CIRCUMSTANCES
You can no more blame the circumstances for your character than you can blame the mirror for your looks.
A Christian should not permit circumstances to affect his relationship to God, but rather he should allow his relationship with God to affect his circumstances.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and, if they can’t find them, make them.
—George Bernard Shaw
Circumstances are like feather beds: very comfortable to be on top of, but smothering if they get on top of you.
No matter how palatial our dwelling, we still live in tents—content or discontent.
CIVILIZATION
I used to say civilization is going to the dogs. But I quit saying that out of respect for dogs.
—Vance Havner
CLARITY
When I discussed the essentials of public speaking with Sir Oliver Lodge, a man who had been lecturing to university classes and to the public for forty years, he emphasized most of all the importance, first, of knowledge and preparation; second, of “taking good pains to be clear.”
—Dale Carnegie
CLASS
John Wesley and a preacher-friend of plain habits were invited to dinner where the host’s daughter, noted for her beauty, had been profoundly impressed by Wesley’s preaching. During a pause in the meal, Wesley’s friend took the young lady’s hand and called attention to the sparkling rings she wore. “What do you think of this, sir, for a Methodist hand?” The girl turned crimson. Wesley likewise was embarrassed, for his aversion to jewelry was well known. But with a benevolent smile, he simply said, “The hand is very beautiful.” The young lady appeared at the evening service without her jewels and became a strong Christian.
—Leslie B. Flynn
CLEANLINESS
Youngster looking around his tidy, immaculate bedroom, “Okay! Who’s been messing around in my room?”
A company that manufactured soap and perfume offered a prize for the best slogan submitted for the advertising of its products. The judges easily agreed on the best slogan but did not give it the prize. The slogan was, “If you don’t use our soap, for heaven’s sake, use our perfume.”
A schoolteacher asked pupils to finish the sentence.
“Cleanliness is next to …”
A young boy raised his hand and said “impossible.”
CLUE
The labyrinth of King Minos in ancient Crete was a maze of passageways and tunnels. Once entrapped within, no wanderer could find his way out of the complex of bends and dead ends. When Theseus became trapped there and awaited his doom, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, quite literally threaded her way through the maze and thereby brought Theseus to safety. From this ancient myth comes our word “clue.” Ariadne found her way out by following the clue.
—Edward Kuhlman
COACHES
In one school far from here, the coach brought a new recruit into the dean’s office to get scholarship accreditation. Doing his best to cooperate, the dean asked,
“How much is seven plus seven?”
“Thirteen, sir,” the recruit quickly replied.
“I’m sorry, son. I’ll have to declare you ineligible.”
The coach protested, “Aw, dean, let him pass. He only missed it by two.”
COINCIDENCE
A teacher asked his class to give examples of coincidence. There was a long silence, then a small boy said, “My father and my mother were married on the same day.”
COLLECTIONS
A rookie policeman was asked in an examination what he would do to break up a crowd. His answer indicated a deep knowledge of human nature. He replied, “I’d take up a collection.”
—Bits & Pieces
COLLEGE
Sending young people to college educates parents. It teaches them to do without a lot of things.
The reason there is so much knowledge in college is that freshmen bring so much in and seniors take so little out.
My son is majoring in both economics and applied physics in college. It’s not a very useful combination, but it does explain how he can spend money at the speed of light.
—Bob Orben
The renowned educator Clark Kerr characterized the university president as one who is “expected to be a friend of the students, a colleague of the faculty, a good fellow with the alumni, a sound administrator with the trustees, a good speaker with the public, an astute bargainer with the foundations and federal agencies, a politician with the state legislature, a friend of industry, labor, and agriculture, a persuasive diplomat with donors, a champion of education generally … a spokesman to the press, a scholar in his own right, a public servant …” and the list continues.
College is a four-year loaf, financed by dad’s dough, with students coming out half-baked and with a lot of crust.
COMEDY
Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.
—Sid Caesar
COMFORT
Swedish hymnist Lina Sandell Berg served with her father in an evangelistic ministry. As they were traveling by ship, he accidentally fell overboard and drowned. In need of comfort that only God can supply, she wrote the following words that are still sung by Christians around the world:
Day by day
and with each passing moment,
Strength I find
to meet my trials here;
Trusting in
my Father’s wise bestowment.
I’ve no cause
for worry or for fear.
God does not comfort us to make us comfortable but to make us comforters.
—John Henry Jewett
Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.
—Louis Niger
If a person is standing with one foot in a bucket of ice and another foot in a fire, you could say—at least statistically—that on the average the person is very comfortable.
—Bits & Pieces
COMMANDMENTS
The commands of God are all designed to make us more happy than we can possibly be without them.
—Thomas Wilson
Someone figured out that the United States has 35 million laws to try to enforce God’s Ten Commandments.
COMMENDING (Also see APPRECIATION)
An old gentlemen used to stop by at an antique shop in New Hampshire to sell furniture. One day after he left, the antique dealer’s wife said she wished she had told him how much she enjoyed his visits. The husband said, “Next time let’s tell him so.” The following summer a young woman came in and introduced herself as the daughter of the old gentleman. Her father, she said, had died. Then the wife told her about the conversation she and her husband had after the father’s last visit. The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, how much good that would have done for my father,” she cried. “He was a man who needed to be reassured that he was liked.” “Since that day,” the shopkeeper said later, “whenever I think something particularly nice about a person, I tell them. I might never get another chance.”
—Sounds
An elderly lady made it a habit to find something in others she could commend. One day she heard a visiting preacher preach a terrible sermon. How could she commend him for that? After the service she said to him. “You had a wonderful text today.”
“One thing scientists have discovered,” notes Thomas Dreiner, “is that often-praised children become more intelligent than often-blamed ones. There’s a creative element in praise.”
—Bits & Pieces
There are some great people who make others feel small. But there are other great people who make others feel great.
—G. K. Chesterton
The Duke of Wellington, near the end of his life, was asked what one thing he would change if he could live his life over again. “I would give more praise,” was his reply.
“I have yet to find the man,” said Charles Schwab, “however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.”
I spoke a word of praise today,
One I had no need to say.
I spoke a word of praise to one
Commending some small service done,
And in return, to my surprise,
I reaped rewards of mountain size;
For such a look of pleasure shone
Upon his face—I’ll never own
a gift more beautiful to see
than that swift smile he gave to me.
I spoke one little word of praise
And sunshine fell on both our ways.
—Helen Lowrie Marshall
I will speak evil of no man … and speak all the good I know of everybody.
—Benjamin Franklin
Reprove a friend in secret but praise him before others.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
—Benjamin Disraeli
Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated.
—Alex B. Osborn
COMMITMENT
Chuck Colson tells of speaking on the campus of a secular university. He was talking about his commitment to Christ and mentioned that he was willing, if necessary, to die on behalf of the Savior. A young man in the crowd angrily interrupted, shouting, “C’mon, Colson! Nothing is worth dying for!”
To which Colson replied, “If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then I submit you have nothing to live for.”
Athanasius, early bishop of Alexandria, opposed the teaching of Arius who declared that Christ was not the eternal Son of God but a subordinate being. Hounded through five exiles for his faith in the full deity of Jesus Christ, Athanasius was finally summoned before Emperor Theodosius, who demanded he stop opposing the teaching of Arius.
Athanasius firmly refused, so the emperor bitterly reproved him and sternly asked, “Do you not realize that all the world is against you?” Athanasius quickly answered, “Then I am against all the world!”
There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.
—Art Turock
Many Christians say they are committed, but they are not involved. They’re like the Japanese kamikazi who went on thirty suicide missions. He was committed, but not involved.
A pig said to a chicken, “What shall we have for breakfast?” The chicken suggested, “Let’s have ham and eggs.”
The pig said, “Oh no, not ham!” The chicken replied, “Why not? I’ll furnish the eggs and you the ham.”
The pig then said, “For you it’s involvement; but for me it’s total commitment.”