“But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”

“Every time you resist temptation you are winning for your children.”

“To the good God nothing is little because He is so great and we so small- that is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us- to give us a chance to prove our love for Him.”

“Thinking about My Purpose POINT TO PONDER: Happiness is my choice. I don’t need anyone’s approval to be happy. VERSE TO REMEMBER: “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” PSALM 27:10 (NLT) QUESTION TO CONSIDER: Whose opinion matters most to me? Whose approval am I living for?”

“the children themselves repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only the griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold.”

“He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

“The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. ”

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

“I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies.”

“I was afraid to let other make any decisions, because I had no confidence they would be concerned for me.”

“Now-people” are winners; they say “now” and they do it “now”! Do not delay.”

“Pretentiousness repels but authenticity attracts, and vulnerability is the pathway to intimacy.”

“When you base your worth and identity on your relationship to Christ, you are freed from the expectations of others, and that allows you to really serve them best.”

“But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings. —MARK 11:25–26 One of the greatest reasons why prayer isn’t answered among Christians is unforgiveness. Jesus gave His disciples a command to forgive, and then He told them plainly that if they did not forgive, neither would their Father in heaven forgive them their failings and shortcomings.”