Joshua > Joshua's Quotes

“There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball. These are the 3 most beautiful things this culture's ever created.”
― Gerald Early

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I was a kid in Florida, in Sarasota, and the New York Giants trained in Sarasota. When teams would come, we’d stand outside the ballpark, and we would get the balls they hit over the fence during batting practice. We’d sell them to the tourists. And we made a stepladder so we could climb a pine tree out there. That way we could look into the ballpark.

The Yanks were in town. I’m out there behind the fence, and I hear this sound. I’d never heard THAT sound off the bat before. Instead of me running to get the ball, I ran up the ladder to see who was hitting it. Well, it was a barrel-chested sucker, with skinny legs, with the best swing I’d ever seen. That was Babe Ruth hitting that ball. Yeah.

I don’t hear that sound again until 1938, I’m with the Monarchs, we’re at Griffith Stadium in Washington D.C. We’re upstairs, changing clothes, and the Grays are taking batting practice. I’ve got nothing on but my jock. And I hear that sound. I ran down the runway, ran out on the field, and there’s a pretty black sucker with a big chest and about 34 in the waist, prettiest man I’d ever seen. That was Josh Gibson hitting that ball.

And I don’t hear the sound again until I’m a scout with the Cubs. I’m scouting the Royals. When I opened the door to go downstairs, I heard that sound again. I rushed down on the field, and here’s another pretty black sucker hitting that ball. That was Bo Jackson. That’s three times I heard the sound. Three times. But I want to hear it a fourth. I go to the ballpark every day. I want to hear that sound again.”
― Buck O’Neil

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
― Blaise Pascal

“We must understand this. That Jesus did not die to make bad men good and He didn’t die to make good men better. Jesus died to make dead men alive.”
― Lon Solomon, Spiritual Boot Camp

“I grew up in Central Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis and I made a historic blunder. All my friends became Cardinal fans and grew up happy and liberal, and I became a Cub fan and grew up embittered and conservative.”
― George F. Will, How Baseball Explains America

“Getting God in focus means thinking correctly about his character, his sovereignty, his salvation, his love, his Son, his Spirit, and all the realities of his work and ways; it also means thinking rightly about our own relationship to him as creatures either under sin or under grace, either living this responsive life of faith, hope, and love or living unresponsively, in barrenness and gloom of heart.”
― J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God

“It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and it made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times.
It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away.
The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes.
It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.
Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.
At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time.
It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.
It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.”
― John Chancellor

“Many people flock to places and persons who promise intensive experiences of togetherness, cathartic emotions of exhilaration and sweetness, and liberating sensations of rapture and ecstasy. In our desperate need for fulfillment and our restless search for the experience of divine intimacy, we are all too prone to construct our own spiritual events.”
― Henri Nouwen

“When the Spirit of God began to work in the hearts of the disciples, they turned the world upside down. Not only in the first century, but to this day, all who have the message of freedom and grace have a voice. The public can hardly believe it, because we earn every thing we get until we come to God; and then it’s handed to us by his grace.”
― Charles Swindoll

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives”
― Jackie Robinson, Jackie Robinson: My Own Story

“All this has happened before, and it will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house over there is the home of the Darling family. And Peter Pan chose this particular house because there were people here who believed in him”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Satan’s desire is to turn me in on myself to the extent that I become enslaved and become a destructive force in community.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible

“He said there were two kinds of Christians: those who sincerely believe in God and those who, just as sincerely, believe that they believe. You can tell them apart by their actions in decisive moments.”
― Richard Wurmbrand, In God's Underground

“You can do more than pray after you have prayed but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”
― S.D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. ”
― A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

“The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen.”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“You can get the money, and you can get the power; but keep your eyes on the final hour…”
― Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

“When God is making these judgements, his purpose is not to keep as many people out of hell as possible. His goal is to get as many people into heaven as possible.”
― J.P. Moreland

“Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.”
― Neil Anderson

“....a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“Leaders of all kinds are "under" people as their servants rather than "over" them.”
― John Stott

“Wherever you go, there you are.”
― Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“Jesus has now many lovers of the heavenly kingdom but few bearers of His cross.”
― Thomas à Kempis, Imitation Of Christ