The basic premise of religion "that if you live a good life, things will go well for you" is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture."
- Timothy Keller
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
"Jesus humbled Himself unto death, and opened the path in which we too must walk."
"There is of course no intellectual discipline which is more exacting than the discipline which makes it possible to enter into another person's point of view, whose antecedents and training and environment, moral or intellectual or theological, are widely different from one's own."
"One important dimension of prayer is finding your own ritual and your own routine. Just like Daniel, you need to find your open window toward Jerusalem."
"Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction."
"Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap."
"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, and pour out peace."