Compilation

So these are all things: prayers, quotes, excerpts, poems, etc. that I love. I have typed them all in a Word document and, seeing as this blog has become a new journal of sorts, it's time to transfer. I want all of these things in one place. They're very important to me. It would take far too long to write everything out in a book.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
- Every person has secret sorrows which the world knows not; but often we call a man cold when he is only sad.
- The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing service.
- The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you sought after without the thought of fame.
- Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and a bold heart.
- However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is a failure.
- It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from disappointments. Such wounds always leave scars.
- If we could read the secret history of our enemies we would find in each one's life enough sorrow and suffering to disarm all hostility.

WALT WHITMAN
- Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. For I am large, I contain multitudes.
- Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, for battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
- I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God. I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand Him not in the least.
- Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.

EMILY DICKINSON
- A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
- Dwell in possibility.
- Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, exponent of breath.
- Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.

EDGAR ALLEN POE
- Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
- I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active- no more happy- nor more wise, than he was 6,000 years ago.
- Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

ELIZABETH BROWNING
- You were made perfectly to be loved- and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.

C.S. LEWIS
- Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
-Love is not affectionate feeling but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

B. JOHNSON
- Attitude is the mind's paintbrush; it can color any situation.

CHARLES MALIK
- The greatest thing about any civilization is the human person, and the greatest thing about this person is the possibility of an encounter with Jesus Christ.

PHILLIPS BROOKS
- Never pray for an easier life- pray to be a stronger person. Never pray for tasks equal to your power- pray for power equal to your tasks. Then doing your work will be no miracle, for you will be it.

STANLEY LUNDQUIST
- God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to the deny the feelings, but to find the meanings underlying them.

MOTHER TERESA
- We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature- all things- grows in silence. See the stars, the moon, the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much.

RICK WARREN
- God is love. He didn't need us. But He wanted us. That is the most amazing thing.

ELEANOR POWELL
- What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.

CHARLES DICKENS
- Reflect on your present blessings of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all have some.

JONATHAN SWIFT
- Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

MALTBIE D. BABCOCK
- Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings in counting troubles.

VICTOR HUGO
- Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the capability of the body, the soul is on its knees.

WOODY ALLEN
- Only God can make a tree; probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

DAVID STEINDL-RAST
- Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise- then you will discover the fullness of life.

JULIAN OF NORWICH
- The greatest honor we can give God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love.

MARY CROWLEY
- Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyways.

SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI
- Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love.
- It is not use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
- Start by doing what is necessary, then do what's possible. Suddenly you are doing the impossible.

DESMOND TUTU
- Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death; victory is ours through Him who loves us.

INGRID WOLF
- We are threads of all colors, gifted and free, creating for Earth a tapestry of justice.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
- Lord, replace my blindness with Your vision, my deafness with Your healing voice, my insensitivity with Your understanding, my sinfulness with Your love.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
- To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor.

REINHOLD NIEBUHR
- Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do- however virtuous- can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as so from the standpoint of a friend or foe; therefore we must be saved by forgiveness.

ST. JOHN EUDES
- Faith is a beam radiating from the face of God.

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
- God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor the ocean or the starts, but through Jesus Christ. He speaks in a language that is adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.

DANIEL WEBSTER
- If I might comprehend Jesus, I could not believe in Him. He would be no greater than myself. Such is my consciousness of sin and inability that I must have a superhuman Savior.

JOHN NEWTON
- How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. It soothes sorrows, heals wounds, and drives away fear.
- My memory is nearly gone but I remember two things: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.

CHARLES SPURGEON
- Never neglect your spiritual meals, or you will lack stamina and your spirits will sink. Live on the substantial doctrines of grace, and you will outlive and outwork those who delight in the pastry and syllabus of 'modern thought.'

D. A. CARSON
- If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, He would have sent an economist. If He'd thought our greatest need was entertainment, He would have sent a comedian or an artist. If He'd perceived our greatest need was political stability, He'd have sent a good politician. If He'd perceived our greatest need was health, He'd have sent a doctor. But He perceived our greatest need involved our sin, alienation from Him, our rebellion, our death; and He sent us a Savior instead.

JONATHAN EDWARDS
- Christ loved us as if He could receive no addition by us if we are added to Him. He is not the greater or the better, for He is the infinite and all-sufficient, and cannot be added to. Though He is graciously pleased, having set His love upon us. But if we love Christ, we shall not only be added to, but we shall be made. We shall come our of nothing into being. It will be a far greater exaltation than if we were from beggars turned to potent monarchs.

WILLIAM BARCLAY
- For believers Heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what Heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be forever with Him.

A. W. TOZER
- People who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks: they are facing only one direction, they can never turn back, and they no longer have plans of their own.

CORRIE TEN BOOM
- When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.

WARREN WIERSBE
- Do you need help today? Lift up your hands to the Lord in supplication and in expectation, and soon you will lift your hands in jubilation and celebration.

WILLIAM CAREY
- Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS
- There is a Christianity which takes off fetters instead of binding them on. It breaks every yoke. It lifts up the bowed down. It passes, link by link, until it finds the lowest in humanity's chain. It reaches down its arm and tells them to stand up and move on.

LEONARD RAVENHILL
- We are still paddling on the edge of the ocean of the possibilities of grace.

OSWALD CHAMBERS
- We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or the other beautiful attractions in life. Those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valleys and ordinary things of life; that is where we must prove our stamina and strength.

NELSON MANDELA
- There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
- No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, background, or religion. People simply learn to hate. But if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
- I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter. I have had missteps along the way. But I have discovered that after climbing a great hill, there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities. I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.
- To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
- If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with it. Then he becomes your partner.
- Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.

MICHAEL WILLIAM CHIESA
- Always maintain a faith in God. We are fallible mortals with limited life spans and limited lives. But we can do miraculous things when God works through us. Faith provides an optimist's framework for life and continued hope for the better, regardless of how inadequate abilities seem.

EEYORE
- We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it. We can't all be happy, loving song and dance, here we go 'round the mulberry bush.

ONE TREE HILL
- At this moment there are more than six billion people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just not facing the truth at all. Some are evil men, at war with good. Some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world, six billion souls. And sometimes all you need is one.

GILMORE GIRLS
- People can live a hundred years without really living for a minute.

GREY'S ANATOMY
- I love you in a really really big, pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you.

HEROES
- There is a moment in every war when everything changes. A moment when the road bends. Alliances and battle lines shift. The rules of engagement are rewritten. Moments like these can change the nature of the battle, and turn the tide for either side. So we do what we can to understand them. To be ready for change we steady our hearts, curb our fears, muster our forces, and look for signs in the stars.
- We struggle to make a difference. To change the world, to dream of hope. Never knowing for certain who we'll meet along the way. Who, among the world of strangers, will hold our hands, touch our hearts, and share the pain of trying.

THE HOLIDAY
- I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said 'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its shear power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said 'love is blind.' Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others it is simply lost. Bu then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there is another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that kills most of its victims; it's called unrequited love.

DAVE FOREMAN
- A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

GEORGIE RIDGEWAY (church leader)
- Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.

NORMAN MAILER
- There's that law, so cruel and just, that says one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

A CINDERELLA STORY
- Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.

ELIZABETH WURTZEL
- It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House it will be because we're all so bummed out.
- I start to feel like I can't maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe it was something about how stupid my whole life was. I don't know. Why does the rest of the world put up with hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorry, or the need to keep on keeping on? I don't know the answer. I don't want any more vicissitudes, any more of this try again stuff. I just want out. I'm so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.
- I thought so little of myself, felt I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony.
- I'm the girl who is lost in space, disappearing always. I am forever fading away and receding into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile- the phony, clownish curve- will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again I want to assure you I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor. With every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible.
- A human being can survive almost anything, as long as there is an end in sight. But this, this is so insidious and it compounds daily. It's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.

ANONYMOUS
- Don't give up, it's not the end. There is hope for every fallen to pick himself up when he thinks he can. With every passing second comes a second chance.
- Sometimes God's work is accomplished with drizzle, not a storm.
- The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
- We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token we can experience joy because we have known sadness.
- You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words even, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
- We're only put at the bottom so we can reach for the top.
- Live the life you want to live. Be the person you want to be. Remember to make decisions, learn from mistakes, and know the object of trying. Sometimes it takes letting go of what you thought you needed to find out what you already had.
- The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but rising every time we fall.
- We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
- At some point you make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So you can waste your lives drawing lines or live life crossing them.