Sermon quotes on Achievement
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
George Washington Carver
There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do, that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do, that I have not been able to accomplish.
The Man Who Talks With Flowers: The Intimate Life Story of Dr. George Washington Carver
Henry Drummond
Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love.
Found in The World’s Greatest Literature: Masterpieces of the World’s , Volume 24
Bill Gates
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
Bill Gates, With Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson. The Road Ahead.
Jen Hatmaker
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 air, but we all know about it, we feel it. The contest is a race to see who is the better Christian, and beyond the basics of behaving, extra points are awarded to people who do the 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 air, but we all know about it, we feel it. The contest is a race to see who is the better Christian, and beyond the basics of behaving, extra points are awarded to people who do the hardest work with the least amount of fluff.
Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life.
Helen Keller
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.
Charles Kettering
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
Florence Nightingale
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.
Nelson Searcy
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?’
Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church
Charles Spurgeon
Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.
Rick Warren
The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.
Isaac Newton
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Oliver Cromwell
None climbs so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
Attributed
Robert Browning
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 high man, aiming at a million
Misses an unit
A Grammarian’s Funeral
George Bernard Shaw
There are two tragedies in lie. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
George W. Bush
To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.
Commencement address at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., 21 May 2001
Mary Bell
Achievement is the alcohol of our time.
Seth Godin
The myth seems to be that you’re born with some magic combination of parents, DNA, and lucky breaks, and they conspire to determine what you accomplish in life. Nonsense. And a good thing, too, because it means that for all of us, there’s a wide-open path—if we choose to do something about it.
Taken from the Preface to Pick Four: Zig Ziglar’s Legendary Goals Program, Updated and Simplified (The Domino Project, 2011).
Diogenes Allen
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 helper.
Garrison Keillor
I lust after recognition, I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady.
Quoted by David Heim in Christian Century
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