Great Throughts Treasury

"Vision isn't enough unless combined with venture. It's not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs."

"A country boy can learn city ways, but the city boy cannot learn country ways."

"A man is not the sum total of what he thinks in his head and does with his hands, but what he is in his heart."

"A soft and sheltered Christianity, afraid to be lean and lone, unwilling to face the storms and brave the heights, will end up fat and foul in the cages of conformity."

"All things are His and all things are ours, except ourselves."

"An attitude of worship can cut down an avalanche of words."

"Anybody can be faithful, but many are not."

"Civilization today reminds me of an ape with a blowtorch playing in a room full of dynamite. It looks like the monkeys are about to operate the zoo, and the inmates are taking over the asylum."

"Doing leads more surely to talking than talking to doing."

"Fix your eyes on the glory to come and then what looks dark in the distance will brighten as you draw near."

"God does not always send his prophets through the convention assembly line lest they come out wearing a stamp that does not become them."

"God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever."

"Heaven is not an endless vacation where we sit on clouds wearing haloes and plucking harps forever. Nothing could be more exhausting that eternally doing nothing."

"His will never lead us where His grace cannot keep us."

"I find myself wondering how John the Baptist would have address the Rotary Club in Bethel or how John the Baptist would behave before a Monday Minister’s meeting."

"If I could strike on note on the piano it would be natural."

"If there had been a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home."

"If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home."

"If we could answer all the whys we would not need faith."

"If you growl all day you will end up dog tired at night."

"If you want to be popular, preach happiness. If you want to be unpopular, preach holiness."

"I'm tired of experts who know all the answers when they don't even know what the question is."

"I'm tired of hearing sin called sickness and alcoholism a disease. It is the only disease I know of that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to spread."

"It has not dawned upon most of us that we do not need some new thing so much as some old things that would be new if anybody tried them."

"It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there."

"It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish."

"Just because we cannot see the clouds on a sunny day doesn’t mean they are not there."

"Many people are in a rut and a rut is nothing but a grave - with both ends kicked out."

"My father said dirt, debt, and the devil were related so I decided to keep away from all three as far as possible."

"Not since Manhattan Island was sold for $24 has there been so much dirt available for so little money as now."

"Nothing else can be as good as the blessing God has for you."

"Opportunity brings opposition."

"Our happy whiles here are but a foretaste of forevers to come."

"Plenty of church members are shaky about what they believe, while not many are shaken by what they believe."

"Some preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons, or more sermons into the fire."

"Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, Shake well before using. That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable."

"The average church member doesn’t even give the devil enough trouble to get his attention!"

"The church is a hospital for sinners and not a museum for saints."

"The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself."

"The greatest ability is dependability."

"The mighty angel broke the seal, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it as to say, Now look who’s in charge around here."

"The real problem is sin and science has no answer for sin."

"The road from groans to glory is by grace and there will always be enough of that to do all that God wants you to do as long as God wants you to do it."

"The vaults of heaven are moth-proof, rust-proof, and thief-proof."

"The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs."

"The word Christian ends with IAN and that stands for I Am Nothing. We are zeroes until we relate to him."

"There's a price to pay to be a holy man of God. You have to buck the current because the tide's running the other way."

"Time is one thing it does take to be holy. When we’re too busy for that we’re too busy."

"Today church life runs from rigor mortis to St.Vitus."

"Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull."