Quotes
We provide these quotes for your edification. Many of them are powerful, others insightful. However, all of them do not speak the truth. See, for example, the Stupid/Bad/Untruthful/Absurd category. Enjoy these concise insights.
Categories
Freedom/Liberty/Bondage/Slavery
Military/Battle/War/Conflict/Offense-Defense/Sports
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Bible:
“The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God, and the spiritual nature and needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”
-- President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
“I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying 'this is fiction.'”
-- Sir Ian McKellen, gay British actor
“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book.”
-- President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
“The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”
– John Jay (1745-1829), Founding Father and first US Chief Justice
Children/Families:
“How can there be too many children? That's like saying there are too many flowers.”
-- Mother Teresa (1910-1997), Catholic missionary in India
“The steps my child will most likely follow are the ones I thought I covered up.”
--Anonymous
“You know I need a daddy, or I can't be a child.”
-- Anonymous daughter conceived by donor insemination to her mother.
“One of the most reliable predicators of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? Too often, the answer is no.”
-- Newsweek article, 01.06
Christianity:
“I do not believe there are any new objections to be discovered to the truth of Christianity. Men may argue ingeniously against our faith, but what can they say in defense of their own?”
-- Francis Scott Key (1780-1843), "Star Spangled Banner" author
“Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German theologian
“There is now an emerging acceptance of biblical ethics on a global scale.”
--Prabhu Guptara, UBS Bank, Zurich, Switzerland
“He who introduces into public office the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
-- CA Gov. Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
“The gospel started in Palestine as a relationship, went to Greece where it became an idea, went to Rome where it became an institution, and came to America where it became an enterprise.”
-- Dr. Richard Halverson, Senate Chaplain (1916-1995)
“The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. For the most part, it hasn't even been tried.”
-- Richard Altork, American missionary
“Christianity is a revolt of everything that crawls along the ground directed against that which is elevated.”
-- Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), philosopher in Anti-Christ.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
-- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Irish writer, scholar and Christian apologist
Church:
“The current attitude of the church toward the power of prayer borders on criminal negligence.”
-- Robert E. Speer (1867-1947), American missionary
“After my study of today's church, my conclusion is that the church is politely bored with God.”
-- A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), American pastor and writer
“80% of the resources of the Church worldwide are found in the American Church.”
-- Dr. Clive Calver, President, World Vision
“The meetings least attended in our churches today are the ones whose only attraction is God.”
-- A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), American pastor and writer
“The gospel started in Palestine as a relationship, went to Greece where it became an idea, went to Rome where it became an institution, and came to America where it became an enterprise.”
-- Dr. Richard Halverson, Senate Chaplain (1916-1995)
“I want to go [to a church] and ask someone to help me say some prayers.”
--Paul M. Johnson III, before his father was beheaded by terrorists in Saudi Arabia
“Spiritual formation cannot, in the nature of the case, be a 'private' thing, because it is a matter of whole-life transformation. You need to seek out others in your community who are pursuing the renovation of the heart.”
-- Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 114
“The brokenness in the church, the divisions that abound, and our consistent resistance to the God design of restored relationships and practical unity is our (the church’s) truly great sin. It is the world’s roadblock of all roadblocks to belief. On the outside, it is the greatest single roadblock to power and credibility in our engagement of the world. Inside the church, it is the greatest impediment to the joy, refreshment and fulfillment God intends for us…."
-- Phil Butler, "Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope Through Kingdom Partnerships", pp. 6-7
College/Education:
“Christians cannot afford to be indifferent to the outcome of this struggle for the single most important institution shaping Western culture. It is at the university that our future political leaders, our journalists, our teachers, our business executives, our lawyers, our artists, will be trained. It is at the university that they will formulate or, more likely, simply absorb the worldview that will shape their lives. And since these are the opinion makers and leaders who shape our culture, the worldview that they imbibe at the university will be the one that shapes our culture. If the Christian worldview can be restored to a place of prominence and respect at the university, it will have a leavening effect throughout society. If we change the university, we change our culture through those who shape our culture.”
-- J.P. Moreland Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
“The university is a clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world . . . More potently than by any other means, change the university and you change the world.”
-- Charles Malik (1906-1987), President of the UN General Assembly, in "A Christian Critique of the University"
*“Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the Cross of Christ.”
-- Jonathan Dickinson (1688-1747), 1st president, Princeton University
“If I had to say anything about the general intellectual climate of American universities with respect to faith, addressed to young believers entering such an institution, I would warn them. I would say, 'Watch out, because they are going to kill you with kindness.' You'll be allowed to practice and express your faith openly, but you will not be taken seriously.”
-- Dr. Ken Miller, Brown University professor
*“I am much afraid that the universities and schools will prove to be the gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount.”
-- Martin Luther (1483-1536), Reformation leader
“College isn't the place to go for ideas.”
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)
“Learning is not compulsory...neither is survival.”
-- W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993), statistician and mathematical physicist
“I use that trust [that college students have in their professors] to effectively brainwash them...our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal-without any demonstration-to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary.”
-- Dr. Mark Singham, evolutionist professor, in “Teaching and Propaganda,” Physics Today (vol. 53, June 2000), p. 54.
“...[T]he university is indeed the place where we receive advance training in how to serve the gods of our age?education does in fact transform and mold our vision of life so that we serve as guides in a culture led by idols?”
-- Brian Walsh & Robert Middleton, in The Transforming Vision (1984)
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”
-- Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), Founding Father
“The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.”
-- John Milton, British poet, in “Of Education”
“...[K]ey persons within journalism (especially publishers and editors, and also journalism professionalizers from the ranks of the universities and the active press) actively sought to minimize and ultimately to undermine traditional religion”.
-- Richard Flory, Biola University Sociology professor, in The Secular Revolution
“Atheism is on the run. Darwinism is on the ropes; Freudianism is passé; and the only serious Marxists left in the world seem to have gravitated to the English and history departments of American universities. Indeed many colleges have become a kind of old folks home for recalcitrant Reds, where they can rant and rave all they want, but where no one really takes them seriously any more.”
-- T. M. Moore, theologian
“Professors and students claim to be on a quest for truth while denying that it exists or that anyone could identify it if it did. Such is the nihilistic atmosphere in major universities around the world.”
-- Dave Hunt, discernment ministry leader
“In college, [Christian students] are assaulted by secular relativism, and if we don't prepare them, they will be like lambs led to slaughter.”
-- Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship
“College [has] more and more replaced the church as the source of new values, of new ethical outlooks.”
-- Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), American novelist
“Colleges and universities are corrupting the minds and morals of the next generation.”
-- James Nelson Black, in "Freefall of the American University"
“Colleges [have] forfeited the responsibilities of in loco parentis and have gone into the pimping and brothel business.”
-- Vigen Guroian, Loyola College professor
“Our Bible curriculum here is so bad that it is inoculating the students against the gospel and the Christian life.”
-- South Florida Christian high school Bible teacher (2005)
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
-- Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), signer of the Declaration of Independence and physician
“College campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banded words and prohibited scientific inquiry.”
-- Ann Coulter, syndicated legal columnist
“Young men and women are being enticed to think of themselves as two selves, one that is mind and reason in the classroom and another self, 'after hours,' that is all body and passion. They begin to imagine-though few entirely believe it-that they can use (that is, abuse) their bodies as they please for pleasure, and that choosing to do so has nothing to do with their academic studies or future lives. In reality they are following a formula for self-disintegration and failure.”
-- Vigen Guorian, Loyola University professor
*“Let every student well consider...that the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”
-- Harvard College Laws (1642)
“Education (the institution) has now adopted values, attitudes, and practices that make any rigorous understanding of the human self and life impossible.”
-- Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, "Renovation of the Heart", p. 47
“We need to be preparing our children for going out into the world, where everything they believe may in fact be challenged.”
-- Tony Arnold, Director of Media Relations for Campus Crusade for Christ
“The average college graduate's proficient literacy in English [the ability to read lengthy, complex texts and draw complicated inferences] has declined from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent ten years later.”
-- Chuck Colson, BreakPoint, “Musical Mush: Are We Impairing Our Capacity to Think?” 2/6/06
“A lack of basic Bible literacy hampers students' ability to understand both classic and contemporary work?. The Bible is not only a sacred Scripture to millions of Americans, it is also arguably - as one professor put it - the most influential text in all of Western culture.”
-- Dr. Marie Wachlin, author of "Bible Literacy Report II: What University Professors Say Incoming Students Need to Know"
“In many cases students are never exposed to competing ideas within their families, churches, or Christian schools, and as a result they go out into the world unprepared for the intellectual battles they are about to encounter, especially on secular college campuses.”
-- Nancy Pearcey, "Total Truth" (2005)
“One of these days they are going to remove so much of the 'hooey' and the thousands of things the schools have become clogged up with, and we will find that we can educate our broods for about one-tenth of the price and learn 'em something that they might accidentally use after they escape.”
-- Will Rogers (1879-1935), American humorist, actor and comedian
“I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message.”
-- Steve Irwin (1962-2006), Australian “Crocodile Hunter”
“[T]he survey found fewer than 1 percent of the [academic] scientists took the Bible literally, while 25 percent thought it was 'the inspired word of God' but not to be taken literally in its entirety. About 75 percent agreed the Bible 'is an ancient book of fables recorded by men.”
-- Elaine Howard Ecklund, Rice University sociologist professor and director of “Religion Among Academic Scientists” study, The Washington Times, 8/15/05, p.A3 (cited in American Christian College Journal, 10/05
“By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative... with 50 percent of faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans... 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative. 'What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field,' said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and co-author of the study [based on the 1999 North American Academic Study Survey].”
-- Howard Kurtz, American journalist in "The Washington Post", 3/29/05, p. C1
“College is a time for excess, for experimentation. It is four fleeting years of free-spirited indulgence . . . Don't waste it. Use that finite period to live on your won terms, let go.”
--New York Times editorial, October 6, 2006, A27
“To educate a child in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
-- President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
“If I had to do it all over again, I would speak less and study more.”
-- Billy Graham (1918-), Baptist evangelist
“Colleges are breeding grounds for eating disorders and unhealthy obsession with food.”
-- Courtney Martin, in "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters"
“Blame it on an analytical background, perhaps, but the survey found fewer than 1 percent of the scientists took the Bible literally, while 25 percent thought it was ‘the inspired word of God’ but not to be taken literally in its entirety. About 75 percent agreed the Bible ‘is an ancient book of fables recorded by man.’”
-- Elaine Howard Ecklund, Rice University sociologist in “Religion Among Academic Scientists”, presented to the Association for Sociology of Religion, 2005 (The American Christian College Journal, 10/05)
“Schools [are]…institutions monopolizing the daytimes of childhood.”
-- John Taylor Gatto, NY State Teacher of the Year (1991) and author, in “The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought?” http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_gatto.html#top
[Speaking about politics, but it could apply to several things:] “You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool.”
-- George Orwell (pen name for Eric Arthur Blair), (1903-1950), British author and journalist
“Today’s child is bewildered when he entrs the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects and schedules.”
-- Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian scholar/philosopher/educator in 1967
“The college environment is very conducive to hooking up. On campus there is a relatively homogenous population of young men and women living in close proximity to each other with no strictly enforced rules monitoring their behavior. Students generally socialize amongst themselves, which fosters a sense of safety or comfort and they share the mantra that college is a time to “let loose” and party. All of these things factor into why the hookup culture flourishes on campus. “The hookup culture definitely affects the genders differently in at least two important ways. First, women are far more likely than men to get a bad reputation for how they conduct themselves in the hookup culture. Women can get a bad reputation for many different things, including how often they hook up, who they hook up with, how far they go sexually during a hookup, and how they dress when they go out on a night where hooking up may happen. Men who are very active in the hookup culture may be called a “player”; women, on the other hand, get labeled a “slut.” Second, women are not getting what they want from the hookup system. Women often want relationships and most are dissatisfied with how often hooking up leads to “nothing,” i.e., no ongoing, stable relationship. There are certainly many cases where a woman does not want a hookup to evolve into a relationship, but on average women are far more interested in a hookup turning into “something more” than men are. This puts women in a difficult situation. If they do not hook up at all, they are left out of the dominant culture on campus and will likely have difficulty finding opportunities to form sexual and romantic relationships with the opposite sex. However, if they do hook up, they have to walk a fine line to make sure they do so in a way that makes them a part of the mainstream on campus without crossing the line and getting negatively labeled. “Although hookup encounters generally occur at night after students attend parties or go to local bars, several students I interviewed mentioned feeling like they had to be “on” 24/7. This fishbowl existence is all part of what I call the “sexual arena” on campus where students are constantly watching one another, gossiping about one another and judging one another for how they look as well as how they conduct themselves in the hookup culture. “I think traditional dating is surviving alongside of hooking up in the larger culture, but on campus hooking up has replaced dating as the primary means for students to meet and form sexual and romantic relationships. This does not mean that students never go out for dinner and a movie. The “date” still exists among college students, but it is couples who are already in an exclusive relationship who do it. In other words, the pathway to a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship where a couple might go on a date begins with hooking up. In the dating era, students would go on a date, which might lead to something sexual happening; in the hookup era, students hook up, which might lead to dating. This is a reversal of the traditional order of things. The problem is that many college men are pleased with the status quo; they can hook up and if they want to pursue an ongoing relationship they can, but they are under no obligation to do so. Women, on the other hand, get increasingly frustrated after freshman year with how often it seems that hooking up leads to “nothing.” “Several of the students I interviewed mentioned the “walk of shame,” which refers to a college student, usually female, walking home the next morning after a hookup encounter in the same outfit he/she was wearing the evening prior. Given that students dress differently for “going out” at night than during the daytime, it is obvious to onlookers when a student is doing the walk of shame. One of many interesting things about this phrase is that students use the word “shame” at all. If students accept hooking up and believe that “everybody’s doing it,” then why do they use the term shame when referencing a hookup encounter? I think that phrase actually underscores an important issue: Many students are struggling with the hookup system.”
-- Kathleen A. Bogle, LaSalle University sociologist and author of “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus” (2008), in an interview with Andy Guess (www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/29/hookups)
Creation/Evolution:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
-- R. C. Lewontin, evolutionist
“Belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if that religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”
-- Will Provine, Cornell University atheistic professor
“Creation myths lie at the heart of all human cultures, and science is no exception; until we know where we came from, we do not know who we are. The origin of life is also a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight... Biology textbooks often include a chapter on how life may have arisen from non-life, and while responsible authors do not fail to underscore the difficulties and uncertainties, readers still come away with the impression that the answer is almost within their grasp.“
-- Franklin Harold, 2001. The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Origin of Life, Oxford University Press, p. 235-236.
“Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process, about four billion years ago. This is not a statement of demonstrable fact, but an assumption almost universally shared by specialists as well as scientists in general. It is not supported by any direct evidence, nor is it likely to be ... The reasons for the general consensus are, first, the lack of a more palatable alternative; and second, that absent the presumption of a terrestrial and natural genesis there would be no basis for scientific inquiry into the origin of life.” (p. 236, 237)
“It bears repeating that we know very little for certain, and that it is seldom possible to formulate hypotheses that can be falsified by experiment; the opinions of scholars are, therefore, colored by personal beliefs about what should have happened, and even about what is meant by 'life.'” (p. 239)
“A historical theory must account for historical events, and in truth there is not (and perhaps cannot be) convincing evidence that there ever was a rich broth of organic substances, or that it played the role assigned to it by the theory.” (p. 244)
-- Franklin Harold, "The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Origin of Life (2001: Oxford University Press)
*“Materialists and madmen never have doubts.”
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British writer and Christian thinker
George Caylor interview with unnamed molecular biologist “J”:
J: ...To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold onto two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures -- everything would stop. I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living.
Caylor: I hate to say it, but that sounds intellectually dishonest.
J: The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the elephant in the living room.”
-- “The Biologist,” Feb. 17, 2000, in The [Lynchburg, VA] Ledger).
*“Of course, the other thing about evolution is that anything can be said because very little can be disproved. Experimental evidence is minimal.”
-- Bryan Appleyard, evolutionist
*“Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion-full fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian... Evolution is religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”
-- Michael Ruse, FSU professor and evolutionist, (Canadian) National Post, (5/13/00)
“I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But that is what has happened in Biology…. I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.”
-- Søren Løvtrup, Swedish evolutionary scientist in "Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth", p. 422
*“Things don't look hopeful for Darwinian naturalists.”
-- Alvin Plantinga, Christian Philosopher
“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity... there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996), atheistic scientist
“The cosmos is all there ever is or ever was or ever will be...”
-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996), atheistic scientist
*“If we had to accept the idea of an independent creator, the explanations given in [several Buddhist texts] which completely refutes the existence per se of all phenomena, would be negated.”
-- Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhist leader
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
-- Richard Dawkins, Oxford University atheist science professor
Evolution “has primarily been an attack on religion by militant atheists who wrap themselves in the mantle of science in an effort to refute all religious claims concerning a creator - an effort that has also often attempted to suppress all scientific criticisms of Darwin's work.”
-- Rodney Stark, sociologist in "For the Glory of God"
“The crazy part about science and yet the exciting part about science is you almost never have something that's black and white.”
-- Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor-in-chief, Journal of the American Medical Association (2005)
“Evolutionists have 'Physics Envy'. They tell the public that the science behind evolution is the same science that sent people to the moon and cures diseases. It's not. The science behind evolution is not empirical, but forensic. Because evolution took place in history, its scientific investigations are after the fact-no testing, no observations, no repeatability, no falsification, nothing at all like physics....I think this is what the public discerns-that evolution is just a bunch of just-so stories disguised as legitimate science.”
-- John Chaikowsky, “Geology v. Physics,” Geotimes (vol. 50, April 2005, page 6).
“Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.
“Even a high school student knows enough about evolution to know that nowhere in the evolutionary description of our origins does there appear an Adam or an Eve or an Eden or a forbidden fruit. Evolution means a development from one form to the next to meet the ever-changing challenges from an ever-changing nature. There is no fall from a previous state of sublime perfection.
“Without Adam, without the original sin, Jesus Christ is reduced to a man with a mission on a wrong planet!”
-- “The Meaning of Evolution?” American Atheist, September 1979, p. 30.
“There's a sense we as humans have kind of peaked. A different way to look at it is it's almost impossible for evolution not happen.”
-- Greg Wray, Director for Center for Evolutionary Genomics, Duke University (2005)
“Scientists are still far from understanding the ancient, intricate processes that lead to the origin of life.”
-- Robert M. Hazen, of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, in “Genesis: Rocks, Minerals, and the Geochemical Origin of Life,” Elements (vol. 1, June 2005), p. 135.
“At the present there is no completely satisfactory theory for the origin of life.”
-- George Cody, of the Carnegie Institution, in “Geochemical Connections to Primitive Metabolism,” Elements (vol 1, June 2005), p. 139.
“In particular, I argue that in both evolution and creation we have rival religious responses to a crisis of faith-rival stories of origins, rival judgments about he meaning of human life, rival sets of moral dictates, and above all what theologians call rival eschatologies-pictures of the future and of what lies ahead for humankind.”
-- Michael Ruse, FSU professor and evolutionist in The Evolution-Creation Struggle, p. 3
“No one has ever produced a species by mechanism of natural selection. No one has ever gotten near it....”
-- Colin Patterson, evolutionist, “Cladistics” Interview on BBC, 3/4/82
“It appears that the universe knew we were coming.”
-- Freeman Dyson (1923-) mathematical physicist
“I'm very concerned about the religious indoctrination of children. I want to show how faith acts like a virus that attacks the young and infects generation after generation . . . It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation. And I want to show how the scriptural roots of the Judeo-Christian moral edifice are cruel and brutish . . . What in the 21st century are we doing venerating a book [the Bible] that contains such stuff? . . . . The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction - jealous and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic cleanser urging His people on to acts of genocide . . . When it comes to children, I think of religion as a dangerous virus. It's a virus which is transmitted partly through teachers and clergy, but also down the generations from parent to child to grandchild. Children are especially vulnerable to infection by the virus of religion.”
-- Richard Dawkins, Oxford professor and evolutionist in “The Virus of Faith”, part of UK channel 4 series “Root of All Evil” May, 2006, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48252
“I suppose...”
-- Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859), stated over 800 times
“This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control.”
-- Physicist Robert Jastrow, astronomer, physicist and cosmologist
“Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another. Since there is no evidence, for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution...throughout the whole array of higher multi-cellular organisms.”
-- Unnamed British biologist in 2001 (quoted in HUMAN EVENTS, Vol. 62 No. 29; 8/28/06, p. 20.)
“I am open to [the notion of theistic revelation], but not enthusiastic about potential revelation from God. On the positive side, for example, I am very much impressed with physicist Gerald Schroeder's comments on Genesis 1. That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate raises the possibility that it is revelation.”
-- Antony Flew, former atheistic British philosopher (Philosophia Christi, Winter, 2005), www.biola.edu/philchrisit
“The harmony of natural law . . . reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/cwnetwork/article.php?ArticleID=1293
“We know...almost nothing about [the] origin [of living things] when the world was young. Our knowledge is vast, but our understanding is partial and full of gaps; for all its familiarity and ubiquity, life remains fundamentally mysterious.... We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”
-- Emeritus biochemistry professor Franklin Harold at Colorado State University
“Far from being magisterial in its objectivity, science was conditioned by history, society, and the prejudices of scientists.”
-- Thomas Kuhn, Harvard physics instructor and historian in "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962)
“Cosmologies are made up of small snippets of physical reality that have been remodeled by society into vast cosmic deceptions.”
--Jeremy Rifkin, evolutionist
“You have to understand, in the current academic climate, Intelligent Design is like leprosy or heresy in times past. To be tagged as an ID supporter is to become an academic pariah, and this holds even at so-called Christian institutions that place a premium on respectability at the expense of truth and the offense of the Gospel.”
-- William Dembski, research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in “I.D. rift hits Baylor again” by Erin Roach www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=26372)
“I came to see that the computer offers an insuperable obstacle to Darwinian materialism. In a computer, as information theory shows, the content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No possible knowledge of the computer materials can yield any information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations. In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or ‘source code’ used to program the device; and, like the design of the computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence. “The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects [Claude E.] Shannon’s concept of entropy [released in 1948] and his measure of ‘news.’ Information is defined by its independence from physical determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by definition not information. Yet Darwinian science seemed to be reducing all nature to material causes. “As I pondered this materialist superstition, it became increasingly clear to me that in all the sciences I studied, information comes first, and regulates the flesh and the world, not the other way around. The pattern seemed to echo some familiar wisdom. Could it be, I asked myself on day in astonishment, that the opening of St. John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, is a central dogma of modern science? “In raising this question I was not affirming a religious stance. At the time it first occurred to me, I was still a mostly secular intellectual. But after some 35 years of writing and study in science and technology, I can now affirm the principle empirically. Salient in virtually every technical field—from quantum theory and molecular biology to computer science and economics—is an increasing concern with the word. It passes by many names: logos, logic, bits, bytes, mathematics, software, knowledge, syntax, semantics, code, plan, program, design, algorithm, as well as the ubiquitous ‘information.’ In every case, the information is independent of its physical embodiment or carrier.”
-- George Gilder, "The National Review" (July 17, 2006, pp. 30-31), reprinted in The American Christian College Journal (9/06, pp.4-5)
We “do not yet really understand how any single gene from a higher life form really works—not in its entirety…a single gene has about 50,000 component parts.”
-- John Stanford, Genetic Entropy: The Mystery of the Genome, p. 135, reprinted in The American Christian College Journal (11/07, p. 6)
“The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.”
-- Michael Polanyi chemist and philosopher in "Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy" (1958)
“Once when I was speaking to some secularists at Harvard, I asked, ‘What preceded the Hot Big Bang?’ There was a pause, and then one man said, ‘Eternal matter.’ I liked the answer though I disagreed with it – at least he was admitting there is something greater than the universe. So then I asked, ‘What is the difference, in intellectual terms alone, between believing in eternal matter on the one hand, and an eternal Creator on the other hand?’ He paused, then said, ‘Theological baggage.’ In other words, as he continued to explain, he feared that if he admitted the possibility of ‘God’ into the equation, then that would allow ‘religionists’ to force religion on him, and it also would hurt good science. His answer was not intellectual, but emotional and relational. “We who affirm a biblical faith need to listen to him. This is the testimony of someone who has been burned by religion and/or relationships, but the Bible on it own terms never imposes itself, and it is the finest basis there is for science and the scientific method (as I write about elsewhere). Do we treat such skeptics the same away we expect to be treated? Theological baggage must be removed before there is true freedom to engage in scientific, philosophical and theological discussion in this or any context.”
-- John Rankin, “Darwin and the Days of Creation,” www.teinetwork.com/creation.html
“‘Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true?’ I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time. Eventually one person said, ‘I do know one thing: it ought not to be taught in high school.’”
-- Colin Patterson, British Museum of Natural History, in "Darwin on Trial", by Phillip E. Johnson (The American Christian College Journal, 1/08, p. 3)
“I conceived the idea [of uniformitarianism] five or six years ago, that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down [refuted] without giving offense, it would be in an historical sketch…” [i.e., rewriting history].
-- John Lyell (1797-1875), Father of Modern Geology and a Deist, in a letter written to George Poulette Scrope (1830)
“Observe the forms and beauties of sensible things and comprehend the Word of God in them. If you do so, the truth will reveal to you in all such things only He who made them.”
-- Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815–877), Irish philosopher, theologian and poet
Culture:
“The greatest threat to our civilization comes from within that civilization itself: our $64 euphemism for it is secularism. A much blunter word is godlessness. Our civilization, for all its churches and all its churchgoers, is predominantly a secular, godless civilization.”
-- Life Magazine editorial excerpt, April 18, 1949
“A great part of the disaster of contemporary life lies in the fact that it is organized around feelings. People nearly always act on their feelings, and think it only right. The will is then left at the mercy of circumstances that evoke feelings. Christian spiritual formation today must squarely confront this fact and overcome it.”
-- Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor Renovation of the Heart, p. 35
“I think it's just the loss of family values. It's the narcissism of our age, of people thinking only of themselves - not even of their family. When you lose those values of morality, you suddenly have no footing. And I think that's when these people think there's no problem with doing evil.”
-- David Conn, Los Angeles prosecutor
“[K]ey persons within journalism (especially publishers and editors, and also journalism professionalizers from the ranks of the universities and the active press) actively sought to minimize and ultimately to undermine traditional religion”.
-- Richard Flory, in "The Secular Revolution"
“The secularization of the institutions of American public life did not happen by accident or happenstance?.[It was] an achievement of specific groups of people, many of whom intended to marginalize religion. The people at the core of these secularizing movements, at least, knew what they were doing, and they wanted to do it”.
-- Christian Smith, edtior, "The Secular Revolution"
“...College [has] more and more replaced the church as the source of new values, of new ethical outlooks.”
-- Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), American fiction writer
*“Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history and culture also becomes a dead people.”
-- Malcolm X (1925-1965), civil rights leader
“[Star Wars is] designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, 'Here's the answer.' It's to say, 'Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like? What does God sound like? What does God feel like? How do we relate to God?'”
-- George Lucas, “Of Myth and Men,” Time (4/26/99), p. 93.
“The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell . . .”
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British writer and Christian thinker
“It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.”
-- Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), French philosopher, sociologist and theologian
“The only ground of hope for the continuance of our free institutions is in the proper moral and religious training of the children, that they may be prepared to discharge aright the duties of men and citizens.” “The only ground of hope for the continuance of our free institutions is in the proper moral and religious training of the children, that they may be prepared to discharge aright the duties of men and citizens.”
-- President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), on July 4, 1849
“Private opinion creates public opinion…That is why private opinion, and private behavior, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.”
-- Jan Struther (Joyce Anstruther/Placzek, 1901-53), British poet
“Culture is religion incarnate.”
-- Chuck Colson, "BreakPoint", 11/19/07
“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French political/cultural researcher
“I fear we are too much concerned with material things to remember that our real strength lies in spiritual values.”
-- President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), in 1946
Evangelism/Outreach:
*“The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lost the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world.”
-- Charles Malik (1906-1987), President of the UN General Assembly
*“Build bridges of friendship that will bear the weight of the truth.”
-- Kim Gustafson, Common Grounds Consultants
“I preach the gospel all the time...sometimes I use words.”
-- St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
“We must not expect the power of Christ if we reject the program of Christ.”
-- Charles Erdman
“The defense of the Gospel is most effective when combined with the demeanor of Christ.”
-- Art Lindsley
“You're invading our territory. Get back in your church, where you belong.”
-- Jehovah Witnesses in Arlington, TX when they found Christians doing ministry in the streets
*“Will we bow before the god of culture? Or will we...give an account to all those who ask us not just what we believe but why?”
-- Voddie Baucham, Baylor University professor
“All discussion, all debate, all dissidence tends to question and in consequence, to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and its justification.”
-- Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961)
“Let's pretend that you are someone who might be willing, in theory, at some point, possibly, to consider maybe doing something that, while not 'evangelism'-type evangelism, still could be in some way construed as a sort of sharing of hope. Kind of.”
-- Steven C. Bonsey, A Shy Person's Guide to the Practice of Evangelism
“Evangelism is not selling Jesus, but showing Jesus; evangelism is not mere telling about Christ, but about being Christ.”
-- Lee C. Camp, in "Mere Discipleship"
*“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”
-- St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Spanish Catholic mystic
“Whom you would change, you must first love.”
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), civil rights leader
“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish novelist and poet
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
-- Unknown
“Be sure you do not treat those who do not share our true convictions in such a way that we make them glad we’re going to end up in separate destinations!”
“Be sure you do not treat those who do not share our true convictions in such a way that we make them glad we’re going to end up in separate destinations!”
-- Dr. Andre Ong, Senior Pastor, International Christian Church, San Deigo, CA
“You know how many seeds are in an apple. But you don’t know how many apples are in a seed.”
-- Rev. Robert Schuller (b. 1926), former Crystal Cathedral senior pastor
Freedom/Liberty/Bondage/Slavery:
“Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
-- Mark Twain (1857-1938), American writer
“Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.”
-- Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), British economist
*“An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”
-- Patrick Henry (1736-1799), American patriot
“There is no slavery but ignorance.”
-- Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899), American orator and agnostic
“The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.”
-- Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor Renovation of the Heart, p. 95
*“In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.”
-- Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965), Business-statesman
“You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me - and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!”
-- Victor Frankl (1905-1997), Man's Search for Meaning
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without religion.”
-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French historian and political thinker
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
-- Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), signer of the Declaration of Independence and physician
“Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”
-- President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
“Only those who one day fight for freedom are worthy of it.”
-- Lyrics of a song in Cuba
*“Only the disciplined are free.”
-- J. C. Penney (1875-1971), business and entrepreneur
“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.”
-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British intellectual and deist, in “The Crisis”
The atheist worldview of life is “a materialistic culture that frees humanity from superstition.”
-- Howard Thompson, President, American Atheists
*“It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.”
-- Dorothy Thompson (1894-1961), journalist-author
“I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.”
-- President John Adams (1735-1826)
“...The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women...”
-- Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961)
“The hour is fast approaching, on which the honor and success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding country depend. Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty -- that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”
-- Gen. George Washington, spoken to troops on Aug. 23, 1776
“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”
-- President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
*“Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.”
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British intellectual and deist, in Letter to the People of France
“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished by default it can never be recovered.”
-- Dorothy Thompson (1894-1961), syndicated newspaper columnist
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?”
-- President Thomas Jefferson, 1781
“If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave.”
-- Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say, p. 180
“Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”
-- Lord Acton (1834-1902), British scholar and historian
“If you are ruled by mind you are a king; if by body, a slave.”
-- Cato (234-149 BC), Roman statesman-historian
“It does not take a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
-- Samuel Adams (1722-1803), Founding Father
“All of us denounce war—all of us consider it man’s greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high.”
-- President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
“Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.”
-- Paul Valery (1871-1945), French poet, essayist and philosopher
“Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos.”
-- Cullen Hightower (b. 1923), American salesman and trainer
“Our freedom to discipline ourselves is a freedom we can lose if we don't use it.”
-- Cullen Hightower (b. 1923), American salesman and trainer
Goals/Priorities:
*“I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the Kingdom of God. If anything I have will advance that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only as by giving or keeping it I may advance the kingdom of Him I love.”
-- David Livingstone (1813-1873), Scottish medical missionary to Africa
*“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”
-- Billy Sunday (1862-1935), evangelist and former major league baseball star
“Only in growth, reform and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.”
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, (1906-2001) wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh
“When I was younger, I felt life was about acquiring things. But as I get older, I know life is totally about losing everything.”
-- Mike Tyson, former world boxing champion (6/13/05 South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10C)
“Your heart, my friend, is the size of a stadium. If you try to fill it with small things - a new car, a vacation, a promotion at work, a bigger home, a stock portfolio - a mournful echo will fill your life. But if you fill your stadium with all of humanity and search for ways to make their lives better each day, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing in the right way.”
-- Roy H. Williams, “The Wizard,” advertising guru
*“Let every student well consider...that the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”
-- Harvard College Laws (1642)
“He who lives for himself runs a very small business.”
-- Otto Derkson, WorldTeam missionary
“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.”
-- Lord Acton (1834-1902), British scholar and historian
“For most of my life I have believed that success is found in the running of the race. How you run the race - your planning, preparation, practice, and performance - counts for everything. Winning or losing is a by-product, an aftereffect, of that effort. For me, it's the quality of your effort that counts most and offers the greatest and most long-lasting satisfaction.”
-- John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach in Wooden on Leadership, (p. 8).
*“They can cut my body in a thousand pieces, and every single one will cry out 'Jesus'.”
-- Unnamed evangelist working among Muslims in a south Asian country
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
-- John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”
-- Ben Franklin (1706-1790), Founding Father
“Ironically, those who seek their ultimate value in the next world are the only ones able to do much good in this one.”
-- Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction (1983), p. 333
“Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has a deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is part of an unending plan.”
-- President Calvin Coolidge, July 25, 1924
“If you are not doing what you should be doing by the time you graduate from high school, the odds are strongly stacked against you that you won't start doing them in college. Since this is indisputable, that means right now you, as a high school student, are as close to Christ in fellowship and obedience as you will ever be. Question: how close is that?”
-- Bill Perry, international student missionary and pastor
“We have three kinds of guys on our team. We have guys that get it; they play good; they understand how to play winning football. We have some guys that are trying to get it, and they are working hard every day? We are supporting them, and we want the guys that have it to support them. Then we have some guys that don't get it and don't know that they don't get it. We are trying to replace them. We only have a couple left.”
-- Nick Saban, former Miami Dolphins head coach, on 9/11/06 (Sun-Sentinel, 9/12/06, D-1)
“Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), in Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1739
“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)
“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist, poet and Transcendentalist leader
“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 hit it.”
-- Michelangelo (1475-1564), Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, poet and architect
“Everyone thinks of changing the world. No one thinks of changing himself.”
-- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian novelist, pacifist/anarchist, educational reformer and philosopher
“Planning your path is easier when you have an eye on the horizon. Don’t be an ostrich.”
-- Roy Williams, advertising guru (Monday Morning Memo, 1/28/08)
“I’d like to end up sort of unforgettable.”
-- Ringo Starr, former Beattle and rock icon (by J. Rentilly “Verbatim” column, US Airways magazine, January, 08, p. 90)
Government/Public Office/Laws:
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”
-- President Gerald Ford (1913-2006)
“Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life.”
-- President Gerald Ford (1913-2006)
“Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.” (“Laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.”)
-- Tacitus (56-120 AD), Roman historian
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
-- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), English philosopher
“He who introduces into public office the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
-- Ronald Reagan, then California governor (1911-2004)
“Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek name for the man who took no share in public matters.”
-- Edith Hamilton (1867-1963), educator & scholar
“Once you abolish God, the government becomes the God.”
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British writer and Christian thinker
“I always try to remind people that the purpose of religious leaders is for our afterlife. The purpose of elected officials is for this life on Earth.”
-- Bob Mulholland, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee (2004)
“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
-- Lord Acton (1834-1902), British historian
“I do not want to end up with an American style of politics, with us going out there beating our chest about our faith. Politics and religion - it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if [religion] ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy.”
-- Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, in 2005
“In a free society, the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.”
-- Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American journalist
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”
-- President George Washington (1732-1799)
“Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion or politics... The things that will destroy us are: politics without principles, pleasures without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality.”
-- Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948), Indian spiritual and national leader
“The soul of Germany, you can leave that to me.”
-- Adolf Hitler (1899-1945) to pastor Martin Neimoller (1892-1984)
“Most of the work of government does not need to be done. And, if you can remember that, if we could all remember that, this country would be better off.”
-- Lyn Nofziger (1924-2006), Reagan White House adviser
“The whole art of government consists in being honest.”
-- President Thomas Jefferson, 1786
“Democracy is the outgrowth of the religious conviction of the sacredness of every human life. On the religious side, its highest embodiment is the Bible; on the political side, the Constitution.”
-- President Herbert Hoover, 1874-1964
“Given the right policies, intellectual and economic productivity trumps biological reproductivity. 'Between 1820 and 1992,' Ronald Bailey writes in Earth Report 2000, 'world population quintupled even as the world's economies grew 40-fold.' Productivity matters more than other statistical measures because it demonstrates we're doing more with less. That's why, for example, starvation is a political disaster, not a natural one. There's literally too much food in the world.”
-- Jonah Goldberg, “Worrywarts still don't get it,” Sun-Sentinel 25A, 10/20/06
“I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.”
-- President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
-- Patrick Henry (1736-1799), Founding Father and American patriot
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
-- President John Adams (1797-1801)
“No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.”
-- Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 1824
“We don't give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students ‘low-risk’ forms of smoking on the grounds that ‘kids are going to smoke anyway.’ We shouldn't be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.”
-- Jennifer Roback Morse, American author
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress ... But then I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910), American writer
“Contrary to the conventional wisdom and the predictions of computer models, the Earth's climate has not warmed appreciably in the past two decades, and probably not since about 1940. The evidence is overwhelming: a) Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979. In fact, if one ignores the unusual El Nino year of 1998, one sees a cooling trend. b) Radiosonde data from balloons released regularly around the world confirm the satellite data in every respect. This fact has been confirmed in a recent report of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. c) The well-controlled and reliable thermometer record of surface temperatures for the continental United States shows no appreciable warming since about 1940. The same is true for Western Europe. These results are in sharp contrast to the GLOBAL instrumental surface record, which shows substantial warming, mainly in NW Siberia and subpolar Alaska and Canada. d) But tree-ring records for Siberia and Alaska and published ice-core records that I have examined show NO warming since 1940. In fact, many show a cooling trend. Conclusion: The post-1980 global warming trend from surface thermometers is not credible. The absence of such warming would do away with the widely touted ‘hockey stick’ graph (with its ‘unusual’ temperature rise in the past 100 years)…”
-- Dr. S. Fred Singer President, environmental physicist, founder of The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Climate Change, July 18, 2000
“We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.”
– President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if the faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”
-- President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
“Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.”
-- Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American writer, journalist and commentator
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘guilty’.”
-- President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
“Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.”
-- Bob Edwards (b., 1947), Public Radio International personality
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”
-- Groucho Marx (1890-1977), comedian
“The only ground of hope for the continuance of our free institutions is in the proper moral and religious training of the children, that they may be prepared to discharge aright the duties of men and citizens.”
-- President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), on July 4, 1849
“Give me control over a nation’s currency and I care not who makes its laws.”
-- Baron M. A. Rothschild (1744-1812), family founder of wealthy Jewish financiers
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”
-- Samuel Adams (1722-1803), US Founding Father
“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), President and Founding Father
“English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong.”
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British journalist, poet and philosopher
“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
-- Attributed to Gideon Tucker, New York state surrogate judge in a case in 1866
“Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow."
-- Elias Boudinot, (1740-1821), American lawyer, statesman and co-founder of the American Bible Society
“[W]hen all government...in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided...”
-- President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
-- “The 10 Cannots” by William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962), German-born American religious leader and influential public speaker
“The government solution to any problem is usually at least as bad as the problem.”
-- Milton Friedman (1912-2006), American Nobel Laureate economist
“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.”
-- President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), in 1974
“If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist and satirist
“Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.”
-- Frank McKinney (“Kin”) Hubbard (1868-1930), American cartoonist, humorist and journalist
“Talk is cheap, except when Congress does it.”
-- Cullen Hightower (b. 1923), American salesman and trainer
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what’s going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?”
-- Will Rogers (1879-1935), American cowboy, actor and humorist
“The goal of the ‘liberals’ — as it emerges from the record of the past decades — was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot — by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.”
-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Russian-born philosopher and novelist
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
-- Plato (428/427-347 BC), classical Greek philosopher and writer
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British writer and Christian thinker
“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
-- Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American socialist, pacifist and frequent presidential candidate
“We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.”
-- Frank McKinney (“Kin”) Hubbard (1868-1930), American cartoonist, humorist and journalist
“If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible.”
-- President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), in 1925
“Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy — by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this. First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes... Second, the two parties determine on which questions we are allowed to vote. They simply refuse to engage the questions that matter most to many people. If you are against affirmative action, for whom do you vote? If you regard the schools as abominations... it is fraud. In a sense, the candidates do not even exist. A presidential candidate consists of two speechwriters, a makeup man, a gestures coach, ad agency, two pollsters and an interpreter of focus groups. Depending on his numbers, the handlers may suggest a more fixed stare to crank up his decisiveness quotient for male or Republican voters, or dial in a bit of compassion for a Democratic or female audience. The newspapers will report this calculated transformation. Yet it works. You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.”
-- Fred Reed (b. 1945), independent columnist (Patriot Post, Vol 8, #12; 3/17/08)
“The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up.”
-- Milton Friedman (1912-2006), American Nobel Laureate economist
“The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay... If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.”
-- Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French classical liberal theorist, political economist, politician and author in "The Law"
“To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.”
-- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1880), British Prime Minister
“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
-- President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
“Lord, the money we do spend on government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.”
-- Will Rogers (1879-1935), American cowboy, actor and humorist
“A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny.”
-- President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
“I’m proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money.”
-- Authur Godfrey (1903-1983), American radio and TV broadcaster/entertainer
History/Time/Eternity:
“To move with the times is, of course, to go where all times go.”
-- C. S. Lewis (1893-1963), British writer and thinker
“History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.“
-- Douglas McArthur (1880-1964), American general in WW 2
“The one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history.”
-- Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), British scholar and historian
“All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”
-- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer and thinker
“You know, we'll hardly get our feet out of time [and] into eternity that we'll bow our heads in shame and humiliation. We'll gaze on eternity and say, 'My God! Look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ, and I've come to the Judgment Seat almost a pauper!”
-- A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), American pastor, author
“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”
-- President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
“From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.”
-- Will Durant (1885-1981), American historian, philosopher and writer
“History is not life. But since only life makes history, the union of the two is obvious.”
-- Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), US Supreme Court Justice
*“Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history.”
-- Joan Wallach Scott (2004), Princeton women's history professor
“To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.”
-- Lord Acton (1834-1902), British scholar and historian
“History is philosophy teaching by examples.”
-- Lord Henry Bolingbroke (1678-1751), British philosopher and politician
“Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but in earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.”
-- Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), Renaissance English explorer and poet
“The man who views the world at 50 the same way as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
-- Mohammed Ali, boxing great
“The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.”
-- Dawson Trotman (1906-1956), founder of The Navigators
Ideas/Dreams:
“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.”
-- Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), British economist
*“Ideas have consequences.”
-- Professor Richard M. Weaver (1910-1963), American scholar
“The one who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”
-- Anonymous
“When [Satan] undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did not hit her with a stick, but with an idea. It was with an idea that God could not be trusted and that she must act on her own to secure her own well-being.”
-- Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 100
“Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life.”
-- Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), Scottish pastor and Bible teacher
“There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
-- Everett Dirksen (1896-1969), US senator
“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”
-- Victor Hugo (1773-1885), French poet, novelist and writer
“There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
-- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), British Parliamentarian
“The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.”
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German theologian
“The only force that can overcome an idea and a faith is another and better idea and faith, positively and fearlessly upheld.”
-- Dorothy Thompson (1894-1961), syndicated newspaper columnist
“If you cannot be the master of your language, you must become its slave.”
-- Richard Mitchell, in "Less than words can say", p. 180
“Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no idea behind it, is simply a brutality.”
-- President James A. Garfield (1831-1881), lay preacher
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain (1835-1910), American writer
“If a thing is absolutely true, how can it not also be a lie? An absolute must contain its opposite.”
-- Charlotte Painter, writer/educator
“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94), American judge
“We’re either going to save the world or no one will be saved.”
-- Maurice Strong, Canadian businessman and internationalist http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maurice_strong.html
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring about?” l
-- Maurice Strong, Canadian businessman and internationalist http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maurice_strong.htm
International Ministry:
*“No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.”
-- Robert M. Gates, former CIA Director, President of Texas A&M University
“He who introduces into public office the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
-- Ronald Reagan, then CA governor (1911-2004)
“Europe is 'committing demographic suicide, systematically depopulating itself,' according to [U.S. biographer of Pope John Paul II George] Weigel.”
-- James P. Gannon, “Is God dead in Europe?” USAToday op ed, posted 1/8/2006 [Link]
“A young man from a wealthy family went to college to major in business management and engineering. He was tall, shy and very respectful of others. He developed a friendship with one of his professors and it completely changed his life. The articulate professor's lectures and example of discipline, self-denial and devotion to his faith transformed this quiet student. This professor galvanized his life by radically changing his worldview, his direction and his ambitions; he finally found a purpose in life.
The year was 1974. The university was the Jedda Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. And the student was Osama bin Laden.”
-- Steve Douglass, president of Campus Crusade in a CCCI letter, July 2004
Leadership:
“The church is not made up of spiritual giants; only broken men can lead others to the cross.”
-- David J. Bosch, Afrikaner Dutch Reformed pastor and missionary
“Who would lead must follow truth.”
--Bumper sticker
“A vision without a task makes a visionary. A task without a vision makes a drudgery. But a vision with a task makes a missionary.”
-- Mel Heal, missionary
“Get involved...the world is run by people who show up.”
-- Bumper sticker
“One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.”
-- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British utilitarian philosopher
“Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.”
-- Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French philosopher
Life/Death/Power:
“Death is the ultimate weapon of the tyrant; resurrection does not make a covenant with death, it overthrows it.”
-- N. T. Wright, British theologian
“We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”
-- Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaida leader and terrorist
“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British atheistic philosopher
*“The only thing worse than dying is living a boring life.”
-- Seattle Pastor Mark Driscoll
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
-- Voltaire (1694-1778), French atheistic philosopher
“Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
-- Lord Acton (1834-1902), British scholar and historian
“The evidence for the Resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion.”
-- Anthony Flew, skeptic British philosopher in Philosophia Christi
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
-- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady
“Don't be afraid that your life will end. Be afraid that it will never begin.”
-- Grace Hansen, American dance director (1913-)
“Real life does not come naturally. It is counterintuitive. It is a skill we have to learn. That's because the way to real life is not something we get, but something we give.“
-- J. P. Moreland, philosopher, in The Lost Virtue of Happiness (2006)
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: 'Wow! What a ride!'”
- Robert Wickman, businessman
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
-- Martin Luther King Jr., (1929-1968), American civil rights leader
“You can kill us, but you cannot do us any real harm.”
-- Justin Martyr (100-165), martyred in Rome
“In practice, communism is nothing less than sheer barbarism that makes even the horrors of Nazism pale in comparison. Professor Rudolph J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii outlines that barbarism in his book Death by Government, a comprehensive detailing of the roughly 170 million people murdered by their own governments during the 20th Century. From 1917 to its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union murdered about 62 million of its own people. During Mao Zedong’s reign, 35,236,000, possibly more, Chinese citizens were murdered. By comparison, Hitler’s Nazis managed to murder 21 million of its citizens and citizens in nations they conquered. Adding these numbers to the 60 million lives lost in war makes the 20th Century mankind’s most brutal era…. The very attempt to achieve the utopian goals of communism requires the ruthless suppression of the individual and an attack on any institution that might compromise the loyalty of the individual to the state. That’s why one of the first orders of business for communism, and those who support its ideas, is the attack on religion and the family.”
-- Walter Williams, “The [Colorado Springs] Gazette”, 8/16/06, p. M6 (reprinted in The American Christian College Journal, 11/06, p. 6)
Military/Battle/War/Conflict/Offense-Defense/Sports:
“Everywhere in the world the sight of a twelve-man squad of GIs brought joy to people's hearts. Because the sight of those American kids meant...they had come not to conquer or terrorize but to liberate.”
-- Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002), American historian
“War is deceit.”
-- Mohammed (571-632), Prophet of Islam
“It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you've got to have is faith and discipline when you're not yet a winner.”
-- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
“It's not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.”
-- Paul “Bear” Bryant (1913-1983), football coaching legend of Alabama's Crimson Tide
*“Who has greater combat than he that labors to overcome himself?”
-- Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), Catholic theologian
*“One good spy is worth 10,000 soldiers.”
-- Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, circa 5th Century BC
*“The best players don't win championships. The best team players win championships.”
-- John Wooden, former UCLA coach
“Vine, Vidi, Vici.” (Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered.”)
-- Julius Caesar (100-44 BC), Roman military and political leader
“It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men.”
-- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
*“The most exhilarating thing in life is to be shot at with no effect.”
-- Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister
*“Defense wins championships.”
-- Numerous coaches
*“In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.”
-- Douglas McArthur, (1880-1964), American general in WW 2
*“In war, those who believe in tolerance have lost before the first battle begins.”
-- International student missionary and pastor Bill Perry
*“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
-- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British utilitarian philosopher
“When it comes to the culture, there's no such thing as peaceful coexistence. If we're not defending truth, fighting for Christian values in all of life, the truth will be sacrificed on the altar of mainstream secularism.
-- Chuck Colson & Anne Morse, Christianity Today, Vol. 48, No. 4, Page 112 (2004)
“Does this sound like a militant call to arms? I hope so. I can think of nothing more important? God will judge us harshly if we stand around enjoying the warm glow of our culture's approval - while the culture crumbles.”
-- Chuck Colson & Anne Morse, Christianity Today, Vol. 48, No. 4, Page 112 (2004)
“An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery... Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”
-- Patrick Henry (1736-1799), American patriot
“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”
-- Wayne Gretsky, hockey great
*“Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief . . . (But) we tried to rig it up as an intercom in our houses and cabins and boats and cars - not to call in fire power for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den.”
-- John Piper, pastor, author and theologian
“Winning is not a sometime thing: it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
-- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
*“Aggressive fighting for the right is the greatest sport in the world.”
-- President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
“Prayer is not a preparation for work, it IS work. Prayer is not a preparation for the battle, it IS the battle. Prayer is two-fold: definite asking and definite waiting to receive.”
-- Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), Scottish pastor and Bible teacher
*“If life has taught me anything, it is that one must fight.”
-- Ella Winter (1898-1980), American journalist
“If self-preservation is that important, then there is no point in going in the first place. God looks for children who are willing to die for him if necessary.”
-- Unnamed Chinese house church leader, when asked about the cost of evangelizing in Muslim lands.
“That general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.”
-- Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, circa 5th Century BC
*“Jesus said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church. It dawned on me one day that a gate is not an offensive weapon? Gates are not a threat, they are defensive, and the gates Jesus was talking about aren't pearly ones-they're the gates of hell! The church is to be on the offense, not the defense? It is time we stopped being intimidated by a gate!? We are so defensive that it's offensive!”
-- Neil Cole, church planter
*“It is as if Jesus had parachuted into enemy territory, gathered followers, trained them, and then set them loose behind enemy lines with the intent of taking more and more territory from the other king [Satan]. Taking that territory is done through freeing those who are captive to and oppressed by the enemy.”
-- Charles Kraft, missionary/author
“...The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British scholar and deist
*“We win our games in practice. We learn and follow the fundamentals of our game better than anyone in the league. All of our games are won in practice.”
-- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
“You know a constellation of imperishable values. Live by the mighty truth and power of God. Live above the sludge of a sick society. Live among dispirited humans as the vanguard of peace and good news. Remember, our Commander in Chief has no use for tin soldiers.”
-- Carl F. H. Henry (1913-2003), Christian theologian
“Life has meaning only in the struggle. Victory and defeat are in the hands of God, so let us celebrate the struggle.”
-- Old Swahili warrior proverb
“Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.”
-- Dr. Thomas F. Jones Jr. (1916-1981), President of University of South Carolina
“Only those who one day fight for freedom are worthy of it.”
-- Lyrics of a song in Cuba
“There are no victories at discount prices.”
-- President Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969), American general during WW 2
*“Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up.”
-- George S. Patton (1885-1945), American general
*“Total victory is the only acceptable goal in a mind-control war because humanity is diminished so long as a single mind remains trapped in superstition [supernatural religion] by programming or choice.”
-- Howard Thompson, President, American Atheists
“Our business, like any other, is to be learned by constant practice and experience; and our experience is to be had in war, not at reviews.”
-- Sir John Moore (1761-1809), British General
“It is not I that smite, stab, and slay, but God and my prince, for my hand and my body are now their servants.”
-- Martin Luther (1483-1536), Reformation leader
“An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.”
-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British philosopher and deist
“What is the office of the duly ordained soldiery? To defend the church, to assail infidelity, to venerate the priesthood, to protect the poor from injuries...to pour out their blood for their brothers...and, if need be, to lay down their lives. The high praises of God are in their throats, and two-edged swords are in their hands.”
-- John of Salisbury (1110-1180), English scholastic philosopher
*“Pain is temporary; quitting lasts forever.”
-- Lance Armstrong, American world champion cyclist
“In thus sending out his trainees, [Jesus] set afoot a perpetual world revolution: one that is still in process and will continue until God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.... He has chosen to accomplish this with and, in part, through his students.”
-- USC Professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, pp. 14-15.
“The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow its contribution to the welfare of all.... If every word spoken in behalf of truth has its influence and every deed done for the right weighs in the final account, it is immaterial to the Christian whether his eyes behold victory or whether he dies in the midst of conflict.”
-- William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), lawyer and politician
“On the battlefield the real enemy is fear and not the bayonet and the bullet.”
-- Robert Jackson (1892-1954), Supreme Court Justice
“In war, never be neutral. The victor will consider you part of his spoils, and the vanquished will have no room for you in his hiding place.”
-- Anonymous
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest expression every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point.”
-- Martin Luther (1483-1536), Reformation leader
“Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no idea behind it, is simply a brutality.”
-- President James A. Garfield (1831-1881), lay preacher
“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.”
-- Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), French dramatist
“The winning of war -- the effectiveness in such things -- is in the heart, in the determination, in the faith. It is in our beliefs in our country, in our God, everything that goes to make up America.”
-- President Dwight Eisenhower, Dec. 14, 1953
“Get used to the fact that your life is lived in the context of warfare. Every breath you take is an act of war. To survive and thrive in the midst of the spiritual battle in which you live, seek a faith context and experience that will enhance your capacity to be Christlike. This mission demands singleminded commitment and a disregard for the criticism of those who lack the same dedication to the cause of Christ. You answer to only one Commander in Chief, and only you will give an explanation for your choices. Do whatever you have to do to prove that you fear God, you love Him, and you serve Him-yes, that you live only for Him.
-- George Barna, church researcher, in Revolution (2005), pp. 26-27.
“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice.”
-- General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), Thayer Award Acceptance Address, West Point, NY, 5/12/62.
“Turning the other cheek isn't submissive. It's defiant.”
-- Roy H. William, advertising guru
“Safety isn't the ultimate goal. True exemplary conduct is. What is important is that whatever does happen to me I will do absolutely nothing that will shame my character or my God.”
-- Private First Class William Kiessel, 1943 letter to parents from France, cited in Breakpoint, “Faith Under Fire”, 5/28/07
“I never wanted our players to think the Super Bowl was the ultimate. I always talk about ‘Yes, we're going to win, but what are we going to do as we're winning? What are we going to do after we win?’ Winning the Super Bowl is not the destination. It's not an end point. It's what you do from here.”
-- Tony Dungy, Indianapolis Colts head coach, Newsweek 7/16/07
“The promises of God are to the believer…armory, containing all manner of offensive and defensive weapons.”
-- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), British Reformed Baptist pastor, the “Prince of Preachers”
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
-- John Adams (1735-1826), US President and Founding Father
“All of us denounce war—all of us consider it man’s greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high.”
-- President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
“Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.”
-- US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again… who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who