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Inspirational Quotations A-C
Dear Reader,

For over two decades I have collected quotes from books and magazines I’ve read as well as from internet searches when researching certain topics or themes.  This collection is made to be added to as I continue to collect and by you also if you have quotes you would like us to add to this working compilation.  Simply add them as a comment and once approved we will join them to the collection.
            Three disclaimers:  1.  Oswald Chambers is my all-time hero as a writer-speaker and therefore you will find that by far he is the most quoted author/speaker.  If you have never heard of him, I highly recommend My Utmost For His Highest.   2.  This collection is heavily tilted towards ministry—if you are in ministry and love speaking and writing you will get the most out of this.  Regardless, there is much for anyone.  3.  Do not assume quotations reflect my viewpoint. I’ve included a vast array of thoughts and opinions not because I agree with them but because they are thought-provoking.  The beauty of language is often found in the formatting and word selection!
            Finally, this collection is offered free.  If you find it to be useful and you frequently hunt for quotes for speaking or writing here, please consider donating to First Cause which you can do right on this website.  Your gift helps us build better speakers and writers globally!    Enjoy!

Daniel York
First Cause Director and Author/Speaker

8/20/2020 0 Comments

After

What comes After
It's not the play,
The script you read,
The curtain call,
Who plays the lead.
It's not the suit,
The boardroom seat,
The country club,
The meet and greet.
It's not the day,
Where time's your master,
It's living well,
For what comes after.
It's not the crowd,
With wild applause,
The author's words,
That give us pause.
The heroes standing,
In the breach,
With freedom's prize,
Beyond their reach.
It's not the tears
Or even laughter.
It's holding on
To what comes after.
It’s not the lords
Within the well,
Whose boundless laws
Create our hell.
Or hypocrites
Within our midst
Who practice not
What they insist.
It’s the one who stands
When it really matters,
Who leads us on
To what comes after.
-Jim York (2020)

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8/17/2020 0 Comments

August 17th, 2020

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5/18/2020 0 Comments

Blush

Blushing is so socially accepted that we forget to ask the pertinent questions: How do those blood vessels know you’re embarrassed? How do they pick up on your emotions at that precise moment?—Nick Ortner in The Tapping Solution

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5/18/2020 0 Comments

Amygdala

Science has established that the stress response begins in the amygdala.—Nick Ortner in The Tapping Solution

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5/17/2020 0 Comments

Bond

Keeping the balance between bonding to people and bonding to goals is fundamental for healthy functioning, high self-esteem, and high performance at work.—George Kohlrieser in Care to Dare

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4/24/2020 0 Comments

Culpable

Every general-in-chief who undertakes to execute a plan which he knows to be bad, is culpable. He should communicated his reasons, insist on a change of plan, and finally resign his commission, rather than become the instrument of his army’s ruin.—Napoléon Bonaparte in Military Maxims

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3/28/2020 0 Comments

Catholic

And Catholics, thousands of Catholics everywhere, have the consummate audacity to weep and complain because God does not hear their prayers for peace, when they have neglected not only His will, but the ordinary dictates of natural reason and prudence, and let their children grow up according to the standards of a civilization of hyenas.—Thomas Merton in The Seven Storey Mountain

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3/26/2020 0 Comments

Ass

If three people say you are an ass, put on a bridle.—Spanish Proverb

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1/29/2020 0 Comments

Barbarian

A barbarian is a person who is not part of our civilization, who wants no part of our civilization, and who seeks the conquest and destruction of our civilization.—Michael Youssef in The Barbarians Are Here

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1/12/2020 0 Comments

Builder

Choose the builder of your home as carefully as you choose the bride to inhabit it.—Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead

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1/5/2020 0 Comments

Clock

One must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle—and a mystery.—Quoted by Robin S. Sharma in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

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12/13/2019 0 Comments

Admire/Admiration

There is sure a mean to be found betwixt defying men, and deifying them. It is the admiring of persons that forms the traitor to truth, and makes many cry ‘Hosanna’ to error, and ‘Crucify’ to truth.—William Gurnall in The Christian in Complete Armour

When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator.—Mahatma Gandhi

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12/13/2019 0 Comments

Admire/Admiration

There is sure a mean to be found betwixt defying men, and deifying them. It is the admiring of persons that forms the traitor to truth, and makes many cry ‘Hosanna’ to error, and ‘Crucify’ to truth.—William Gurnall in The Christian in Complete Armour

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11/29/2019 0 Comments

Antithesis

When a man says that thinking in terms of an antithesis is wrong, what he is really doing is using the concept of antithesis to deny antithesis.—Francis A. Schaeffer in Escape From Reason

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11/29/2019 0 Comments

Cruel

The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become—and so on in a vicious circle for ever.—C.S. Lewis in Christian Behaviour

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10/25/2019 0 Comments

Composure

The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.—G.K. Chesteron in The Man Who Was Thursday

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8/22/2019 0 Comments

Cheat

Cheating is the decision to give up one thing in order to gain something else.—Andy Stanley in When Work and Family Collide: Keeping Your Job from Cheating Your Family

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6/18/2019 0 Comments

Beach

To escape and sit quietly on the beach - that's my idea of paradise.—Emilia Wickstead

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Abraham

The call of Abraham has a special character, unique in the Old Testament. There was
nothing quite like it, for this was God’s first great reaction to the Fall. It was the beginning of His answer to the problem of sin. Abraham was to reveal God as the Redeemer who calls men out of a world of idolatry to faith in Himself.—Watchman Nee in Changed into His Likeness

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Abraham Lincoln

A crude cultural heritage and a meager formal education give no explanation for the wisdom evidenced in this one man. Within the context of his spiritual life was to be found the real secret of his wisdom, for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”—Willard Davis

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Alvin York

Medal of Honor Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Chatel-Chehery, France, 8 Oct., 1918.  After his platoon had suffered heavy casualties and three other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great dring a machine gun nest, which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon.  In this heroic feat, the machine gun nest was taken together with four officers and one hundred and twenty-eight men and several guns.—Douglas Mastriano in Alvin York

Not once . . . has he shown any disposition to regard his exploit as important. —Douglas Mastriano in Alvin York

“You don’t owe me any honor.”—Douglas Mastriano in Alvin York

“And the more I thought the more I kinder figured that all of my trials and tribulations in the war had been to prepare me for doing just this work in the mountains.  All of my suffering in having to go and kill were to teach me to value human lives.  All the temptations I done went through were to strengthen my character.  All the associations with my buddies were to help me understand and love my brother man.  All of the pains I done seed and went through were to help and prepare me. And the fame and fortunes they done offered me in the cities were to try me out and see if I was fitted for the work He wanted me to do.” —Douglas Mastriano in Alvin York

In 1954 he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and a stroke that caused him to be bedridden for the last ten years of his life. —Douglas Mastriano in Alvin York

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Australia

Australia is one of the most individualistic cultures in the world.—David Livermore in Leading With Cultural Intelligence

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Bataan Death March

It was said that more than fourteen thousand men died on the march. The living also were dying men at the end, haunted by fear, eaten by pain and fever. Sometimes I think we all died on that march . . . The men grew mean as they weakened, and the stronger became sullen and selfish . . . Some men became beasts, cutting the throats of others in order to drink their blood . . . Three hundred, maybe less, out of thirty thousand.—Sergeant Sidney Stewart

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Cambodia

Pol never admitted responsibility for the 1.5 million deaths under his rule, nor did he repudiate the policies that had caused them.—Philip Short in Pol Pot

In a civilized society, people understand what justice is.  In our Khmer society, we do not . . . We still like to follow the savage ways of ancient times.  If a man is condemned, we kill all his relatives lest one day they take revenge . . . If we knock down an opponent, we beat him until he dies. Victory, to us, means that our adversary is dead.  If he lives, it is not victory.  That is our Khmer mentality.—Philip Short in Pol Pot

‘To keep you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.’ A villager remembered it as a time when ‘a person’s worth was measured in how many cubic yards of earth he could move.’ —Philip Short in Pol Pot

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6/17/2019 0 Comments

Charles Finney

I think I then saw, as clearly as I ever have in my life, the reality and fullness of the atonement of Christ.  I saw that His work was a finished work; and that instead of having, or needing, any righteousness of my own to recommend me to God, I had to submit myself to the righteousness of God through Christ.—Charles Finney quoted in Peter Marshall and David Manuel in From Sea to Shining Sea

Indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love, for I could not express it any other way.  It seemed like the very breath of God.  I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.—Charles Finney describing his baptism of the Spiritquoted by Peter Marshall and David Manuel in From Sea to Shining Sea

“Deacon, I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead His cause, and I cannot plead yours.”  And with that pronouncement, Charles Grandison Finney forthwith gave up the practice of law to devote himself full-time to preaching.—Peter Marshall and David Manuel in From Sea to Shining Sea

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