The Amazing Power of the Right Word at the Right Time
Augustine was a broken man. He was miserable. So much so that, as he described, “I flung myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree, giving free course to my tears, and the streams of mine eyes gushed out.” How did he come to this place?
When Augustine was a young man, he left the Christian faith to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle. Our story takes place fourteen years later. When pursuing pleasure unrestrained had brought him nothing but pain and heartache. However, It is in this place of heartbreak that Augustine hears something that will change his life forever.
As he was crying he heard a voice coming from a neighboring house. A child’s voice. It was singing “Take up and read. Take up and read.” This caught Augustine’s attention, and he took it as a Divine sign to pick up the Bible and begin reading wherever he happened to flip open to. (I don’t recommend this method of Bible Study. But we’ll see that it works out OK for Augustine in this instance.)
[caption id=”attachment_524" align=”alignright” width=”153"]
The Conversion of Saint Augustine by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1736)[/caption]
He opened to Romans 13:13–14 which says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling or jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” (ESV) Upon reading these words, Augustine felt that “by a light. . . all the gloom of doubt vanished away” and he returned to the faith of his childhood.
Not only did he return to his faith. He became one of history’s most influential theologians. We know him today as Saint Augustine of Hippo.
I share this story to demonstrate the power of the right words at the right time in our lives. The song of a child at play, coupled with just the right scripture, changed the course of Augustine’s life forever. In the same way, quotes can inspire us to actions that can change the direction of our lives.
I debated a lot with myself about writing this post. Quotes have often been misattributed throughout history. And it’s become even worse in the internet age. There’s no way I can be absolutely sure that all the quotes below are properly attributed, and that scares me as I prepare to share them. I’m the last person who wants to be propagating misinformation.
[Tweet “The right word at the right time can change the direction of our lives.”]
As I thought about it, however, I realized that that’s a terrible reason not to share them. (As all my college professors audibly cringe.) Yes, there may be some misattribution in the quotes below. But my reason for sharing them isn’t simply to collect a catalog of quotes but to provide a resource for inspiring intentionality. In this case, for this purpose, the quote itself matters more than whoever said it. Even Augustine says of the song that inspired him that he’d never heard anyone singing it before. He was even unsure if it was really a ‘thing’ (I’m paraphrasing here) or if the child was simply making it up.
So, all that being said, all disclaimers aside, I encourage you to consider the quotes below. I’ve grouped them into categories to help make it manageable. Do you feel like you need the courage to do something? Are you facing resistance in starting a project or goal? Are you struggling with a pain that makes living life to the fullest difficult? Look below to find a quote that can help you in your situation today.
Action
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” –Beverly Sills
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” –Leonardo da Vinci
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” –Teddy Roosevelt
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” –Aristotle
[Tweet “”I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” Stephen Covey”]
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” –Amelia Earhart
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Get out and get busy.” Dale Carnegie
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” -John Quincy Adams
Beginning
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Anonymous (Commonly Attributed to Warren Buffett)
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” -Karen Lamb
“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.” — Ray Bradbury
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” -Zig Ziglar
Change
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” –Tony Robbins
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” –Robert Frost
[Tweet “”Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy”]
Confidence
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
“Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one’s sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence.” — Jack Welch
“Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong.” -Peter T McIntyre
Courage
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” — Maya Angelou
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, know no release
From little things;
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.”
- Amelia Earhart
“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill
[Tweet ““Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anais Nin”]
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela
“There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.” — Teddy Roosevelt
Difficulty
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” -Henry Ford
“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” — Corrie Ten Boom
Generosity
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill
“If serving is below you, leadership is beyond you.” -Anonymous
Growth
“Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.” -Jim Rohn
Happiness
“Being miserable is a habit. Being happy is a habit. The choice is yours.” -Tom Hopkins
“I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” Mark Twain
[Tweet “”Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” Charles Swindoll”]
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.” -Anonymous
“People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” -Abraham Lincoln
“Learn to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.” -Jim Rohn
Meaning
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” –Maya Angelou
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” –Mark Twain
Motivation
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” –Zig Ziglar
Opportunity
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” –George Eliot
“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven’t.” -Thomas Edison
“There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
[Tweet “”The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” Ayn Rand”]
“Whether think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” -Henry Ford
“Successful people don’t have fewer problems. The have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.” — Ben Carson
Goals
“You can do anything, but not everything.” -David Allen
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -C.S. Lewis
“A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.” -Thomas Carlyle
[Tweet “”A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”]
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” -Peter Drucker
“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” — Author Unknown
“If you have no aim, you need not worry about the means” — Fausto Cercignani
“The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hard Work
“There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” –Roger Staubach
“The grass is greener where you water it.” -Neil Barringham
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing.” -Pelé
“Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.” -Steven Pressfield
[Tweet “”Dreams don’t work unless you do.” John C. Maxwell”]
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” -Albert Einstein
“He that lives upon Hope will die fasting.” — Benjamin Franklin
“Somebody said it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That ‘maybe it couldn’t,’ but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.”
- Edgar A. Guest
Miscellaneous
“Never make a miscellaneous category. It just becomes a junk drawer for everything you don’t have another place for.” — Moses Latella
“Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
“I am sure that in estimating every man’s value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” -Richard P. Feynman
[Tweet ““Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” Corrie Ten Boom”]
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” -Wayne Dyer
“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it is knowing the difference between right and almost right.” -Charles Spurgeon
“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” -Seth Godin
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” -Helen Keller
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: The fear of failure.” -Paulo Coelho
Did I miss one of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below!
