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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 5f10a53 | FAR BETTER IT IS TO DARE MIGHTY THINGS, TO WIN GLORIOUS TRIUMPHS, EVEN THOUGH CHECKERED BY FAILURE, THAN TO TAKE RANK WITH THOSE POOR SPIRITS WHO NEITHER ENJOY NOR SUFFER TOO MUCH, BECAUSE THEY LIVE IN THE GRAY TWILIGHT THAT KNOWS NOT VICTORY NOR DEFEAT." --Theodore Roosevelt, in his speech "The Strenuous Life, A Speech before the Hamilton Club," Chicago, April 10, 1899" | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| e38486b | Passive men wait for knowledge to come to them. Weak men assume what they need to know will seek them out. Men of great character and drive search out the knowledge they need. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| c2aceb6 | How many men have failed to stay intellectually sharp and so gave up ground in their professions to others with more active minds? How many have lost money through uninformed investments or have not taken opportunities in expanding fields or have missed promotions because they had not bothered to learn about new technologies or what changes social media, for example, would bring to their jobs? | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 871979c | A man ought to invest in knowledge because it is part of living in this world fully engaged and glorifying God. Yet our times also make it essential. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 3f9e817 | men know themselves, work to understand their God-ordained uniqueness and their unique brand of damage, and accept they will always be a work in progress, always be a one-man construction project that is never quite finished in this life. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 7f50ba9 | Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way . . . you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 8f10a68 | While Churchill was relieving himself, one of the leading nationalizers entered the room and began doing his business right next to Churchill. The irritated conservative moved to the far end of the trough. "Feeling a bit stand off-ish today, Winston?" the new arrival asked mockingly. "No," growled Churchill. "But whenever you see anything big, you want to nationalize it." | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 8dde811 | men know that Churchill was stating a broad truth about an important matter. You liberals are nationalizing everything you can in our society. But, listen up: it isn't yours! It shouldn't be nationalized just because it is big! And you're probably just envious anyway! | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 162d62b | Finally, in more serious situations, man humor confronts fear and prepares the heart for action. It's a tool for dealing with danger, quieting panic, and calling comrades to prepare to charge. Call it gallows humor. Call it foxhole humor. Wherever it happens, it is how men use the sometimes crass but always funny comment to force a laugh and encourage their brothers-in-arms. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| b0e5a0d | Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| bb1bac3 | I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 985cd92 | The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 379f544 | Historians Will and Ariel Durant have written in The Story of Civilization: The Reformation that at the time of Luther, "a gallon of beer per day was the usual allowance per person, even for nuns." This may help to explain why beer figures so prominently in the life and writings of the great reformer. He was German, after all, and he lived at a time when beer was the European drink of choice. Moreover, having been freed from what he conside.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 1b393f9 | We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affections. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 9a51052 | A second legacy from Nancy might seem more a curse than a gift, but it may have helped to give us the Lincoln our nation reveres. She would pass on to him her own struggle with depression, with that enveloping darkness that lurks, for some, ever at the soul's door. This would merge with a Lincoln family heritage of mental illness to become a force in Abraham that he fought to subdue all his days. It would leave him scarred, and it would eve.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| cb2d807 | Abraham Lincoln avoided the extremes of his family's psychological deformities, but he still suffered from a dark, draining, despair-inducing force that seemed at times to bore into the center of his being. Shortly after Lincoln's death, Herndon described his slain friend as "a sad looking man: his melancholy dripped from him as he walked."17 Townspeople reported that he was indeed the saddest-looking man they had ever known. Lincoln's frie.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 4289b68 | So we forgive. We send away the wrongs done to us. We let people out of the little cages we keep them in while we enjoy our feelings of moral superiority. We hand the feelings of wrong to God and refuse to ever take them back. Then we shut up and never mention the matter again. When the time comes, we put our arm around the offender and we ask him how he is. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 7425257 | Nonetheless, Lincoln's story is, in part, that of a man who beat back the spirits that came for him in the night. He might well have been crushed by his woes, by the death of the first son and then the second, by the madness of his wife, or the hatred of his foes--even by the devils in his thoughts. He did not yield, though, not ultimately. As important, he mined the valleys of depression for what riches he could find. He emerged to see lif.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 332ee02 | A second legacy from Nancy might seem more a curse than a gift, but it may have helped to give us the Lincoln our nation reveres. She would pass on to him her own struggle with depression, with that enveloping darkness that lurks, for some, ever at the soul's door. This would merge with a Lincoln family heritage of mental illness to become a force in Abraham that he fought to subdue all his days. It would leave him scarred, and it would eve.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 1ef8858 | But running from emotional pain is never a good idea, as it only leaves us damaged of soul and hindered in our ability to fulfill our purpose. We have to turn and face our torturous seasons and the scars they try to leave on our hearts. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| a90d926 | It is a great art of living to be able to hear truth in the mouth of your enemies. Even those who hate you and mean to hurt you may still be right about what they see in your life. Though they shout their observations and probably intend them to wound you rather than help you, still they are giving you insight that can help you improve. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| c9223a1 | The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement." --Aristotle, from The Nicomachean Ethics" | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| d9c46db | What we want and need in our bitter, rebellious times is God, but unwilling to turn fully to him, we reach for idols and forfeit his intended grace. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| fcd614c | A man is known by the company he keeps. We all know that we can tell a great deal about people by looking at those they call friends. It is also true that we can tell a great deal about ourselves by what our friends do when we hit hard times. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 257d541 | Facing the reality of that painful season when it felt as though you were in a sandstorm with no skin is the key to becoming whole now. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 30de91f | find it interesting, given the controversies over alcohol that would eventually erupt in the history of the Christian church, that the arrival of Christianity in the world and its eventual sway over the empire did not diminish the Roman love of beer. For the early Christians, drunkenness was the sin--as their apostles had repeatedly taught--and not the consumption of alcohol. After all, their Lord had miraculously created wine at a wedding .. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| eacfc77 | Every Christian has a capacity for the most magnificent Christlikeness. Yet, every Christian also has the potential to commit the most disgusting and horrible acts of the flesh. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| d66e820 | To know gritty truth about life straight from the pages of Scripture is part of the grace of God and allows us to live safely and effectively in a fallen world. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 85da158 | Far better to know people for the cruel creatures that they are, and to love them despite their flaws, than to love them as we wish them to be and constantly be disappointed and hurt. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 0f5e968 | John Wesley drank wine, was something of an ale expert, and often made sure that his Methodist preachers were paid in one of the vital currencies of the day--rum. His brother, Charles Wesley, was known for the fine port, Madeira, and sherry he often served in his home; the journals of George Whitefield are filled with references to his enjoyment of alcohol. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 890bc72 | Psalm 23:3 every day. Lord, please be my good shepherd and restore my soul. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| c38c845 | By doing rather than merely studying, we create a culture. Newcomers and the young feed on that culture. They watch. They do. They, too, are changed. Our culture expands. You Americans create a system of thought. The most you ask is that people contemplate new ideas. You might ask them to give or to sometimes attend meetings, but no contagious culture is created. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 17ad588 | Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| a88215a | QUALITIES OF A GREAT GENERAL" 1. Tactically aggressive (loves a fight) 2. Strength of character 3. Steadiness of purpose 4. Acceptance of responsibility 5. Energy 6. Good health and strength George Patton Cadet" | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 3f632bf | A NATION'S STRENGTH What makes a nation's pillars high And its foundations strong? What makes it mighty to defy The foes that round it throng? It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand Go down in battle shock; Its shafts are laid on sinking sand, Not on abiding rock. Is it the sword? Ask the red dust Of empires passed away; The blood has turned their stones to rust, Their glory to decay. And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown Has seemed to nati.. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| ec46f0a | True manliness is about the determination to act according to a noble definition of what it means to be a man. This is within the reach of every man, no matter how he looks or sounds. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| cca99c6 | SOMEONE ONCE TRIED TO SUMMARIZE A PRINCIPLE IN Aristotle's epic work Poetics with these words: "Action is character." Now Aristotle was describing the elements of drama when he wrote his Poetics, so he didn't necessarily mean what I mean here. Still, his basic premise is true: we know what a person's character is by what he does." | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| e42c896 | NOTHING GREAT WILL EVER BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT GREAT MEN, AND MEN ARE GREAT ONLY IF THEY ARE DETERMINED TO BE SO. FOR GLORY GIVES HERSELF ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF HER." --Charles De Gaulle, from The Army of the Future (Vers l'armee de metier), 1941" | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 1146279 | Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. --Helen Keller, from The Open Door (1957) | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 279c2b9 | HAVING THUS CHOSEN OUR COURSE, WITHOUT GUILES AND WITH PURE PURPOSE, LET US RENEW OUR TRUST IN GOD, AND GO FORWARD WITHOUT FEAR AND WITH MANLY HEARTS." --Abraham Lincoln, Address to Congress, July 4, 1861" | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 5acea3d | In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle said, "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way . . . you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions." | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 0ec42a2 | Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| 2112c0a | Churchill wrote, "In my belief, you cannot deal with the most serious things in the world unless you also understand the most amusing." | Stephen Mansfield | ||
| bc3bad3 | Charlemagne's support for brewing enhanced an already vibrant Christian beer culture in the medieval church, one that is difficult to exaggerate. An example comes to us from a letter that Pope Gregory wrote to Archbishop Nidrosiensi of Iceland. In it, Gregory describes how some children in the medieval period were baptized not with holy water but with beer. This was likely because beer was cleaner than water and for the baptizing priest it .. | Stephen Mansfield |