I love words. With words we can move people to laugh, to cry, to love us or to hate us. With words we can inspire some to noble deeds of kindness, or if we are so inclined, we can persuade others to dastardly deeds of violence and evil.

I love one-liners too. They can make powerful statements. I’ve been collecting them for years from various sources. I wish I knew who said each one; some I do, but unfortunately many I don’t. I trust the following will be as enriching to you as they have been and are to me.

“The tragedy in life,” said Albert Schweitzer, “is not that we die, but rather, what dies inside a man while he lives.”

“The unattended garden,” wrote A.W. Tozer, “will soon be overrun with weeds; the heart that fails to cultivate truth and root out error, will shortly be a theological wilderness.”

Abraham Lincoln said, “The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”

A Chinese proverb says, “The longest journey begins with the first step.” And another, “Dig your well before you’re thirsty.” “If one stays too long in his shell, he’ll wind up nuts.”

“When you have a lot of rough edges, you’re easy to get hold of but hard to embrace.”

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

“To have a healthy sense of self-worth you don’t have to be the best. Just be your best.”

Winston Churchill wisely observed that opposition can be a healthy thing saying: “Kites rise against, not with the wind.”

“If you resent it, don’t do it; if you do it, don’t resent it.”

Ivy Baker Priest said, “The world is round, and the place which may seem like an end may also be only the beginning.”

And finally, “The way we treat people is the way we treat God.”

Suggested prayer: “Thank You God for Your words in Your Word. Like David, help me to hide Your Word in my heart so I won’t sin against You. And grant that my words will be ‘like apples of gold in settings of silver.’ Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 25:11 (RSV).