Focus on the target, not the adversity. (Tom Sheard and Wally Armstrong, authors) These authors were relating lessons about life to be learned from golf with particular applications to spiritual life. This is an especially pertinent axiom for all of us who have faced...
Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, “What’s in it for me?” (Brian Tracy, Canadian-born American motivational speaker and author) In Tracy’s view, apparently, success is not so much what you may...
You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning within your own. (Eleanor Doan, author) If we have an idea or opinion that we want other people to be enthusiastic about, we need to show an obvious excitement that will be contagious. Half-hearted...
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. (G. K. Chesterton, 19th-20th centuries English writer and critic) Truth is always true, and untruth is always false. If some untruth might be accepted as truth by some, it does not thereby become...
There are no mistakes. Only opportunities. (Tina Fey, actress) Actually, there are mistakes; regrettably, we all make them. But the implication of Fey’s comment can be of great value. We must not let our missteps defeat us. They should be learning...
Tis the good reader that makes the good book . . . (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American essayist) Emerson continued: “. . . in every book he finds passages which see confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear.” Readers are...
Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. (Margaret Lee Runbeck, early 20th century author) The ability to communicate by speaking is a wonderful gift of God. Friends talk at length, but as...
Leaders aren’t people who are served but who serve the people around them. (Daniel Reinhardt, High School salutatorian) This high school graduate shared with his classmates a very important lesson that many young adults have yet to learn. Graduates today are too often...
Where you are pleased with yourself, there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. (Augustine, 4th & 5th century Christian theologian) Self-satisfaction can be a limiting attitude. It’s good to be pleased with our work and accomplishments,...
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. (Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist) Do you remember what it was like when your young children began coloring? Colored scratches were all over the paper and even off the paper. Learning to...
The leaders who make the most progress make the fewest excuses. (Bart Blair, pastor) Everyone—even the most effective leaders—make mistakes from time to time. It’s how you handle those missteps that ultimately determines how successful you are. From the very beginning...
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. (George Washington, first president of the United States) Washington seems to be saying that freedom is not to be held selfishly. We all want our...