#sec

If outside forces and culture were the reasons behind declining and non-influential churches, we would likely have no churches today. The greatest periods of growth, particularly the first-century growth, took place in adversarial cultures. We are not hindered by external forces; we are hindered by our own lack of commitment and selflessness. ↗

— Thom S. Rainer

#persecution #attitude

If there is no case to take care of, then you will take care to create a case to take care of. Otherwise your system becomes useless. ↗

— Oliver Kemper

#case #corruption-and-attitude #security #attitude

You don't love a girl because of beauty. You love her because she sings a song only you can understand. ↗

— L.J. Smith

#night-world #secret-vampire #beauty

The only true love is love at first sight; second sight dispels it. ↗

— Israel Zangwill

#love #love at first sight #love is #only #second

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth. ↗

— Xun Zi

#big #big picture #clouded #everyone #fear

I don’t believe in the Law of Attraction. There were things I wanted in my life that no amount of positive thinking was going to make it a reality for me. However, I have learned to believe in the Law of Tough Love. Life has thrown a dozen tragedies at me. I did what any Christian would do--prayed for the outcome I wanted. But God was tough and only gave me what I needed. I now realize that life is not about fulfilling a wish list; rather a need list. Good and bad experiences are on the horizon. How else does a person change, grow and evolve? And just like any warrior woman, I won’t simply survive-- but thrive! ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#events #experiences #fairness #growth #law-of-attraction

I now understood that real secrets were lonely. They planted themselves inside of you and expanded, until you felt like that was all you were-a lonely little secret, isolated in your experiences. ↗

— Yvonne Woon

#secrets #beauty

How could such a beautiful man be insecure? ↗

— R.K. Lilley

#insecure #beauty

The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas, listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this," and I lay with my head close to Jonas and listened. There was no change coming, I thought here, only spring; I was wrong to be so frightened. The days would get warmer, and Uncle Julian would sit in the sun, and Constance would laugh when she worked in the garden, and it would always be the same. Jonas went on and on ("And then we sang! And then we sang!") and the leaves moved overhead and it would always be the same. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#hiding #security #trees #change

In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable--which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#conformity #individuality #secrets #beauty