Based on the positive feedback I have received on the Nuggets of Wisdom I have decided to post these quotes on a quarterly basis. – Richard

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

– Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States

I realize that I will either allow my view of evil to determine my view of God, or I will allow my view of God to determine my view of evil.

– Dallas Willard, American philosopher

Progress, modernity’s master idea, seems less compelling when it appears that it may be progress into the abyss.

– Robert Bellah, sociologist

It is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.

– Jim Collins, author

If you think of this world as a place simply intended for our happiness, you will find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place for training and correction and it’s not so bad.

– C.S. Lewis, author and theologian

Men lust, but they know not what for. They fight and compete, but they forget the prize; they spread seed, but spurn the seasons of growth; they chase power and glory, but miss the meaning of life.

– George Gilder, American investor, writer and economist

God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him it is a  strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vice, adultery, incest. Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason and to nature.

– Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and theologian

What can you ever really know of other people’s souls – of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands.

– C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

If you make work your identity and you’re successful, it’ll go to your head. If you’re a failure, it’ll go to your heart. It’ll destroy you either way.

– Tim Keller, author and theologian

No vital Christianity is possible unless at least three aspects of it are developed. These three are the inner life of devotion, the outer life of service, and the intellectual life of rationality.

– Elton Trueblood, author and theologian

Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

– Seneca, Roman philosopher

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.

– C.S. Lewis, from A Grief Observed

Evil does its best work when it is disguised as good.

– Donald McCullough, minister

Greatness in the eyes of God is always preceded by humility before Him.

– Ravi Zacharias, Christian evangelist

Historically, Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, diligence – the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first, instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

– Theodore Roosevelt, 26^th president of the United States

Christ invites each of us to seek and find Him. He lets us know that in the process of finding Him, we will find ourselves.

– Larry Crabb, Christian counselor, author, teacher and speaker

But anything that is merely of this world is not something we should build our lives on. It is a foundation of sand. And unfortunately too many of us do this.

– Thomas Morris, American Philosopher

Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

– Rick Warren, evangelical pastor and author

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.

– Henry Cloud, Christian author

Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society. When you have an immoral society that has blatantly, proudly, violated all of the commandments of God, there is one last virtue they insist upon: tolerance for their immorality.

– D. James Kennedy, pastor, broadcaster and author

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.