“David,” he said, “you have a condition common to most people. You hear, but you do not listen.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“And at what age are we no longer affected by those around us? Eighteen? Twenty-one? Thirty? The answer, of course, is that we are always and forever influenced by those with whom we associate. If a man keeps company with those who curse and complain—he will soon find curses and complaints flowing like a river from his own mouth.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“Guard your associations carefully, David. Anytime you tolerate mediocrity in your choice of companions, you become more comfortable with mediocrity in your own life. If a lazy man isn’t an irritation to you, it is a sign that you have accepted slothfulness as a way of life.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
When a king begins to act like a king, it is not long before someone else is king! Serving is a way we can place value on one another.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
It is never the duty of a leader to struggle for someone else; a leader must encourage others to struggle and assure them that the struggles are worthwhile.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will seek wisdom.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
My past can never be changed, but I can change the future by changing my actions today. I will change my actions today! I will train my eyes and ears to read and listen to books and recordings that bring about positive changes in my personal relationships and a greater understanding of my fellowman. No longer will I bombard my mind with materials that feed my doubts and fears. I will read and listen only to what increases my belief in myself and my future.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will seek wisdom. I will choose my friends with care.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
From this moment forward, I will choose to associate with people whose lives and lifestyles I admire.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will seek wisdom. I will listen to the counsel of wise men.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
By counseling with a wise man, I add his knowledge and experience to my own and dramatically increase my success.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
He who serves the most grows the fastest.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I am only a stubborn man, Ponder. That is my greatest advantage in this fight. I have deep within me the inability to do nothing. I may die today, but I will not die with a bullet in my back. I will not die in retreat. I am, at least, like the apostle Paul, who wrote, ‘This one thing I do . . . I press toward the mark.’ ”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I am a person of action.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act! I seize this moment. I choose now.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Leading is doing. To lead, I must move forward. Many people move out of the way for a person on the run; others are caught up in his wake. My activity will create a wave of success for the people who follow.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
It is true: an army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep!
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
When faced with a decision, many people say they are waiting for God. But I understand, in most cases, God is waiting for me! He has given me a healthy mind to gather and sort information and the courage to come to a conclusion. I am not a quivering dog, indecisive and fearful.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Successful people make their decisions quickly and change their minds slowly.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I am a person of action. I am daring. I am courageous. Fear no longer has a place in my life. For too long, fear has outweighed my desire to make things better for my family. Never again! I have exposed fear as a vapor, an impostor that never had any power over me in the first place! I do not fear opinion, gossip, or the idle chatter of monkeys, for all are the same to me. I do not fear failure, for in my life, failure is a myth. Failure exists only for the person who quits. I do not quit. I am courageous. I am a leader. I seize this moment. I choose now. I am a person of action.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“Do you really not know where you are?” he asked. “Does that have any bearing on what I can accomplish?” Columbus asked in return.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Truth is never dependent upon consensus of opinion. I have found that it is better to be alone and acting upon the truth in my heart than to follow a gaggle of silly geese doomed to mediocrity.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“My friend,” Columbus said with a smile, “if you worry about what other people think of you, then you will have more confidence in their opinion than you have in your own. Poor is the man whose future depends on the opinions and permission of others. Remember this, if you are afraid of criticism, you will die doing nothing!”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“Passion is a product of the heart. Passion is what helps you when you have a great dream. Passion breeds conviction and turns mediocrity into excellence! Your passion will motivate others to join you in pursuit of your dream. With passion, you will overcome insurmountable obstacles. You will become unstoppable!”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“A committed heart does not wait for conditions to be exactly right. Why? Because conditions are never exactly right. Indecision limits the Almighty and His ability to perform miracles in your life. He has put the vision in you—proceed! To wait, to wonder, to doubt, to be indecisive is to disobey God.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
For a moment, David said nothing. He felt the purest sense of awe for this man who knew nothing, yet seemed to know everything.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I have a decided heart.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Criticism, condemnation, and complaint are creatures of the wind. They come and go on the wasted breath of lesser beings and have no power over me. The power to control direction belongs to me. Today I will begin to exercise that power. My course has been charted. My destiny is assured.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will awaken every morning with an excitement about the new day and its opportunity for growth and change.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Yes, I have a dream. It is a great dream, and I will never apologize for it. Neither will I ever let it go, for if I did, my life would be finished. My hopes, my passions, my vision for the future are my very existence. A person without a dream never had a dream come true.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
And now I have made a decision with my heart. I am not timid. I will move now and not look back. What I put off until tomorrow, I will put off until the next day as well. I do not procrastinate. All my problems become smaller when I confront them.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
First we make choices. Then our choices make us.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
They say that I live in a dream world, that I do not face reality. This is not true. I know that the war is horrible. I understand that we are in terrible danger here. I do not deny the reality of our situation. I deny the finality of it. This, too, shall pass.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
both of us must remember that life itself is a privilege, but to live life to its fullest— well, that is a choice!”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Today I will choose to be happy.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I know now that happiness is not an emotional phantom floating in and out of my life. Happiness is a choice.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Laughter is an outward expression of enthusiasm, and I know that enthusiasm is the fuel that moves the world.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Just as a fresh breeze cleans smoke from the air, so a grateful spirit removes the cloud of despair. It is impossible for the seeds of depression to take root in a thankful heart.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I also believe the good Lord would rather me pray and work, not pray and wait.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“As children, we were afraid of the dark. Now as adults, we are afraid of the light. We are afraid to step out. We are afraid to become more.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
You will find that God rarely uses a person whose main concern is what others are thinking.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“So your question was, ‘Do I believe that God is on our side?’ To be quite honest, I haven’t given that question very much attention. I am much more concerned with whether we are on God’s side.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Where is the rule written that before I forgive people, they have to deserve it?
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“David,” Lincoln said as he placed his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, “your wife is not mad at you. Your child is not mad at you. Your friends, of which I am one, are not mad at you, and God is not mad at you. So, David . . . ,” Lincoln stopped briefly and said with a smile, “don’t you be mad at you. Forgive yourself. Begin anew.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Of all the world’s population, I am one of the few possessors of the secret to dissipating anger and resentment. I now understand that forgiveness has value only when it is given away. By the simple act of granting forgiveness, I release the demons of the past about which I can do nothing, and I create in myself a new heart, a new beginning.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
For many years, my greatest enemy has been myself. Every mistake, every miscalculation, every stumble I made has been replayed again and again in my mind. Every broken promise, every day wasted, every goal not reached has compounded the disgust I feel for the lack of achievement in my life. My dismay has developed a paralyzing grip. When I disappoint myself, I respond with inaction and become more disappointed.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
From this day forward, my history will cease to control my destiny. I have forgiven myself. My life has just begun. I will forgive even those who do not ask for forgiveness. I will forgive those who criticize me unjustly. I will forgive myself.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
All men are driven by faith or fear—one or the other—for both are the same. Faith or fear is the expectation of an event that hasn’t come to pass or the belief in something that cannot be seen or touched. A man of fear lives always on the edge of insanity. A man of faith lives in perpetual reward.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
“You must know,” he began, “that in the game of life, nothing is less important than the score at halftime. The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Gabriel placed his hands on each side of David’s face. “You have everything you need, David Ponder. You know that you are not alone. You are being guided. There will never be a reason to lose faith. The future, as you choose it, is yours.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Our Creator has granted you the extraordinary power of the wisdom contained in the Seven Decisions. But our Creator also grants you free will. Should you choose not to ingrain this wisdom in your life, should you choose to ignore this power, the future will be lost forever.”
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I will persist without exception.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
I possess the greatest power ever bestowed upon mankind, the power of choice. Today, I choose to persist without exception.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Average people compare themselves with other people. That is why they are average. I compare myself to my potential.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
Too much of my life has been spent doubting my beliefs and believing my doubts. No more! I have faith in my future. I do not look left or right. I look forward. I can only persist.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
faith will always be a sounder guide than reason because reason can only go so far—faith has no limits. I will expect miracles in my life because faith produces them every day. I will believe in the future that I do not see. That is faith. And the reward of this faith is to see the future that I believed.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
By taking leadership, ironically, a person deserves leadership.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
1. The buck stops here. I am responsible for my past and my future. 2. I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others. 3. I am a person of action. I seize this moment. I choose now. 4. I have a decided heart. My destiny is assured. 5. Today I will choose to be happy. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit. 6. I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive myself. 7. I will persist without exception. I am a person of great faith.
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
Andy Andrews
You know how the tales grow like grass on such a patch of ignorance as that.
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
"That is your old mistake, Muscari," said the man in tweeds, shaking his head; "and the mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century we Tuscans made the morning: we had the newest steel, the newest carving, the newest chemistry. Why should we not now have the newest factories, the newest motors, the newest finance--the newest clothes?" "Because they are not worth having," answered Muscari.
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it."
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
I really do believe in those things if I believe in anything. Change, bustle and new things every morning. I am going to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, Huddersfield, Glasgow, Chicago--in short, to enlightened, energetic, civilized society!" "In short," said Muscari, "to the real Paradise of Thieves."
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
much as they admired him, something in the subconsciousness of these Gauls was irritated at his pleading for peace in so peaceful a manner.
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
You have to know an awful lot to be wrong on every subject--like the devil."
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
Who but a Yankee would think of proving anything from heart-throbs?
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
"I know the Unknown God," said the little priest, with an unconscious grandeur of certitude that stood up like a granite tower. "I know his name; it is Satan. The true God was made flesh and dwelt among us. And I say to you, wherever you find men ruled merely by mystery, it is the mystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it.
The Wisdom of Father Brown
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Fred Rogers
All our lives, we rework the things from our childhood, like feeling good about ourselves, managing our angry feelings, being able to say good-bye to people we love.
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Fred Rogers
In order to express our sense of reality, we must use some kind of symbol: words or notes or shades of paint or television pictures or sculpted forms. None of those symbols or images can ever completely satisfy us because they can never be any more than what they are—a fragment of a reflection of what we feel reality to be.
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Fred Rogers
I believe it’s a fact of life that what we have is less important than what we make out of what we have. The same holds true for families: It’s not how many people there are in a family that counts, but rather the feelings among the people who are there.
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Fred Rogers
Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Fred Rogers
It’s true that sometimes people try to offend us, and they’re intentionally hurtful and spiteful. And yet, there Jesus is, on the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” A fair question, then: Is that same Jesus living in and through me, still saying that?
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
Oh yes, the heart is deceptive. And that calls for humility above all else, because my heart isn’t deceptive because it fools other people. It’s deceptive because it fools me.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
Perhaps a big part of being less offendable is seeing the human heart for what it is: Untrustworthy. Unfaithful. Prone to selfishness. Got it. Now we don’t have to be shocked.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I propose that we shouldn’t be shocked and amazed if someone who does that thing . . . you know . . . does that thing again.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
War is not exceptional; peace is. Worry is not exceptional; trust is. Decay is not exceptional; restoration is. Anger is not exceptional; gratitude is. Selfishness is not exceptional; sacrifice is. Defensiveness is not exceptional; love is. And judgmentalism is not exceptional . . . But grace is.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
Because that’s the thing about gratitude and anger: they can’t coexist. It’s one or the other.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
“Trust in yourself” sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do. Problem is, for the believer, it isn’t biblical at all. We are deceptive to the core: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9 ESV) Or try this: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Prov. 14:12 ESV) That’s a far cry from “trust in yourself,” as is this: Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil. (Prov. 3:5–7 NKJV)
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
Refusing to be alienated and put off by the sin of others is what allows me to be Christlike.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
My goal with relationships is no longer to try to change people. It’s to introduce people to a God who is already reaching toward them, right where they are.
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
In Khaled Hosseini’s magnificent book And the Mountains Echoed,
Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better
Brant Hansen
Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,"
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle,"
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
'We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.'
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which intellectual knowledge is divided.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
never weary of life though he loves death, for which—in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man—he does not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
a sudden, vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable within him and that limited and material something that he, and even she, was.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy,
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same—only to save oneself from it as best one can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
It is natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient. To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy