Every quarter I like to share quotes that I have encountered in my reading and research that have been meaningful to me. I call them “Nuggets of Wisdom.”

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“If there ever was a serious threat to American freedom it would spring up amongst us…If destruction be our lot, we would ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free people, we will live through all of time or die by suicide.”

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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“My whole life I have been studying champions and excellence. I have been fascinated with the best of the best at anything. The one observation I have continually made over the years is that the best of the best – The enduring sports figures, the business leaders, the saints – have better habits than everyone else.“

—MATHEW KELLY

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“You can recognize ‘the ways of this world’ wherever sin seems acceptable and righteousness seems strange.“

—DAVID WELLS

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The long painful history of the world is for people to be tempted to choose prestige and power over love, being in charge over being led, being served over serving others.

—HENRI NOUWEN

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The objective of parenting is to get your children ready to not need you.

—TIM KELLER

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Money is another pair of hands to heal and feed and bless the desperate families of the earth…A man’s money is an extension of himself.

—BRUCE LARSON

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We are sojourners in the painful land of the dying in preparation for eternal bliss in the land of the living.

—KEN BOA

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One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, “Here’s to helping you discover what you’re really like!”

—GARY AND BETSY RICUCCI

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Your character is who you are, your reputation is who people think you are. Only you know your character, so focus on that. You can fool everybody else, but you can’t fool yourself.

—JOHN WOODEN

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Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

—BLAISE PASCAL

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Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

—HUBBELL CHAPIN

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Getting married is agreeing to grow together, into each other, to virtually commingle our souls so that we share a unique and rare bond.

—GARY THOMAS

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A good marriage is one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal.

—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

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Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

—TOLSTOY

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