"Why is it, then, there is so much grumbling, everyone complaining that his work stands in the way of his sanctification? It is God who gave him his work, and God never put a hindrance in our way. Why are people so discontented and dissatisfied? Is not all work imparted to man by God's Spirit? And yet we do not see it that way and we remain disappointed. You must know that it is not the work that causes your trouble but the disordered way in which you go about it. If you did your work . . . [for] God alone and not yourself, you would not be anxious to please or afraid to displease anyone; you would not be asking for your own profit or pleasure, because you would seek God's glory alone in all your activities. If you looked at it that way, neither reproach nor scruples could trouble you."


~Johannes Tauler

http://make-everything-ok.com/

"There is no misery in this world... but this blindness and insensibility of [a person's] state, into which he so willingly... plunges himself."


"...in books, in controversies, in the church and outward exercises... there thou wilt not find Him till thou hast first found Him in thy heart. Seek for Him in they heart and thou wilt never seek in vain, for there He dwells - there is the seat of His Light and Holy Spirit."


~William Law

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. When you are seeking to bring big plans to fruition, it is important with whom you regularly associate. Hang out with friends who are like-minded and who are also designing purpose-filled lives. Similarly, be that kind of a friend for your friends."


~ Mark Twain

"Man, from being a friend of his fellowman, becomes the friend of God."


"Friendship is nothing else but wisdom."


~Aeldred of Rievaulx

"We must never confuse witnessing with 'soul-winning.' Jesus made it unmistakably clear that it is the domain of the Holy Spirit to convict the world 'of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement,' and we must never abrogate the work of the Holy Spirit (John16:8, KJV). God alone 'wins the soul.' We are simply and solely witnesses to how good God is and to what transforming things he has done in us. No more, no less."


~Richard J. Foster

"Jesus was never as 'spiritual' as some of his later followers. He never forgot nor belittled the elemental need of men for bread."


~Walter Rauschenbusch, writing about the Lord's Prayer