Excellent Wisdom Quotes
The test of Success is not what you do when you are on top, but how high you bounce when you hit bottom! – General George Patton
“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging.” J. S. Bach
It’s not that I am smarter, I just stick with problems longer…..-Einstein.
You need to resist the tug of people against you as you reach for higher goals! ~ Gen. George Patton
“Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.” ~ Oliver Cromwell
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. ~ Albert Einstein
“Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” ~Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.” -A. W. Tozer
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those that do evil, but because of those that look on and do nothing.” ~Albert Einstein~
“A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.” ~ Richard Baxter
I wish, brothers and sisters, that we could all imitate “the pearl oyster”—A hurtful particle intrudes itself into its shell, and this vexes and grieves it. It cannot reject the evil, but what does it do but “cover” it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl! Oh, that we could do so with the provocations we receive from our fellow Christians, so that pearls of patience, gentleness, and forgiveness might be bred within us by that which otherwise would have harmed us. ~ Charles Spurgeon
The comical reality is: those people we fear will judge us, are not so much thinking about us, as they are fearing what we are judging about them. Don P
“People tell me, judge not lest ye be judged. I always tell them, twist not scripture lest ye be like satan.” ~ Paul Washer – 1 Cor 2:15 But he who is spiritual judges all things; John 7:24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
“There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough – a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice – which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.” ~J.C. Ryle
“Some of the most glaring sinners known to me were once members of a church; and were, as I believe, led to make a profession by undue pressure, well-meant but ill-judged.” ~Charles Spurgeon
“He that would know what a man believes, let him attend rather to what he does than to what he talks.” ~John Tillotson in Obligations to a Holy Life
Christianity does not consist in any partial amendment of our lives, any particular moral virtues, but in an entire change of our natural temper, a life wholly devoted to God. – William Law
What you are when you are alone with God, that you are – and nothing more. You may make a great show of love and faith in church, singing like Pavarotti or attracting the masses to your profound Sunday school lectures. But if there is no private communion between you and Jesus – frequent and deep communion – then your religion is worthless. ~ Kris Lundgaard – The Enemy Within,
“Grace is given to trade with; it is given to lay out, not lay up.” ~ Thomas Brooks
“Let us not please ourselves that we have deep understandings, but let us shew our understandings by our practice.” – Richard Sibbes
“He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ.” - Thomas Brooks.
I could find no one part of Divinity more profitable in these times…than that which consists more in experience and practice, than in theory and speculation; and more principally tends to the sanctification of the heart, than the informing of the judgment and the increasing of knowledge; and to the stirring up of all to the practice of what they k now in the duties of a godly life, and in bringing forth the fruits of faith in new obedience; than to fit them for discourse. ~ John Downame “Guide to Godliness”
“If no one is accusing you of being too legalistic, then you probably aren’t living a holy life. If no one is accusing you of being a ‘bleeding heart’, then you probably aren’t loving enough. If no one is accusing you of being too dogmatic, then you probably aren’t standing for the truth. If no one is accusing you or criticizing you…you probably aren’t doing anything significant.” – Israel Wayne
“Do not believe that the common Christianity of the present age will carry anybody to heaven. It is a counterfeit and a sham. It does not make men to differ from their fellows, it pretends to faith and has none, talks about love and does not show it, brags of truth and evaporates it into thin air in its latitudinarian charity. God give us back the real thing—stimuli, strong belief in the gospel, real faith in Jesus, real prayer to him, real spiritual power. Then again there will be persecution, but it will only blow away the chaff and leave the pure wheat! The world likes us better because we like the world better; it calls us friends because we doff our colors and sheathe our swords and play the craven; but if we preach and live the gospel in the old apostolic way, we shall soon have the devil roaring round the camp and the seed of the serpent hissing on all sides, but we fear not, for “the Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” ~ Charles Spurgeon ~ “I and the Children,” sermon preached Sunday Morning 20 September 1874 at the Met Tab
“As it is impossible to repent of having sinned against a God that we hate, so it is impossible not to repent of having sinned against a God we love.” -Gardiner Spring
This is the Christian of the right stamp, and all about him are better because of him… For my part, I had rather have the company of a heavenly-minded Christian than that of the most learned disputants or princely commanders… A soul that does not set its affections on things above disobeys the commands, and loses the most gracious and delightful discoveries of the Word of God…
It has pleased our Father to open his counsel and let us know the very intent of his heart, that our joy might be full and that we might live as the heirs of such a kingdom… And shall we now overlook all? Shall we live in earthly cares and sorrows, and rejoice no more in these discoveries, than if the Lord has never revealed them?
~ Richard Baxter “The Saints Everlasting Rest”
“How many knowledgeable persons are ignorant? They have illumination, but not sancitfication. Their knowledge has no powerful influence upon them to make them better. If you set up a hundred torches in a garden they will not make the flowers grow, but the sun is influential.”
- Thomas Watson – The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn with a Scriptural Pencil,
“To read much and practice nothing, is to hunt much and catch nothing.” ~ Thomas Brooks -The Unsearchable Riches Of Christ
“There is no book of the Bible which affords a better test of the depth of a man’s Christianity than the Song of Solomon” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Isn’t that the truth!
Some can be smart, some can do great works, some can serve others sacrificially and more than themselves. But who can love the invisible God with all their heart soul and mind?
I need a savior for this,
and grace that I would love God more. Meditate on: Jesus prayed that the Father would love us with the same love that He loved the Son. Unimaginable!! John 17:23 .. have loved them as You have loved Me. 26 …that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” NKJV
“There is many a thing that the world calls disappointment; but there is no such word in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments, are to believers intimations of the will of God.” – John Newton
God takes away the world that the heart may cleave more to him in sincerity. ~ Thomas Watson
“To fix our confidence upon a dying world is folly. It is as if we were building our nests when the tree is being cut down, or decorating our cabin when the ship is likely to be dashed to pieces or already sinking.” -Thomas Manton
The most critical need of the church at this moment is men, bold men, free men. The church must seek, in prayer and much humility, the coming again of men made of the stuff of which prophets and martyrs are made. -Tozer
If you really knew Him who commands, you would not hesitate to obey all His Commands. ~ Don P
Happy are they that can always act as if in the sight of God…Happy are those who, by the thoughts of God, are enraged against sin …I will die a thousand deaths before I willingly yield to anything that may be in the least offensive to him whom my soul has such infinite reason to love above the whole world. – James Janeway, “Heaven upon Earth: Jesus the best friend of Man.”
“Believer, closet prayer will be found to be but a lifeless, comfortless thing, if you do not enjoy communion with God in it. That should be the very soul of all your closet duties, therefore press after it, as for life; when you go into your closet banish every thing that can hinder your enjoyment of Christ.” ~THOMAS BROOKS
“The belief that God is everywhere should persuade us to sin nowhere.” ~Richard Steele -A Remedy for Wondering Thoughts
Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, then your heart is unchanged, and you are an unsaved person.
The Savior will sanctify His people, renew them, give them a hatred of sin, and a love of holiness.
The grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit.
Christ saves His people, not IN their sins, but FROM their sins.
Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. ~ Spurgeon-
“He who has only a painted holiness shall have a painted happiness.”
- Thomas Watson- The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn with a Scriptural Pencil,
Some people’s religion amounts to no more than their seeking what they can get. Those truly thankful for the eternal gift they have received are seeking daily what they can give and how they can serve their Father’s kingdom, magnifying Him to all His creatures. ~ Don P
“If you do not use the Law in Gospel proclamation, you will fill the church with false converts.” – John Wycliffe
The great design of the apostle, then, was to draw them off from their false views of the law; to direct them to right conceptions of it in its covenant form in which it can admit of no personal obedience of it as a condition of life, but such as is perfect — and so to destroy their legal hope as well as to confute their wrong notions. ~ John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (SDG Publications, pp. 19
Therefore, he speaks to purpose when he saith, ‘One thing have I desired.’
But to speak a little more of the object, why doth he say, ‘One thing?’
First, it is from the nature of God. We must have the whole bent and sway of our souls to him. He will have no halting. The devil is content with half, if we will sin, because then he is sure of all; but God will have the whole heart. ‘My son, give me thy whole heart,’ Prov. xxiii. 26; and ‘Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,’ Luke x. 27. The bent and sway of the soul must be that way; – Richard Sibbes – A BREATHING AFTER GOD
“An humble soul looks through secondary causes, and sees the hand of God, and then lays his own hand upon his mouth.” ~ Thomas Brooks -The Unsearchable Riches Of Christ
“Free will I have often heard of, but I have never seen it. I have always met with will, and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in the blessed bonds of grace.”
- C. H. Spurgeon
“It always seems inexplicable to me that those who claim free will so very boldly for man should not also allow some free will to God. Why should not Jesus Christ have the right to choose his own bride?” – C.H. Spurgeon
“you can pray your soul into Heaven, but you can never pray your soul out of hell” – Archie Allison
“And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord:
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:
for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.” — Jeremiah 24:7
“I believe the man who is not willing to submit to the electing love and sovereign grace of God, has great reason to question whether he is a Christian at all, for the spirit that kicks against that is the spirit of the devil, and the spirit of the unhumbled, unrenewed heart.” - Charles Spurgeon
“When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.” ~ Martin Luther
“Grace isn’t a substance, its a person” ~ Sinclair Ferguson
“The Spirit never loosens where the Word binds; the Spirit never justifies where the Word condemns; the Spirit never approves where the Word disapproves; the Spirit never blesses where the Word curses.” — Thomas Brooks
“Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose anal heedless spirit, will cost no great pains; but to set thyself before the Lord, and tie up thy loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him; this will cost thee something. To attain a facility and dexterity of language in prayer, and put thy meaning into apt and decent expressions, is easy; but to get thy heart broken for sin, while thou art confessing it; melted with free grace while thou art blessing God for it; to be really ashamed and humbled though the apprehensions of God is infinite holiness, and to keep thy heart in this frame, not only in, but after duty, will surely cost thee some groans and pains of soul. To repress the outward acts of sin, and compose the external part of thy life in a laudable manner, is no great matter; even carnal persons, by the force of common principles, can do this: but to kill the root of corruption within, to set and keep up an holy government over thy thought, to have all things lie straight and orderly in the heart, this is not easy.” John Flavel - Keeping the Heart
Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.” ~ Thomas Watson – The Doctrine of Repentance
“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” ~Richard Sibbes in The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax
“Satan will delude you with shadows rather than substance.” ~Richard Steele in A Remedy for Wondering Thoughts
“Verily heaven is for that man, and that man is for heaven, that sets up for his mark the perfection of holiness.” ~ Thomas Brooks- The Unsearchable Riches Of Christ
“There are no men more careful of the use of means than those that are assured of a good issue and conclusion, for the one stirs up diligence in the other. Assurance of the end stirs up diligence in the means. For the soul of a believing Christian knows that God has decreed both.” ~RICHARD SIBBES
I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him. – C.H. Spurgeon
“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” ~RICHARD BAXTER
“Question: How shall we know that we love the reproofs of the Word? (1) When we desire to sit under a heart-searching ministry. Who cares for medicines that will not work? A godly man does not choose to sit under a ministry that will not work upon his conscience. (2) When we pray that the Word may meet with our sins. If there is any traitorous lust in our heart, we would have it found out and executed. We do not want sin covered, but cured. We can open our breast to the bullet of the Word and say, ‘Lord, smite this sin.” ~ “THOMAS WATSON”
“He that would read to profit must read and meditate. Meditation is the food of your souls, it is the very stomach and natural heat whereby spiritual truths are digested. A man shall as soon live without his heart, as he shall be able to get good by what he reads, without meditation. Prayer, saith Bernard, without meditation, is dry and formal, and reading without meditation is useless and unprofitable. Saith Augustine, the more I meditate on thee, the sweeter thou art to me; so the more you shall meditate on the following matter, the sweeter it will be to you. They usually thrive best who meditate most. Meditation is a soul-fattening duty; it is a grace-strengthening duty, it is a duty-crowning duty…You may read much and hear much, yet without meditation you will never be excellent,” -Thomas Brooks – Preface to A mute Christian
“Read and apply. Reading is but the drawing of the bow, application is the hitting of the white. The choicest truths will no further profit you than they are applied by you; you were as good not to read, as not to apply what you read. No man attains to health by reading of Galen, or knowing Hippocrates, his aphorisms, but by the practical application of them; all the reading in the world will never make for the health of your souls except you apply what you read. The true reason why many read so much and profit so little is because they do not apply and bring home what they read to their own souls.”
-Thomas Brooks -Preface – A mute Christian under the smarting rod
‘As the apostle says to Timothy, so also he says to everyone, ‘Give yourself to reading.’ He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying.’ – CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
It was a choice saying of Augustine, ‘Every saint is God’s temple, and he who carries his temple about him, may go to prayer when he pleaseth’.
Prayer is nothing but the breathing that out before the Lord, that was first breathed into us by the Spirit of the Lord.
God’s hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ’s intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what’ we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the beloved [Eph 1.6]. ~Thomas Brooks
You are accountable unto God for losing and mis-spending all that precious time wherein you do not walk in his ways Eph 5:16. Besides, he that has much work to do, …or is running a race to for a wager, has no need to lose any time. If you be long obstructed in your Christian work and race by sin and sloth you will hardly recover your loss but with much sorrow, with renewed faith and with more than ordinary repentance. ~ The Henry Scudder – The Christians Daily Walk
You missionaries, on the day you are slaughtered in the mission fields, and your blood comes out, bleed the gospel. ~ Paul Washer
One does not really trust in God who will not trust that He is in control of all, and is doing all for your good and is your loving Father, and therefore remaining in perfect peace, free of anxiety and worry and murmuring even in the most trying circumstances of this life ~ Don P
Job 22:21 “Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; Thereby good will come to you. 22 Receive, please, instruction from His mouth, And lay up His words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents. 24 Then you will lay your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. 25 Yes, the Almighty will be your gold And your precious silver; 26 For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, And lift up your face to God. 27 You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, And you will pay your vows. 28 You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you; So light will shine on your ways. NKJV
“The communion of the Church was not instituted to be a chain to bind us in idolatry, impiety, ignorance of God, and other kinds of evil, but rather to retain us in the fear of God and obedience of the truth” – John Calvin
Peace and Comfort in Trials and Affliction
Quotes on Health and Nutrition
Quotes of Jesus and His Disciples
Quotes and Studies on Predestination
Quotes on Reproof, Correction, & Stopping Sin
Sep 22, 2010 @ 15:51:23
Your quotes are excellent. Thank you.