achievement on Unity

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

When Julius Caesar returned to Rome after many years of fighting its battles abroad, he planned great festivities and triumphal processions to celebrate his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontos, and Afr...

Only faith survives; faith which is not a work, not even a negative work; not an achievement, not even the achievement of humility. . . . Faith is the ground, the new order, the light. . . . Faith is ...

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

If you were to travel back in time to the city of Rome (either during the Republic or the Empire), you may have had the opportunity to witness the Triumph, a colossal spectacle in which the greatest m...

You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’

Thomas Merton describes those who never experience the gift of a contemplative life. His explanation for why some people never experience this can be found in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation: [T...

The Japanese have a word, ikigai, that captures this sense of drive we all have inside us. Roughly translated as “the happiness of constant busyness,” ikigai reflects your awareness of your life’s pur...

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

After finishing a major project, have you ever stood back, taken in what you have accomplished, and said to yourself, “That’s pretty good”? I’ll admit that I have on numerous occasions, especially aft...

Leader: God "makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters." (Is 43:16, ESV) People: Jesus reminds us that "with God all things are possible." (Mt 19:26, ESV) Leader: By t...

In the Christian subculture, there is an unspoken standard, a notorious goal to “win the contest.” It’s there, the contest. We don’t say it out loud, because it sounds ludicrous spoken into the open a...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred’s soon hit; This hi...

With vainglory, we crave notice of our achievements with pride, we take full credit for the progress we have made and do not think that God has been involved at all, let alone been our indispensible h...

Qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus (He who ceases to be better ceases to be good)

There is a peculiar gratification in receiving congratulations from one’s squadron for a victory in the air. It is worth more to a pilot than the applause of the whole outside world.

In an institutionalized church, the good has become the enemy of the best, and activity has choked out productivity.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...

I suspect that this is the most important thing I’ve said in all my interviews and talks as well as in this book. It’s a truth that applies to more than writing. It applies to anything that is importa...

The job isn't to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.

In Jeremiah it is clear that the excellence comes from a life of faith, from being more interested in God than in self, and has almost nothing to do with comfort or esteem or achievement. Here is a pe...

Some years ago an army sharpshooter was visiting a small town. He was surprised to find bull’s-eyes with bullet holes in the exact center all throughout the village. “Someone or some one’s here must b...

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

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

Lord Nelson once said that all his achievements in life came down to one simple habit: he was always there a quarter of an hour early, never a quarter of an hour late.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the ar...

The challenge each of these faced in their deconstruction—and what we may face—is walking the tightrope between becoming our own person and honoring our past. In The Homeless Mind , sociologist P...