Great Throughts Treasury

"Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities."

"Change occurs when something new starts or something old stops, and it takes place at a particular point in time. But transition cannot be localized in time that way, since it is the gradual . . . process through which individuals and groups reorient themselves. Change often starts with a new beginning, but transition must start with an ending--with people letting go of old attitudes and behaviors."

"Each person's life is a story that is telling itself in the living."

"Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition in our lives."

"Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster."

"If the guilt of sin is so great that nothing can satisfy it but the blood of Jesus; and the filth of sin is so great that nothing can fetch out the stain thereof but the blood of Jesus, how great, how heinous, how sinful must the evil of sin be."

"We come to beginnings only at the end."