“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” – Winston Churchill

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

“My people’s greatest need is for my own holiness.” – Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Without Christ crucified in her pulpits, a Church is little better than a dead carcass, a well without water, a barren fig-tree, a sleeping watchman, a silent trumpet, a lighthouse without fire, a stumbling-block to weak believers, a comfort to unbelievers, a hot-bed for formalism, a joy to the devil, and an offence to God.” – J.C. Ryle

“Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of God’s willingness.” – George Mueller

“To touch the image of God is to touch God himself; to kill the image of God is to do violence to God himself.” – Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 16.

“Jesus produced mainly three effects: hatred, terror, adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.” – C.S. Lewis

“As creatures, we have no right or reason to expect that at every point we shall be able to comprehend the wisdom of our Creator.” – J.I. Packer

“Character is what we are when nobody sees us except God.” – John Blanchard

“To Satan no sight is beautiful but deformity itself, and no smell is sweet but filth and nastiness.” – John Calvin

“Did God not sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, we should be ruined at our own request.” – Hannah More

“What have we time and strength for, but to lay out both for God? What is a candle made for, but to burn?” – Richard Baxter

“The gospel of justification by faith is such a shocker, such an explosion, because it is an absolutely unconditional promise. It is not an “if-then” kind of statement, but “because-therefore” pronouncement: because Jesus died and rose, your sins are forgiven and you are righteous in the sight of God! It bursts in upon our little world all shut up and barricaded behind our accustomed conditional thinking as some strange comet from goodness-knows-where, something we can’t really seem to wrap our minds around, the logic of which appears closed to us. How can it be entirely unconditional? Isn’t it terribly dangerous? How can anyone say flat out, “You are righteous for Jesus’ sake? Is there not some price to be paid, some-thing (however minuscule) to be done? After all, there can’t be such thing as a free lunch, can there?”

You see, we really are sealed up in the prison of our conditional thinking. It is terribly difficult for us to get out, and even if someone batters down the door and shatters the bars, chances are we will stay in the prison anyway! We seem always to want to hold out for something somehow, that little bit of something, and we do it with a passion and an anxiety that betrays its true source–the Old Adam that just does not want to lose control.” – Gerhard Forde, Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death and Life, pg. 24

“The children of God are freed through regeneration from bondage to sin. Yet they do not obtain full possession of freedom so as to feel no more annoyance from the their flesh, but there still remains in them a continuing occasion for struggle whereby they may be exercised; and not only be exercised, but also better learn their own weakness. . . . [T]here remains in a regenerate man a smoldering cinder of evil, from which desires continually leap forth to allure and spur him to commit sin… the sway of sin is abolished in them. For the Spirit dispenses a power whereby they may gain the upper hand and become victors in the struggle. But sin ceases only to reign; it does not also cease to dwell in them.” – John Calvin, Institutes, 3.3.10-11 (Sin dwells, but no longer reigns, in believers).

“Ah! Reader, if you would be truly happy—who does not want this?—seek it where alone it can be found. Seek it not in money. Seek it not in pleasure, in friends, or in learning. Seek it in having a will in perfect harmony with the will of God. Seek it in studying to be content.” – J.C. Ryle

From the preface to Pierre Robert Olivétan’s French translation of the New Testament (1534). (Justin Taylor, added line breaks to make it easier to read) Calvin wrote:

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,
all wisdom folly before God;
strength is weakness,
and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,
brothers of Jesus Christ,
fellow townsmen with the saints,
citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,
heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom

the poor are made rich,
the weak strong,
the fools wise,
the sinner justified,
the desolate comforted,
the doubting sure,
and slaves free.

It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe.

It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone.

For, he was

sold, to buy us back;
captive, to deliver us;
condemned, to absolve us;

he was

made a curse for our blessing,
[a] sin offering for our righteousness;
marred that we may be made fair;

he died for our life; so that by him

fury is made gentle,
wrath appeased,
darkness turned into light,
fear reassured,
despisal despised,
debt canceled,
labor lightened,
sadness made merry,
misfortune made fortunate,
difficulty easy,
disorder ordered,
division united,
ignominy ennobled,
rebellion subjected,
intimidation intimidated,
ambush uncovered,
assaults assailed,
force forced back,
combat combated,
war warred against,
vengeance avenged,
torment tormented,
damnation damned,
the abyss sunk into the abyss,
hell transfixed,
death dead,
mortality made immortal.

In short,

mercy has swallowed up all misery,
and goodness all misfortune.

For all these things which were to be the weapons of the devil in his battle against us, and the sting of death to pierce us, are turned for us into exercises which we can turn to our profit.

If we are able to boast with the apostle, saying, O hell, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? it is because by the Spirit of Christ promised to the elect, we live no longer, but Christ lives in us; and we are by the same Spirit seated among those who are in heaven, so that for us the world is no more, even while our conversation is in it; but we are content in all things, whether country, place, condition, clothing, meat, and all such things.

And we are

comforted in tribulation,
joyful in sorrow,
glorying under vituperation,
abounding in poverty,
warmed in our nakedness,
patient amongst evils,
living in death.

This is what we should in short seek in the whole of Scripture: truly to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father.”

“It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.” – Coretta Scott King

“Our repentance needs to be repented of, and our tears washed in the blood of Christ.” – George Whitefield

“Love to God disposes men meekly to bear the injuries which they receive. . . . None can hurt those who are true lovers of God. . . .

The more men love God, the more will they place all their happiness in God; they will look on God as their all, and this happiness and portion is what men cannot touch. The more they love God, the less they set their hearts on their worldly interest, which is all that their enemies can touch. Men can injure God’s people only with respect to worldly good things. But the more a man loves God, the more careless he is about such things, the less he looks upon the enjoyments of the world worth regarding…

And so they do not look upon the injuries they receive from men as worthy of the name of injuries. Though they are intended as injuries, yet they are not borne as such, and so the calm and quietness of their minds is not disturbed. As long as they have the favor of God, they are not much concerned about the ill will of men.” – Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, Yale ed., 8:195-96