We should make plans – counting on God to direct us.
— Proverbs 16:9 (TLB)

The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.”
— George Washington Carver

The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
— Frederick Buechner

I don’t think things happen by coincidence. I think there’s a grand plan out there and, if you’re paying attention, that the Lord speaks to you through a lot of different ways.
— Rick Perry

Always make others feel needed, important and appreciated and they’ll return the same to you.
— John Maxwell

When someone is relating an important event that’s happened to them, don’t try to top them with a story of your own. Let them have the stage.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The greatest good we can do for others is not to share our riches but to reveal theirs.
— B.J. Marshall

Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
— Hebrews 13:3

Not to decide is to decide.
— Harvey Cox

There’s a very easy way to test whether you’re making decisions based on emotions. When you come across data that are strikingly different from what you previously thought, how long does it take for you to shift your thinking? The longer it takes to accept new data, the more you’re relying on your emotions.
— Michael Dell

Whenever I make a decision, I start out by recognizing that there’s a strong likelihood that I’m going to be wrong. All I can do is the best I can. To worry about it puts obstacles in the way of clear thinking.
— Fletcher Byron

The effective decision-maker does not start out with the assumption that one proposed course of action is right and all others must be wrong. Nor does he start out with the assumption, “I am right and he is wrong.” He starts out with the commitment to find out why people disagree.
— Peter Drucker

Trust your hopes, not your fears.
— David Mahoney

Hope encourages men to endure and attempt everything; in depriving them of it, or in making it too distant, you deprive them of their very soul.
— Field Marshal Maurice de Saxe

Hope is the medicine I use more than any other – hope can cure nearly anything.
— Dr. McNair Wilson

Life is fleeting. But if you live your life in hope, hope that you can make a difference somehow, and you strive to succeed, then your life will last forever and you will never be forgotten.
— Samuel Adams

Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
— Peter DeVries

Parents who love each other provide security and self-esteem for their children, which is the greatest bulwark against envy, jealousy, possessiveness and just about all the rest of love’s enemies.
— Dr. Theodore Rubin

Nothing is worse for your marriage than building your marriage on your children.
— Tommy Nelson

Children get much of their sense of security from the way their mother and father treat each other. So building the marriage relationship will have a powerful effect on the entire family culture.
— Stephen Covey

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.
— Anonymous

The really great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
— G.K. Chesterton

If you want to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment, use encouragement.
— Dale Carnegie

So often we think that to be encouragers we have to produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder can often provide much needed comfort.
— Florence Littauer

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
— Linus Pauling

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
— John Steinbeck