of thy serious work, but even thy jesting
should be carried out in a worthy manner. -Hildebert de Le Mans
The ‘child’ is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely
powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The ‘eternal
child’ in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a disadvantage, and a
divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or
worthlessness of a personality. -Jung
As in my life, so in my studies I consider it most fitting for a true man to mingle a
mild and cheerful spirit with my more serious mood, so that seriousness should not
fall away into mere melancholy nor jest into mere license. Guided by this principle, I
now and then interupt my more serious work with jollity and play. -Pliny the
Younger
In a word, all that appertains to play is only a rehearsal for what is serious. -Hugo
Rahner
Therefore, unmitigated seriousness betokens a lack of virtue because it wholly
despises play, which is as necessary for a good human life as rest is. -St. Thomas
Aquinas
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they
should be. Now put the foundations under them. -Henry David Thoreau
Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -Gloria Steinem
We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop
playing. -Unknown
Games
Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. -Blaise Pascal
There is no remorse like the remorse of chess. -H.G. Wells
You cannot play at chess if you are kind-hearted. -French Proverb
Chess is a good way to learn, to keep the brain fit and the ego in check, a mental
form of your local gymnasium. -Peter Abelard
There is no other game so esteemed, so pround and so venerable as chess. In the
realm of play, it stands along in dignity. -Ely Culbertson
Chess is the touchstone of the human intellect. -Goethe
Humorous, But Poignant
Don't believe anything you can't put in colored pictures. -G. K. Chesterton
Always put off for tomorrow what you shouldn't do at all. -Fr. Walter Takuski
Don't put all your hands in a chicken. -Tony Neusch
He ought to have been born either a king or a fool. -Desiderius Erasmus
I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size. -J.R.R. Tolkein
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead. -James
Thurber
The people laugh at me but I applaud myself. -Horace
If this were a logical world, men would ride sidesaddle. -Rita Mae Brown
I'm not confused, I'm just well-mixed. -Robert Frost
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. -Unknown
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. -Unknown
Every one is entitled to be stupid. Some just abuse the privlege. -Unknown
She didn't know it couldn't be done so she did it anyway. -Unknown
If you meet any of the devout, tell them I've built a church; if you meet pleasant
people, tell them I've finished a theatre. -Voltaire
Jesus
Christ is everything for us. If you wish to cure a wound, he is doctor; if you burn
with fever, he is fountain; if you are oppressed by iniquity, he is justice; if you are in
need of help, he is strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you desire heaven, he is
the way; if you flee from darkness, he is light; if you seek food, he is nourishment. -
St. Ambrose of Milan [On Virginity 99]
King Arthur
It [the legend of King Arthur] is a story that has great hope; but since it is a story
that emerges from the Christian tradition, it is also a story of how we are fallen
creatures. Camelot is the best that human beings can make until we find not an
earthly Jerusalem, but a heavenly one. -Bonnie Wheeler
Life
There is none more praiseworthy than the one who can be praised by all. -St.
Ambrose of Milan, On Virgins 1.2.6
Better not to be at all / Than not to be noble. -Alfred Lord Tennyson
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. -Aristotle
Anger dies quickly with a good man. -English Proverb
A goose quill is more dangerous than a lion's claw. -English Proverb
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is
breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then
starting on the first one. -Mark Twain
Power is never good, unless the one who has it is good. -King Alfred the Great
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge. -Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Always demanding the best of oneself, living with honor, devoting one's talents
and gifts to the benefits of others—these are the measures of success that endure
when material things have passed away. —Henry Ford
The span of life should measured not by years but by our deeds well performed.
Length of life has no bearing on man's happiness. It is how well he lived that
counts. -Desiderius Erasmus
The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but
that it is too low and we reach it. —Michelangelo
A man loves his town not because it is great, but because it is his. -An ancient Greek
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the
advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great
goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door
of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply
never leave. Our lives are measured by these. -Susan B. Anthony
To shorten one’s sleep at night, to exploit to the full every hour of the day, to use
oneself to the bone and then understand that it is all a jest - that is to be serious
indeed. -J. Bernhart
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world. -Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Where a man can live, he can also live well. -Marcus Aurelius
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. -
Unknown
Don't just be another member of society; be a living example of your dreams and
goals. -Unknown
Don't let other people tell you what you want. -Unknown
To dream of the person you wish to be is to waste the person you are. -Unknown
If we don't like the world we're in, there is always the option to create the world
we desire with our acts of kindness. -Unknown
Study
Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is the more studious we
are. -Henry David Thoreau
He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his
understanding while he is the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless
life where all shall be made clear. - King Saint Alfred the Great
All men by nature desire knowledge. -Aristotle
I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught. -Sir Winston
Churchill
The noblest exercise of the mind within doors, and most befitting a person of
quality, is study. -William Ramsay
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature. -Cicero
The more we study the more we discover our ignorance. -Percy Bysshe Shelley
One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and
to suffer all those pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts. -
Sydney Smith
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy,
deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. -Francis Bacon
The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and
the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his
servants. -Andrew Carnegie
The saddest thing for a man is that he be ignorant; the most exciting is that he
knows. -King Saint Alfred the Great [emphasis mine]
The acquisition of Christian books is necessary for those who can use them. For the
mere sight of these books renders us less inclined to sin and incites us to believe
more firmly in righteousness. -Abba Epiphanius
Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous. -Hugh of St.
Victor
Foolhardy is he who attempts what is beyond his strength. -Saint Bonaventure
Do not extend yourself beyond the point your intelligence can reach; but neither
remain short of it. -Saint Bonaventure
True friendship is like sound health: the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. -
Charles Caleb Colton
How unjust it is to allow every other walk of life its relaxations but none at all to
learning, especially when trifling may lead to something more serious! - Desiderius
Erasmus
The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men. -J.C. and A.W.
Hare
True wisdom is never scowling or severe, nor is it full of worry and misgivings. On
the contrary, it is gay and friendly, full of heartsease and joy. These qualities have
moved many a man to witty jest, yet behind such jesting countertones of gravity
and dignity must be audible, blending into a single harmonious whole, like the
music of a well-tuned lyre. -Philo of Alexandria
As in my life, so in my studies I consider it most fitting for a true man to mingle a
mild and cheerful spirit with my more serious mood, so that seriousness should not
fall away into mere melancholy nor jest into mere license. Guided by this principle, I
now and then interupt my more serious work with jollity and play. -Pliny the
Younger
It is those times when we least deserve a hug and support that we need it most. -
Glennis Weatherall
Wisdom
A wise man recognizes the gleam of truth whoever utters it. - Saint Gildas
There is far less for the man who follows the course of nature and of honor to do,
than for him who owes his existence to trickery or deceit. -Desiderius Erasmus
If you only think of the great tasks you have undertaken, you will never be at a loss
for something to do. -Desiderius Erasmus
All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing
from another. —Plotinus
To shorten one’s sleep at night, to exploit to the full every hour of the day, to use
oneself to the bone and then understand that it is all a jest - that is to be serious
indeed. -J. Bernhart
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin! -Quintus Horatius Flaccus
| Servant and Steward |