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June 13, 2012 by kevinstilley

Saint John Chrysostom – select quotes

What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature painted with fair colours!
~ in his Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew

The drunken man is a living corpse.

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Chysostom, quotations, Quotes

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Henry Ward Beecher – select quotes

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.
~ in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1867

Ignorance is the womb of monsters.
~ in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1867

A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

Remember God’s bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.

The strength and the happiness of a man consists in finding out the way in which God is going and going in that way, too.

Troubles are the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Beecher, Blog, Christianity, happiness, ignorance, Plymouth, Preachers & Preaching, pulpit, quips, Quotes, wisdom

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Storytelling / Narrative – select quotes

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Story is the primary way we impart what really matters to the next generation. Stories have the potential to embody biblical and theological content in ways that sink into the imagination, take root, and grow.
~ Sarah Arthur, in The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry

Stories are the natural soul food for children, their native air and vital breath….Let me tell the stories and I care not who writes the textbooks.
~ G. Stanley Hall

People are being changed by their media. In order to speak to changed people, the Church must speak in changed ways. Preaching must adopt a new kind of language–a language of narrative and emotion.
~ Richard Jensen, in Thinking In Story

The language of logical argument, of proofs, is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith. For me this involves trust not in “the gods” but in God.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, in A Circle of Quiet (NY: HarperCollins, 1972), page 194.

Storytelling is powerful because it has the ability to touch human beings at the most personal level. While facts are viewed from the lens of a microscope, stories are viewed from the lens of the soul. Stories address us on every level. They speak to the mind, the body, the emotions, the spirit, and the will. In a story a person can identify with situations he or she has never been in. The individual’s imagination is unlocked to drea what was previously unimaginable.
~ Mark Miller in Experiential Storytelling: (Re) Discovering Narrative to Communicate God’s Message

Stories are designed to embody–in their characters, plots, and imagery–patterns and relationships that nurture a part of the mind that’s unreachable in more direct ways, thus increasing our understanding and breadth of vision, in addition to fostering our ability to think critically. Stories activate the right side of the brain much more than… reading normal prose. The right side of the brain provides “context,” the essential function of putting together the different components of experience. The left side provides the “text,” or the pieces themselves.
~ Robert Ornstein, in a 2002 Library of Congress lecture

Story is the most natural way of enlarging and deepening our sense of reality, and then enlisting us as participants in it.  Stories open doors to areas or aspects of life that we didn’t know were there, or had quit noticing…. Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.
~ Eugene Peterson, in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser

If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Our lives as human beings are made up of stories that have shaped, or are shaping, who we are. The story of the Bible has the power to make sense of all the other stories of your life. When it is internalized and it becomes your story, it gives meaning in the midst of meaninglessness and value in the midst of worthlessness. Yoru personal story will find grounding in creation, guidance in crises, re-formation in redemption, and direction in its destination. People become Christians when their own stories merge with, and are understood in the light of, God’s story.
~ Preben Vang and Terry Carter, in Telling God’s Story: The Biblical Narrative from Beginning to End

God created man because He loves good stories.
~ Elie Wiesel

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June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Creativity – select quotes

Creativity is a God-given ability to take something ordinary and make it into something special. It is an openness to doing old things in new ways…. The creative spirit is part of our heritage as children of the One wo created all things. And nurturing our creativity is part of our responsibility as stewards of God’s good gifts.
~ Emilie Barnes, in The Spirit of Loveliness

There are educationists (as jargon has it) who think that creativity itself can be taught, and who write learned, and frequently dull, treatises on methods of teaching it.  It is rather as though they were trying to eat air, with the usual result.  The creative impulse, like love, can be killed, but it cannot be taught.  What a teacher or librarian or parent can do, in working with children, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn.  As far as I’m concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, in  A Circle of Quiet (NY: Harper, 1972), pages 45-46

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
~ George Lois

When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone . . . say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not nor can I force them.
~ Mozart

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at television. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.
~ Carl Sandburg

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June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Desiderius Gerhard Erasmus – select quotes

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In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. [In regione caecorum rex est luscus.]
~ in Adagia

Luther was guilty of two crimes–he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly.
~ in Colloquies

For what is life but a play in which everyone acts a part until the curtain comes down?
~ in The Praise of Folly

This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.
~ in The Praise of Folly

A nail is driven out by another nail, habit is overcome by habit. [Clavus clavo pellitur, consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.]
~ in Diluculum

It is the worst of madness to learn what has to be unlearnt. [Extremae est dementiae discere dediscenda.]
~ in De ratione studii

Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.
~ in a letter to Christian Northoff

Indeed, a constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery.
~ in a letter to Christian Northoff

I have no patience with those who say that sexual excitement is shameful and that venereal stimuli have their origin not in nature, but in sin. Nothing is so far from the truth. As if marriage, whose function cannot be fulfilled without these incitements, did not rise above blame. In other living creatures, where do these incitements come from? From nature or from sin? From nature, of course. It must borne in mind that in the apetites of the body there is very little difference between man and other living creatures. Finally, we defile by our imagination what of its own nature is fair and holy. If we were willing to evaluate things not according to the opinion of the crowd, but according to nature itself, how is it less repulsive to eat, chew, digest, evacuate, and sleep after the fashion of dumb animals, than to enjoy lawful and permitted carnal relations?
~ in De Conscribendis Epistolas

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. My luggage is my library. My home is where my books are.

The desire to write grows with writing.

Fortune favors the audacious.

A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.

Apothegms are, in history, the same as the pearls in the sand, or the gold in the mine.

As a looking-glass, if it is a true one, faithfully represents the face of him that looks in it, so a wife ought to fashion herself to the affection of her husband, not to be cheerful when he is sad, nor sad when he is cheerful.

By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.

By burning Luther’s books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men’s minds of him.

Charity resembleth fire, which inflameth all things it toucheth.

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

Don’t give your advice before you are called upon.

Every definition is dangerous.

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.

Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.

He who allows oppression shares the crime.

Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance.
~ Prayer for a pregnant woman]

I am a lover of liberty. I cannot and will not serve parties.

I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.

I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.

I have no patience with the stupidity of the average teacher of grammar who wastes precious years in hammering rules into children’s heads. For it is not by learning rules that we acquire the powers of speaking a language, but by daily intercourse with those accustomed to express themselves with exactness and refinement and by copious reading of the best authors.

It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

It is the friendship of books that has made me perfectly happy.

It’s the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of anothers.

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.

Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn’t -it’s human.

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

Of two evils choose the least. [E duobus malis minimum eligendum.]

Prevention is better than cure.

Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.

The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I’m not mistaken, and I’ll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.

The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.

There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

Time takes away the grief of men.

To know nothing is the happiest life.

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.

Your library is your paradise.

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Philosophy, Quotes, Theology, Worldview Tagged With: erasmus, humanism, Reformation, Renaissance

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Who Is Your Role Model?

The following test is scientifically proven to reveal your role model. Do not be skeptical. Follow the instructions below and you will be surprised at how accurate it is.

Please, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN. Becoming aware of the possible answers prior to the moment of revelation may skew the results.

Okay, perform the following steps to reveal your role model:

1) Pick your favorite number between 1-9

2) Multiply by 3 then

3) Add 3

4) Then again Multiply by 3 (I’ll wait, while you get the calculator…..)

5 ) You’ll get a 2 or 3 digit number….

6 ) Add the digits together

Got it? Now Scroll down . . .

……………
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Use the number you arrived at above to see who your associated ROLE MODEL is in the list below:

1. Albert Schweitzer

2. Ayn Rand

3. Dante Alighieri

4. George Bernard Shaw

5. J. C. Ryle

6. John F. Kennedy

7. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemons)

8. Phyllis Diller

9. Kevin Stilley

10. Socrates

Wow, thank you for your kind thoughts.  I like you, too.

P.S.  Stop picking different numbers! I AM YOUR IDOL, JUST DEAL WITH IT!

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June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

J.C. Ryle – select quotes

All heaven and earth resound with that subtle and delicately balanced truth that the old paths are the best paths after all.

I pity the man who never thinks about heaven.

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys, — these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily, — these are the clues you must follow if you would ind the way to his heart.

Parents, do you wish to see your children happy? Take care, then, that you train them to obey when they are spoken to, –to do as they are bid…. Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control.

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord.
~ in The Duties of Parents

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: J.C. Ryle, Quotes, truth, Worldview

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Courtesy – select quotes

Unless a man is courteous toward others, he is at a disadvantage in the world, even through he be the possessor of every other good trait and quality possible to humanity…. Courtesy is the external manifestation of a right spirit toward others.
~ H. Clay Trumbull, in Hints on Child Training

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Courtesy, Manners Etiquette, quotations, Quotes

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Television – select quotes

We have too readily blamed shortcomings in American education on social changes (the disorientation of the American family or the impact of television) or incompetent teachers or structural flaws in our schools systems. But the chief blame should fall on faulty theories promulgated in our schools of education and accepted by educational policymakers.
~ E. D. Hirsch, Jr., in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.

Seeing a murder on television, can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
~ Alfred Hitchcock

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
~ Groucho Marx

The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television.
~ Andrew Ross

Now the freaks are on television, the freaks are in the movies. And it’s no longer the sideshow, it’s the whole show. The colorful circus and the clowns and the elephants, for all intents and purposes, are gone, and we’re dealing only with the freaks.
~ Jonathan Winters

Television. Chewing gum for the eyes.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

I didn’t even dream it [television] would be so good. But I would never let my children come close to the thing.
~ Vladimer Zworykin, on his 92nd birthday about his invention of the television.

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes, Zeitgeist Tagged With: Entertainment, Pop Culture, quotations, Quotes, television

June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Parenting 101 – select quotes

parenting

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Associations and sympathy have far more influence with children, than argument or reasoning. Or rather, we might almost say, associations and sympathy have all the influence, and argument none at all… If you have no sympathy with [your children’s] childish feelings, you can gain no sympathy in their hearts for the sentiments and principles you may endeavor to inculcate upon them. If, however, you can secure their affection and sympathy, your power over them is almost unbounded. They will believe whatever you tell them, and adopt the principles and feelings you express, simply because they are yours. They will catch the very tone of your voice, and expression of your countenance, and reflect spontaneously, the moral image, whatever it may be, which your character may hold up before them.
~ Jacob Abbott

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
~ Erma Bombeck

Parents are not interested in justice, they are interested in quiet.
~ Bill Cosby

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
~ Phyllis Diller

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
~ King Edward VII

The reason you want your kids to pay attention in school is you haven’t the faintest idea how to do their homework.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

Nurses nurse
and teachers teach
and tailors mend
and preachers preach
and barbers trim
and chauffeurs haul
and parents get to do it all.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

An advantage of having one child is you always know who did it.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

Parenting — not politics, not the classroom, not the laboratory, not even the pulpit — is the place of greatest influence.
~ Kent and Barbara Hughes

Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they’re going to catch you in next.
~ Franklin P. Jones

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Our children are being raised by appliances.
~ Bill Moyers

Having a kid is like falling in love for the first time when you’re 12, but every day.
~ Mike Myers

Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected.
~ Robert Orben

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.
~ Robert Orben

I was doing the family grocery shopping accompanied by two children, an event I hope to see included in the Olympics in the near future.
~ Anna Quindlen

Having children is like living in a frat house — nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.
~ Ray Romano

Have children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them.
~ Rita Rudner

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord.
~ John Ryle, in The Duties of Parents

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys, — these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily, — these are the clues you must follow if you would ind the way to his heart.
~ J.C. Ryle

Parents, do you wish to see your children happy? Take care, then, that you train them to obey when they are spoken to, –to do as they are bid…. Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control.
~ J. C. Ryle

A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated family.
~ Thomas Scott

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
~ Thomas Sowell

Train up a child in the way he should go–but be sure you go that way yourself.
~ Charles Spurgeon

An evil upbringing in the home is worse than the wars of God and Magog.
~ Talmud, Berakot, 7

He who teaches his son is as if he had taught his son, his son’s son, and so on to the end of all generations.
~ Talmud, Kiddushin, 30

Do not threaten a child.  Either punish or forgive him.
~ Talmud, Semahot, 2, 6

Hardly anything can be more important in the mental training of a child than the bringing him to do it in its proper time, whether he enjoys it or not. The measure of a child’s ability to do this becomes, in the long run, the measure of his practical efficiency in whatever sphere of life he labors.
~ ~ H. Clay Trumbull, in Hints on Child Training

No parent ought to punish a child except with a view to the child’s good. And in order to do good to a child through his punishment, a parent must religiously refrain from punishing him while angry.
~ H. Clay Trumbull, in Hints on Child Training

Parents: A peculiar group who first try to get their children to walk and talk, and then try to get them to sit down and shut up.
~ Wagster’s Dictionary of Humor and Wit

Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
~ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

I’ve got two wonderful children — and two out of five isn’t too bad.
~ Henry Youngman

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
~ Unknown

Filed Under: Blog, Family, Quotes Tagged With: babysitting, Blog, childbirth, childraising, children, discipline, Family, love, marriage, parenthood, Parenting, pregnancy, Quotes

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