Quotes about Growth

For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, This is what I have made of it! This! And what had she made of it? What, indeed?

The value of education is among the greatest of all human values.

But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles.

And since beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful, and he is static, his life stagnates in a china sea.

Knowledge comes through suffering.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

A tree trunk the size of a man grows from a blade as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small heap of earth.

If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing.

Evangelicals sometimes expect too much or, to put it more precisely, we look for a kind of change God hasn't promised. It's possible to expect too little, but under-expectation is usually a cynical reaction to dashed hopes for too much. We manage to interpret biblical teaching to support our longing for perfection. As a result, we measure our progress by standards we will never meet until heaven.

We must come to the Bible with the purpose of self-exposure consciously in mind. I suspect not many people make more than a token stab in that direction. It's extremely hard work. It makes Bible study alternately convicting and reassuring, painful and soothing, puzzling and calming, and sometimes dull - but not for long if our purpose is to see ourselves better.

We'll never abandon ourselves to the Spirit as long as we think we can change without Him.