Dan > Dan's Quotes

“Rowing is like a beautiful duck. On the surface it is all grace, but underneath the bastard’s paddling like mad!”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us, put into our familiar human words.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular. As these areas are conceived to exist apart from each other and to be morally and spiritually incompatible, and as we are compelled by the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the one to the other, our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do everything for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“Choose for yourselves today the god whom you will serve: the god of wealth, the god of prestige and power, the god of pleasure, the god of achievement. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15, author paraphrase).”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“We all have a basic motivational drive, every human heart has something that drives them. It gets us through life. It moves us to do what we do. And for most of us, I believe, it is fear. —Tim Keller”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“As men of honor and integrity, we should always be inspired and encouraged by these words of Theodore Roosevelt: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doers of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“In the midst of the storms of life we will either allow what we are experiencing to influence our view of God, or we will allow our view of God to influence what we are experiencing.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“So many men spend their lives looking for some other stream to finally and forever quench the thirsts of their souls. However, Jesus says there is no other stream. And He is very clear about the fact that if we do not drink from this spring—the fountain of living water— we will die.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“Character, wisdom, and love make up the essence of what it means to be an authentic man. In fact, I would like to address the significance of each of these qualities and why it is so important that we possess them.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“But at the heart of character is the ability to restrain our desires. As a man grows in character, he builds the muscles of self-restraint.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“Simply stated, life’s greatest paradox can be summed up in the words, True strength is found in humility. The apostle Paul tells us as much in 2 Corinthians 12 when he reveals a struggle in his own life with what he calls “a thorn in the flesh.” He asks God to remove the pain and the suffering of this affliction. God’s response is no, and instead He tells Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“Humility helps you to recognize that all you are and all you have is a gift from God and a result of other people contributing to your life.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“The humble are the strongest. They don’t make decisions by sticking their fingers in the air … They know who they are. Their lives are not consumed by trying to please and impress others.”
― Richard E. Simmons III, The True Measure of a Man, How Perceptions of Success, Achievement & Recognition Fail Men in Difficult Times

“So suffering is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is not only the way Christ became like and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption. And that means that our suffering, despite its painfulness, is also filled with purpose and usefulness.”
― Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“When J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was published in the 1950s, a woman named Rhona Beare wrote Tolkien and asked him about the chapter in which the Ring of Power is destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. When the ring is melted, the Dark Lord’s entire power collapses and melts away with it. She found it inexplicable that this unassailable, overwhelming power would be wiped out by the erasure of such a little object. Tolkien replied that at the heart of the plot was the Dark Lord’s effort to magnify and maximize his power by placing so much of it in the ring. He wrote: “The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself.”
― Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“No suffering is for nothing.”
― Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“Paul said to his Ephesian readers, discouraged because of his imprisonment, “My suffering is for your glory.” Why? Because that is how it works. Suffering and glory are closely linked. Suffering glorifies God to the universe and eventually even achieves a glory for us. And do you know why suffering and glory are so tied to each other? It is because of Jesus. Philippians 2 tells us Jesus laid aside his glory. Why? Charles Wesley’s famous Christmas carol tells you. Mild he lays his glory by; born that men no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second birth. Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous. Jesus Christ suffered, not so that we would never suffer but so that when we suffer we would be like him. His suffering led to glory. And you can see it in Paul. Paul is happy to be in prison because “my sufferings are for your glory,” he says. He is like Jesus now. Because that is how Jesus did it. And if you know that that glory is coming, you can handle suffering, too.”
― Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt