Because I read a lot, for not only the research I do on my various on-going writing projects but also for pleasure and presentations, I run across numerous thought-provoking quotations from a variety of sources. Today I share with you a few of the quotations I've encountered recently. Some of them are appropriate for writers, others for students, still others for Christians desiring growth, some for parents, and even one for history buffs. Enjoy. But most importantly, think about what you read.
"Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better." (C.S. Lewis)
"Learning . . . takes a multitude of forms; expect to find them in places where you least expect them to be." (William Zinsser)
"Think much, but say little; be quick at work and slow at talk; and above all, ask the great Lord to set a watch over your lips." (C.H. Spurgeon)
"If you are too lazy to launch out expecting great things from God and attempting great things for God, then do not blame your shallow life on divine Providence." (Vance Havner)
"[W]hen you get sucked into the tyranny of the urgent . . . you put off what's really important. When you say yes to everything, you say yes to nothing." (John Mark Comer, quoted by Jordan Raynor)
"They say we Southerners live in the past. . . . [F]or us memory is not an inventory, not a catalog of events, but a time machine. It lifts us off the dull treadmill of grown-up responsibilities to a time of adventure and wonder. The past is not dead, and so the dead are never really gone. We resurrect them, daily. . . ." (Rick Bragg)
[Having reared four daughters, this last quotation is particularly poignant for me, recalling to mind the many battlefields our family toured over the years while the kids were growing up!]
"A daddy can't have any fun without his children. There is no use his trying. Everywhere he goes he thinks, Yes, this would be fun if only my little girls were here, but what good is it without them? He may go to see statues of something, but they are not what he really sees; he sees his little girls, playing, far away. But when he gets their letters, then he is happy." (Max Perkins, quoted by A. Scott Berg)