Author Unknown
Do you know what makes man the most suffering of all creatures? It is that he has one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is torn between the two worlds.
John Henry Newman
God has created me to do him some definitive service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission.
Joy Strang
Obedience has a price, too - death to our own ways - but it also promises a great reward: the commendation of the Father. So lay aside all your excuses. Then take hold of His plan for your life, and watch Him do mighty works through you.
http://www.spiritledwoman.com/
Thomas a Kempis
There is one thing that keeps many from zealously improving their lives, that is, dread of the difficulty, the toil of battle. Certainly they who try bravely to overcome the most difficult and unpleasant obstacles far outstrip others in the pursuit of virtue. A person makes the most progress and merits the most grace precisely in those matters wherein he gains the greatest victories over self and most mortifies his will. True, each one has his own difficulties to meet and conquer, but a diligent and sincere person will make greater progress even though he have more passions than one who is more even-tempered but less concerned about virtue.
Teresa of Avila
...the Lord does not look so much at the magnitude of anything we do as at the love with which we do it. If we accomplish what we can, His Majesty will see to it that we become able to do more each day. We must not begin by growing weary; but during the whole of this short life, which for any one of you may be shorter than you think, we must offer the Lord whatever interior and exterior sacrifice we are able to give Him, and His Majesty will unite it with that which He offered to the Father for us upon the Cross, so that it may have the value won for it by our will, even though our actions in themselves may be trivial.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa
William Henry Griffith Thomas
I remember once hearing Whipple, of Minnesota, so well known as "The Apostle of the Indians," utter these beautiful words: "For thirty years I have tried to see the face of Christ in those with whom I differed." When this spirit actuates us we shall be preserved at once from a narrow bigotry and an easy-going tolerance, from passionate vindictiveness and everything that would mar or injure our testimony for Him who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
http://www.ccel.us/bible.toc.html
George MacDonald
[God desires] not that He may say to them, "Look how mighty I am, and go down upon your knees and worship," for power alone was never yet worthy of prayer; but that He may say thus: "Look, my children, you will never be strong but with my strength. I have no other to give you. And that you can get only by trusting in me. I can not give it you any other way. There is no other way."
http://www.george-macdonald.com/
Francis Frangipane
I tell you, if you are serious about wanting to be like Christ, He is going to put you in circumstances where your only true choice is to become like Him.
http://frangipane.org/
Peter Marshall
Our Father in heaven...help us to see that it is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
http://petermarshallministries.com/legacy/dr-peter-marshall/
W. Kuhrt
We should preach the Gospel in a way suitable to the enquirer ... Is it really becoming to urge people who know nothing about the being of God to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?