proverbs on Testing

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

David Letterman’s old late-night segment “Will It Float?” once inspired our staff to fill a huge water tank, place it at the front of an auditorium, and ask three thousand people to vote which of a se...

Refiner’s fires are used on precious metals, not for mundane elements. The refiner must hold the metal in the hottest part of the fire in order to burn off all the impurities, thus retrieving a pure...

Most of us in the United States know the famous “I have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the 1963 March on Washington. On a sweltering, humid day in the n...

Just the other day, I was out on a bike ride for some exercise. Because I work for a high-end cycling company, I had the opportunity to test ride one the bikes we make – a bike that comes with a price...

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford by studying a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tappers” or “listeners.” Tappers received a list of twen...

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas. Especially strong thinking powers (...

As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...

Lord, examine our hearts with honesty. Find any impure way in us. Help us to find your search of us to be kind and forgiving as You tell us the ways we’ve disobeyed You.

’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

A few years ago I was with my family in Washington, D.C., a wildly complex city laid out like a square wheel with broken spokes making an angular maze that is a nightmare to navigate. However, my fami...

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

Faith is believing what you know ain't so. (1897)Consider checking out our illustrations page on Faith.

A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

One of my favorite sections of Home Depot is the power garden tool department. Even though I have all the tools I need, I still like browsing through Home Depot’s collection of power mowers, chainsaws...

My husband, Doug, is an athlete whose body is protesting. He has had numerous knee injuries and torn his Achilles tendon twice. Doctors have operated on him, put casts on him and sent him home, thereb...

Faithful God, we confess that we try to carry more than you ask and work hard to have our way. Help us to see and believe your goodness. Help us to lean into you and to trust that your strength will h...

No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth.

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” “Well,” you say “that is a nice theory—but is it really true?” There is really only one way to find out: Give! Give generously and consistently, ...

The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...

Maybe God has given some people belief like a pier, to stand on (and God has given those people’s steadiness to the church, to me, as a reminder, as an aid), and maybe God has given others something e...

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.

Faith, thankfully, does not preclude doubt. It consists of staking your life on the rumor of grace.