The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us.

True joy, as it turns out, comes only to those who have devoted their lives to something greater than personal happiness. This is most visible in extraordinary lives, in saints and martyrs. But it is no less true for ordinary people like us.

It's better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.

Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely.

Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.

Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.

Leadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand.