FACTS
Facts mean nothing unless they are rightly understood, rightly related, and rightly interpreted.
—R. L. Long
Facts are stubborn things.
—John Adams
FAILURE (Also see SUCCESS)
Knowing how to benefit from failure is the key to success.
—Zig Ziglar
Failed in business
age 22
Ran for legislature
23
Again failed in business
24
Elected to Legislature
25
Sweetheart died
26
Had a nervous breakdown
27
Defeated for Speaker
29
Defeated for Elector
31
Defeated for Congress
34
Elected to Congress
37
Defeated for Congress
39
Defeated for Senate
46
Defeated for Vice President
47
Defeated for Senate
49
Elected President of the United States
51
That’s the record of Abraham Lincoln.
—Bits & Pieces
The only time you must not fail is the last time you try.
—Charles F. Kettering
There are three kinds of people in the world: the wills, the won’ts, and the can’ts. The first accomplish everything, the second oppose everything, and the third fail in everything.
Thomas Edison failed many times. And yet he made 1,100 inventions.
When he worked on the idea of making artificial light, he couldn’t find a filament that would give good light when electricity flowed through it. He spent two years experimenting with thousands of materials including everything from blades of grass to wire made from platinum. Finally he used carbonized thread, which is cotton sewing thread burned to ash. On October 21, 1879, he succeeded.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Confucius
Failure is trying to do all things for all people.
The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.
—Lloyd Jones
Carl Walenda was a well-known tightrope walker and circus performer. He said, “My whole life is high-wire walking.” But one day as he was on the wire, something snapped in his brain and he fell to his death. His wife said, “All he thought about for three months before was falling.” He had concentrated on failure, on falling, rather than on walking.
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end street.
Michelangelo’s huge statue of David was produced from a single block of granite weighing several tons. This block of granite was rejected a century before the master sculptor used it as being unfit for a work of sculpture, yet out of this reject he fashioned his beautiful and inspiring masterpiece. Failure need never be final when faith is present.
—Roy L. Laurin
Failure is the line of least persistence.
—Stephanil Martino
We have come to fear failure too much. Failure is the practice essential for success.
—Charles F. Kettering
When I try, I fail. When I trust, God succeeds.
Failures are divided into two classes—those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.
—John C. Salak
The two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success.
“A believer,” once wrote Emerson, “is never disturbed because other persons do not yet see the fact which he sees.”
Charles Goodyear was a believer, even though others would not yet see what he saw. At one point in his life, in fact, he actually had himself thrown in jail in order to gain time to reach his goals.
One of America’s ten great industrial inventors, Goodyear was a failure for years, owed money to friends, neighbors, and relatives who had staked him.
He was penniless in 1838 when he discovered the method of vulcanizing rubber. But by that time, with his invention still to be perfected, creditors had begun to hound him. Despite his repugnance to the idea, he fled to the protection of the bankruptcy laws.
Soon afterward, he was thrown in jail for contempt of court, and there, unmolested behind prison bars, he perfected his rubber process. He not only paid off his creditors but made fortunes for all those who had kept the faith in him.
—Bits & Pieces
The apostle Paul failed; Peter failed; every one of the twelve apostles failed.
David, Israel’s greatest king, “a man after God’s own heart,” failed.
Moses, giant among the Israelites, giver of the Law, deliverer of the people, failed.
Jacob, father of Israel, failed; Isaac, son of promise, failed.
Abraham, progenitor of Israel, father of the faithful, prototype of those who are righteous through faith, failed.
Even our first parents, in their human perfection, failed.
Who hasn’t failed?
It is not failing that is the problem; it is what one does after he has failed.
—Richard Halverson
Success has many fathers, but failure is always an orphan.
—John F. Kennedy
Failure is the line of least persistence.
When the great Polish pianist Ignace Paderwski first chose to study the piano, his music teacher told him his hands were much too small to master the keyboard.
When the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso first applied for instruction, the teacher told him his voice sounded like the wind whistling through the window.
When the great statesman of Victorian England Benjamin Disraeli attempted to speak in Parliament for the first time, members hissed him into silence and laughed when he said, “Though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear of me.”
Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear in his first car.
Thomas Edison spent two million dollars on an invention which proved to be of little value.
Albert Einstein failed his university entrance exams on his first attempt.
Don’t give up because you failed the first time.
I cannot give the formula for success, but I can give the formula for failure—try to please everybody.
—Herbert B. Swope
We are all men, feeble, frail and apt to faint.
—Charles H. Spurgeon
Falling down doesn’t make you a failure, but staying down does.
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
—George Washington Carver
You have failed many times, although you may not remember. You fell down the first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim, didn’t you? Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat? Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot. R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on. English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs. Do not worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you do not even try.
—Harry Gray
Failure is merely an opportunity to start over again, wiser than before.
FAIRNESS
A mother was complaining to her friend that her two young sons were constantly squabbling over the division of things around the house. “I’m at my wit’s end,” she sighed. Her friend suggested, “Just appoint one of them to always do the dividing … and allow the other first choice.”
FAITH
Faith is to believe what we do not see. The reward of this faith is to see what we believe.
—Augustine
Faith is only as valid as its object. You could have tremendous faith in very thin ice and drown.… You could have very little faith in very thick ice and be perfectly secure.
—Stuart Briscoe
Faith will not always get for us what we want, but it will get what God wants us to have.
—Vance Havner
O Father, let me not be dissipated on nonessentials. Bring the Word to me in power; sublimate these huge hungers to the obedience of Christ. Above all these things, I would have holiness. Teach me the path of faith.
—Jim Elliot
Faith commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate facts; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on the above conviction; and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.
—W. H. Griffith Thomas
Faith in God sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible.
A little girl had been attending a Sunday school session where each student had made a little plaque with the words “Have Faith in God” as the motto. She boarded a bus that would take her to her home, and as the bus was starting to move, she realized that she did not have her little motto with her. She jumped from her seat, and dashing up the aisle to the driver, she shouted, “Stop the bus! I’ve lost my ‘Faith in God.’ ”
—C. Reuben Anderson
Some say that faith is the gift of God. So is the air, but you have to breathe it; so is bread, but you have to eat it. Some are wanting some miraculous kind of feeling. That is not faith.
“Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). That is whence faith comes. It is not for me to sit down and wait for faith to come stealing over me with a strong sensation, but is for me to take God at His Word.
—D. L. Moody
Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.
—George Muller
The world doesn’t believe because they can’t believe the believers believe.
We have a God who delights in impossibilities.
—Andrew Murray
You do not test the resources of God until you try the impossible.
—F. B. Meyer
God isn’t looking for great people, but He is looking for people who will realize the greatness of God.
Faith gives us living joy and dying rest.
—D. L. Moody
Little faith brings the soul to heaven, where great faith brings heaven into the soul.
When faith goes to market, it always takes a basket.
Faith is a Declaration of Dependence in opposition to sin which is man’s Declaration of Independence.
—Bernard Ramm
Faith puts God between us and our circumstances.
—Daniel Webster
Faith is not a leap in the dark; it is a leap out of darkness into the light.
—David Reed
G. K. Chesterton told of how he wandered away from the faith. He likened his experience to that of some men who left the coast of England in search of a new island. After a long and hazardous voyage, they landed on what they thought was a new country. After proudly running up the English flag, they began to look around. The landscape looked strangely familiar. On further investigation they discovered, to their chagrin, that it was the same seacoast from which they had departed! Trying to escape England they had run into it. Trying to get away from home they had come home!
Some scientists in Scotland offered a boy a handsome sum of money if he would allow himself to be let down by a rope over a cliff in a precipitous mountain gorge. The boy longed for the money for he was poor, but when he looked down into the two-hundred-foot chasm he said, “No.” After further persuasion he said, “I will go if my father holds the rope.” That is faith. He had confidence in his father; he believed in his father, and by an act of the will he allowed his father to fasten the rope around him and let him down.
Napoleon was on a horse that was wild and about to toss him.
A private in his army went up to the horse and steadied him so that Napoleon would not fall.
“Thank you, Captain.”
The private replied, “Of what battalion, Sir?”
Napoleon replied, “Captain of my guard.”
Lord Congleton of Dublin once devised a clever plan for teaching his tenants how faith secures forgiveness of sins, while unbelief shuts one out from the benefits of the Gospel. Many who owed him several years’ rent were expecting severe action in the court. Instead, he posted a notice promising remission of back dues to any who would meet him on a certain day before twelve noon. On the designated day, he sat in his office waiting their response. They crowded the street, whispering and talking, but not one of them entered the open door. Just a few minutes before twelve o’clock, a tenant who had been delayed came running in to ask for his receipt. “Do you really expect to be forgiven for your debt?” asked Lord Congleton. “Yes, sir, because you faithfully promised it.” “And do you believe me?” “Yes, I do, because you would not be the kind to deceive a person.” “But are you a good and industrious man?” the landlord inquired. “The notice said nothing about that, sir.” “So you just believed what I said and have come for your receipt?” “Indeed, I have.”
Lord Congleton wrote “paid in full” on his bill and handed it to him. Just as the hour struck, the happy fellow ran out of the house waving the release crying, “I’ve got it! I’m a free man!” The others milling in the street rushed to the house, but the door was shut! One man had believed, and he alone received the benefits.
Faith rests on God, receives from God, responds to God, relies on God, realizes God, rejoices in God, and reproduces His life and character.
—W. H. Griffith Thomas
When Patrick Henry lay dying, he called his children around him and said, “I am about to leave you all my earthly possessions. There is one more thing which I would like to leave you, namely, the Christian faith. If I could leave you that and nothing else, you would be rich indeed. If I could leave you everything else and not that, you would be poor indeed!”
A grandmother on her way to visit offspring and grandchildren in California was somewhat concerned when the pilot announced that he was about to shut off one of the plane’s four engines.
“We’ve got a small oil leak,” he said, “but there’s no need to worry. We’ll do just fine with the three working engines left. As further assurance, you might like to know that we have four bishops aboard.”
The grandmother digested this information and then was heard to say, “I’d rather have four motors and three bishops than three motors and four bishops.”
—Bits & Pieces
George Allen, founder and director of the Bolivian Indian Mission, and his wife made a visit to the famous Mueller Orphan Home in Bristol, England. Mrs. Allen, looking at the five large buildings, said, “Dr. Burton, it must take a lot of faith to keep all this going.” Burton answered, “Mrs. Allen, little faith in a strong plank will carry me over the stream; great faith in a rotten plank will land me in it.”
By Faith, Not Sight
Sometimes I’m sad, I know not why,
My heart is so distressed,
It seems the burdens of this world
Have settled on my heart.
And yet I know … I know that God
Who doeth all things right
Will lead me thru to understand
To walk by faith … not sight.
And though I may not see the way
He’s planned for me to go,
The way seems dark to me just now
But oh, I’m sure He knows!
Today He guides my feeble step
Tomorrow’s in His right,
He has asked me never to fear
But walk by faith … not sight.
Some day the mists will roll away,
The sun will shine again,
I’ll see the beauty in the flowers
I’ll hear the bird’s refrain.
And then I’ll know my Father’s hand
Has led the way to light,
Because I placed my hand in His
And walked by faith … not sight.
—Ruth A. Morgan
Faith does not only exclude the thought of merit, it actually includes the idea of helplessness. In faith one depends on another to do what a person is unable to do for himself. If a child is ill and the child’s parents call a doctor, they are confessing their own inability to deal with the illness and are expressing their confidence in the doctor. There is no merit in calling the doctor. Their faith in the doctor merely gives him the opportunity to work.
A boy was once flying a kite and a passerby, looking up in the sky and not able to see the kite because of its height, asked him, “What are you doing?” “Flying my kite.” “How do you know it’s there? You can’t see it.” “I can feel the tug on the string.”
Perhaps we can’t see God, but we can feel the tug of conviction He puts in our hearts, and we can go on faith believing His promises.
Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.
—J. Oswald Sanders
Faith makes the uplook good, the outlook bright, the inlook favorable, and the future glorious.
—V. Raymond Edman
When God put it into the heart of George Mueller to build orphanages in Bristol, England, he had only two shillings in his pocket. Without making his wants known to anyone but God, over seven million dollars were sent to him for the building and maintaining of the homes.
Two little girls were counting their pennies. One said, “I have five pennies.” The other said, “I have ten.” “No,” said the first little girl, “you have just five cents, the same as I have.” “But,” the second child quickly replied, “my father said that when he came home tonight, he would give me five cents, and so I have ten cents.” The child’s faith gave her proof of that which she did not yet see, and she counted it because it had been promised by her father.
Doubt sees the obstacles—
Faith sees the way!
Doubt sees the darkest night—
Faith sees the day!
Doubt dreads to take a step—
Faith soars on high!
Doubt questions, “Who believes?”
Faith answers, “I.”
A Jewish professor of science of the University of Minnesota, after giving a lecture on the solar system, was asked by a student, “What started all this?” The professor answered, “Only God. Faith can bridge gaps that reason can never bridge.”
A preacher began his sermon by saying, “Brethren and sisters, here you are coming to pray for rain. I’d just like to ask you one question. Where are your umbrellas?”
Faith came singing into my room,
And other guests took flight;
Fear and anxiety, grief and gloom
Sped out into the night.
I wondered that such peace could be,
But faith said gently, “Don’t you see?
They really cannot live with me.”
—Elizabeth Cheney
Grace is like hooking up a new house with the city water mains, but faith is like turning the tap. Grace make possible—faith makes actual.