Adam Z > Adam's Quotes

“For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

“I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is 'Abortion', because it is a war against the child... A direct killing of the innocent child, 'Murder' by the mother herself... And if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love... And we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts...”
― Mother Teresa

“I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation.”
― Mark Steyn

“Now there is a book coming out that says Christ was really a woman who was a lesbian in a relationship with Mary Magdalene.”
Jill started laughing . . . “Come on, people aren’t that gullible.”
“Right,” Allison said. “All you’ve got to do is tell them it’s ‘secret’ or ‘forbidden’ or ‘hidden’ knowledge, then get a movie star to peddle it, and they’ll believe anything.”
― Joseph Max Lewis

“In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love.”
― Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

“She realized, then, something she had never fully understood before. She'd always wondered what had led her father to turn to the dark side, to become Darth Vader. She'd imagined it came from ambition, greed, or some other venal weakness. Never had she considered that the turn might begin in a better place, out of the desire to save someone or to avenge a great wrong. Even if it led to evil, that first impulse might be born out of loyalty, a sense of justice, or even love.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“The person who calls himself a Christian, who says he loves God, yet does not seek his company and delight in it, can’t be a true lover of God.”
― Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Preaching has very largely become a profession. Instead of real Christian sermons we are given secondhand expositions of psychology. The preachers say they that give the congregations what they ask for! What a terrible condemnation both of the preachers themselves & their congregations!”
― D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“How is the lack of prosperity a blessing to the righteous? God, in wisdom knowing what is best for them, accordingly deals with them by giving prosperity to them so far as He sees it will turn to their good, and denies it to them so far as He sees it will turn to their hurt. Whenever therefore God gives any temporal blessing to His saints, it is a sign of His favor, and whenever He denies any, the very denial is also a fruit of His favor.”
― William Gouge, A Holy Vision for Family Life

“Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Minimizing the importance of transformed feelings makes Christian conversion less supernatural and less radical. It is humanly manageable to make decisions of the will for Christ. No supernatural power is required to pray prayers, sign cards, walk aisles, or even stop sleeping around. Those are good. They just don’t prove that anything spiritual has happened. Christian conversion, on the other hand, is a supernatural, radical thing. The heart is changed. And the evidence of it is not just new decisions, but new affections, new feelings.”
― John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,...it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
― John Calvin

“This is a damn useless conversation. Goodbye. (Charles Goodnight to Woodrow Call)”
― Larry McMurtry, Streets of Laredo

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“All adolescents want to escape from home into the world, not vice versa as adults do. The suburbs naturally mark a front line of conflict between teenagers and parents, a clash of values and aspirations.”
― Ben Wilson, Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention

“You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.”
― David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
― William F. Buckley

“One of contemporary progressivism’s commonly used phrases—the personal is political—captures the totalitarian spirit, which seeks to infuse all aspects of life with political consciousness. Indeed, the Left pushes its ideology ever deeper into the personal realm, leaving fewer and fewer areas of daily life uncontested. This, warned Arendt, is a sign that a society is ripening for totalitarianism, because that is what totalitarianism essentially is: the politicization of everything.”
― Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents

“When we look only inward, we are likely to think that we are just as sinful as ever. We are tempted to believe that our sin defines us most deeply. But when we look to Christ, we see the one to whom we are united and our new identity in him.”
― Jared Mellinger, Think Again: Relief from the Burden of Introspection

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“Lord, give me the wisdom to seek skillfulness, but not be taken with my own cleverness. Give me the discernment to perceive excellence, but not be enamored of pedigree and credentials.”
― Timothy J. Keller, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs

“Modern Western society teaches me to prioritize discovering my authentic self, peeling back the onion layers of my identity and living out of what I find there at all costs. But from a Christian perspective, who I am in relation to God is my authentic self. I find myself not in the depths of my psychology but in the depths of his heart. And when he calls you or me "child," "beloved," "friend," that's who we are, and any other identity--male, female, father, mother, child, friend-- flows out of that.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin

“It is a great mistake that some run into, to suppose that religion consists only in saying our prayers. I think...he only will adorn the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in all things, who is careful to perform all the civil offices of life...with a single eye to God's glory...This is the morality I preach.”
― George Whitefield

“Here’s the thing about kids, lady. They’re stupid with words. They say shit all the time that they don’t mean. They’re wrong, or they’re being emotional little shits—basically you have to understand that what they say isn’t what they mean.’ ”
― Lynn Painter, Nothing Like the Movies

“He basically mansplained to me that our kids love us even when they act like little assholes, and then he informed me they’re going to grow out of it and take it all back once they stop being stupid.”
― Lynn Painter, Nothing Like the Movies