Clifton Griffin

These represent a few of my favorite quotes, mostly from other people, famous and non-famous. It is possible that eventually I will add one of my own, which will probably not be as good as the rest and will probably make you think I have a large ego.

“”Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. ” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.” – Edward Gibbon

“The way you show faith is not by having some kind of positive attitude. The way you have faith is simply to act on God’s word. What you do shows what you believe. Can God answer prayer? We say ‘Yes, I believe God answers prayer.’ Well do we pray? Faith is not mental assent to some idea. If you really believed God answers prayer then you’d pray. If you don’t pray then you don’t really believe God answers prayer. Not really. We’ve got to get away from thinking that faith is trying to believe something we don’t believe and start recognizing it as confidence in something that is unseen.”
- Mark Fesmire

“I am leading you, not through cool pine woods, but up and up a narrow defile between bare and steep rocks from which in shadow things uncoil and slither away. It will be dark. But, in the end, if I have led you aright, you will make out three crosses, from two of which hang thieves. I will have brought you to Golgotha-the place of skulls. This is the meaning of the journey. Before you understand, I may not be there, my hands may have slipped from yours. It will not matter. For when you understand what you see, you will no longer be children. You will know that life is pain, that each of us hangs always upon the cross of himself. And when you know that this is true of every man, woman and child on earth, you will be wise.”
- Whittaker Chambers, Witness

“I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
- Isaiah 44:22

Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the Lord; “Shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God.
- Isaiah 66:9

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” – Isaiah 58:6

“It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statutes.”
- Psalm 119:71

“Any statement that needs to be followed up with “I really do love Jesus…..I promise” should not go on any websites connected to me.” – Sarah

“Everyone has as much of God as he desires to have.” -Tozer

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” – Colossians 1:1-4

“One rationalist had hardly done calling Christianity a nightmare before another began to call it a fool’s paradise. This puzzled me; the charges seemed inconsistent. Christianity could not at once be the black mask on a white world, and also the white mask on a black world. The state of the Christian could not be at once so comfortable that he was a coward to cling to it, and so uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it. If it falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or another; it could not wear both green and rose-coloured spectacles.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.” – E. B. White

“Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.” – E. B. White, New Yorker, July 3, 1944

“When two people find each other, what should keep them apart?” – Michael Scott, The Office

“True Christians consider themselves as not satisfying some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt of gratitude. Accordingly, theirs is not the stinted return of a constrained obedience, but the large and liberal measure of voluntary service.” – William Wilberforce, Real Christianity

“My god is that which rivets my attention, preoccupies my mind, and motivates my action.” – Luke T. Johnson

“Despite the low amount of pay and strange hours that I work, I have decided to no longer allow you to control my mind.” – Sarah, writing my resignation letter.

“Hey guys, do you wear any crazy underwear?” – Melanie Mitroff, as said to Dennis and I.

“If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.” – Thomas De Quincey (1785 – 1859)

“Text without context is pretext.”

“Lord, beer me strength.” – Jim Halpert, The Office

“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason.” – Sir John Harrington

“I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true.” – Harry Truman

“Yo Adrian, I did it!” – Sylvester Stallone, Rocky II

“It feels like somebody took my heart and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears and at the same time somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer and then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone and I’m crying and nobody can hear me because I’m terribly, terribly, terribly alone.” – Michael Scott, The Office

“Winifred, never confuse efficiency with a liver complaint.” – Master Banks, Mary Poppins

“The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.” – Alfred Borden, The Prestige

“One man’s pornography is another woman’s depression”
-Melanie Mitroff

“If you’re important, people will wait.” – Chili Palmer, Be Cool

“I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but evidence for the prosecution and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English. It is un-American; it is French.” – Mark Twain

“America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad ass speed. ” – Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936

“Everyday I’m in the epic battle of me versus everyone who is in my way. And it’s an uphill battle.” – Shanna

“It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.” – Rachel Dawes, Batman Begins

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” – General George Patton

“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” – Romans 10:21, quoting Isaiah 65:2

“A pox upon me for a clumsy lout!” – Jimmy Stewart, as George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” – C.S. Lewis

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Everyone has a Clif shaped vacuum in their heart.” – Shanna

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20 – 21

“I’m going to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while, I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed in the morning and breathe in and out. And then after a while, I won’t have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.” – Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle

“This is not strange. Unusual, maybe eccentric in a quaint way, like dessert spoons.” – The Pie Maker, Pushing Daisies