1. When
I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life.
When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I
wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told
them they didn’t understand life.” –John Lennon
2. “The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and
everything has a story to tell…good writing does not succeed or fail on the
strength of its ability to persuade not the kind of writing that you’ll find in
this book, anyway. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to
engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else’s
head—even if in the end you conclude that someone else’s head is not a place
you’d really like to be. I’ve called these pieces adventures, because that is
what they are intended to be. Enjoy yourself.”--Malcolm Gladwell
3. "It
doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts' longing...I want to know if
you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure
of being alive...I want to know if you have touched the center of your own
sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled
and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fix it...I want to know if you
can disappoint another to be true to yourself." –Oriah Mountain Dreamer
4. “The
complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered.
Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. To say the very thing you mean, the
whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's
the whole art and joy of words. When the time comes to you at which you will be
forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul
for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and
over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak
to us, openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why
should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to
face till we have faces?" –C. S. Lewis
5. "You are not at all like my rose. As yet
you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are
beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an
ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that
belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds
of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she
that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered
behind the screen; because it is she that I have listened to, when she
grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is
my rose." —The Little Prince
6. “Once, there was a small group of kids who decided
to go to a park in the middle of the city, and dance and play, laugh and twirl.
As they played in the park, they thought that maybe another child would pass by
and see them. Maybe that child would think it looked fun and even decide to
join them. Then maybe another one would. Then maybe a businessman would hear
them from his skyscraper. Maybe he would look out the window. Maybe he would
see them playing and lay down his papers and come down. Maybe they could teach
him to dance. Then maybe another businessman would walk by, a nostalgic man,
and he would take off his tie and toss aside his briefcase and dance and play.
Maybe the whole city would join the dance. Maybe even the world.
Maybe…Regardless, they decided to enjoy the dance.” –Shane Claiborne
7. “Life
is too short to spend it fighting against things. I don’t want to survive, I
want to thrive. Life is too big for me if I only know what I am not—I want to
know what I am. I am not anti-poverty. I am pro-abundance. I am not working to
end scarcity, I am dancing to prove beauty and plenty. “ --Rachel Winzeler
8. “Yale professor Harold Bloom observed that
Karl Marx had it only partly right when he said that religion is the opiate of
the people. More broadly speaking, it is the poetry of the people, both the
good and the bad, for better and worse. Religion can, and should be, objected
to, questioned, and talked about. Devastating criticism of religion is always
part of religion. The religiously faithful aren’t just permitted to critique
and complain and reform; they’re bound to do it by religion. When religion
won’t tolerate questions…it has an unfortunate habit of producing some of the
most hateful people ever to walk the earth.” –David Dark
9. “It is our
light not our darkness that most frightens us. Our deepest fear is not that we are
inadequate—our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…We were born
to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own
light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
—Marianne Williamson
10. "We
live in a fog most of the time. Twenty clear days a year. You are not what you
think you are. There is a glory to your life that the enemy fears, and he is
hell bent on destroying that glory before you act upon it. It is our light, not
our darkness, that most frightens us. The deeper reason we fear our own glory
is because once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and
that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of sin. We can work on
"issues," but there is nothing to be "done" about our
glory. It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is
not." --John Eldredge, "Waking the Dead"
11. "When
you are desperate or even angry, there is at least a shred of hope that things
might be different. A holy discontent. But despair is what happens when you are
tired of being desperate." --The New Friars by Scott Bessenecker
12. “Us
girls—we change for guys. We want to please them and we change for love.
Guys—they determinedly don’t change. They wait and see if we will love and accept
them just as they are. Then, when you aren’t looking, they go and change.”
–Karine Moraes
13. “Missions
is less about the transport of God from one place to another and ore about the
identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good
missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people
to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn’t
realize it. You see God where others don’t, and then you point Him out. Perhaps
we ought to replace the word “missionary” with “tour guide” because we cannot
show people something we haven’t seen…and if you do see yourself as carrying
God to places, it can be exhausting. God is really heavy.” –Rob Bell
14. “There
are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. You
must learn to enjoy this…at the end of the day, when I am lying on my bed and I
know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to
one, I need to know that God has things figured out that if my math is wrong we
are still going to be ok. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of
our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don’t
think there is any better worship than wonder.” –Donald Miller
15. “Take
wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of
people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always
knowing how they will turn out. You’re curious and smart and bored, and all you
see is the choice of working hard or slacking off. There are many adventures
that you miss because you’re waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for
tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future
as you go.”
16. “People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway. If
you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind
anyway. If you are successful,
you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed
anyway. If you are honest
and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others
could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy
anyway. The good you do today,
will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best
anyway. In the final analysis,
it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
–Mother Teresa
17. “It
helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The Kingdom is not only
beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime
only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing
we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond
us. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need
further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is
the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not
master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is
not our own. Amen.” –Oscar Romero
18. “The
only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never
yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow
Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…”—Jack Kerouac
19. “I
hate a Roman named Status Quo!” he said to me. “Stuff your eyes with wonder,”
he said, “Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more
fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask
for no security, there never was such an animal.”—Ray Bradbury
20. “They’re
not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just
like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They
believe they are destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes
are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make
from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see
gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real
close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. listen,
you hear it? Carpe—hear it?—Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your
lives extraordinary.” –“Dead Poet’s Society”
21. “I
have come to the realization that I am somewhat of a nomad on this earth. I am
learning to be okay with that. Human beings long for a place to call home. I
have many and none. My heart lives in so many places. With so many people. But
God whispers to me that I really have only one home, and that is with Him. I
will never be content on this earth. I will always be a nomad. It was meant to
be that way. And I will continue bouncing from one home to another, loving with
everything I have in whatever location I currently reside, excitedly awaiting
the day when I am called heavenward and He says to me, “Welcome home.” –Katie
Davis
22. “Choose
what to leave out. In this age of information abundance and overload, those who
get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can
concentrate on what’s really important to them. Nothing is more paralyzing than
the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea that you can do anything is
absolutely terrifying.” –Austin Kleon
23. “Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made
my eyes so soft, my voice so
tender, my need of God absolutely clear.” –Rumi
24. “Watch your thoughts; they become
words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become
habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it
becomes your destiny.”—Lao-Tze
25. “See
that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I
lead everything on to te conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the
same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?” –Julian
of Norwich
26. “Friendships
with people who are poor or vulnerable can challenge our arrogance in thinking
we know how to fix their circumstances. Our sweeping critiques of multinational
corporations become more nuanced when friends are grateful for their jobs and
proud of their products. Friendships undermine our tendency to locate the
problem “out there” and try to fix it at a distance. And friendships give an
urgency to our work for justice, to our search for ways to affect the decisions
of multinationals and governments. Friends who are poor challenge our
lifestyles of consumption when they build generous and gracious lives out of
very few material resources. When we get to know people who are vulnerable, we
are challenged to take more seriously the power and opportunities we have. A
wise friend once observed that we are most likely to worry about the people we
see first thing in the morning. If we live in comfortable circumstances, we
need to make decisions to plant one foot in another world. Only then will we
keep friends in mind as we make our choices each day.” –Chris Heuertz
27. “If you don’t know your purpose, discover it, now. The
core of your life is your purpose. Everything in your life, from your diet to
your career, must be aligned with your purpose if you are to act with coherence
and integrity in the world. If you know your purpose, your deepest desire, then
the secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your
deepest purpose and minimize distractions and detours.” – David
Deida
28. “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
30. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The
rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see
things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the
status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.
They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy
ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can
change the world, are the ones who do.” –Steve Jobs
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