Forcefully Advancing Quotes

What is missing in our time is not the willingness of God to
act in biblical ways, but the willingness of his people to believe
he is still the God of the Bible - and to act on that faith. To throw
away fear, to stride against common wisdom, to risk all that we
have and all that we are so we may follow only our simple belief
that the God of the Scriptures is still alive and that he will still
do what he says in his Word. ~ Wes Moore

Matthew 11:12? "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." Are you playing offense in your marriage? Or are you playing a prevent defense that leaves romance on the sidelines? ~ Mark Batterson

The time's come: there's a terrific thunder-cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming to freshen us up ... It's going to blow away all this idleness and indifference, and prejudice against work ... I'm going to work, and in twenty-five or thirty years' time every man and woman will be working. ~ Anton Chekhov

We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active ~ Assata Shakur

What could you have been thinking?" Iris demanded a mere moment later, advancing on Bram with her hands on her hips. "You have, in case you've forgotten, a castle filled with local Tarrytown folk, your grandmother in residence, no less, as is a young lady whose identity we were supposed to be protecting." She stopped right in front of him and actually poked him with her finger. "Why would you have chosen this particular time, and this" - she gestured to the storage room at large - "particular place to try to woo Miss Plum? A lady, if you'll recall, who we've told all those gathered is your cousin, which makes all this" - she gestured around the room again - "seem rather tawdry." "She's supposed to be a distant cousin," Bram reminded her. "And one with a wart and no teeth," Ruby added, her lips curving ever so slightly. "I don't believe you're helping my situation," Bram muttered. "Goodness, you're right. ~ Jen Turano

But I hear Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the time."
"About what?"
"About the papers."
"My dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do I ever read the papers?"
"Then you will dispute the more."
"M. Beauchamp," announced the servant.
"Come in, come in," said Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man.
"Here is Debray, who detests you without reading you, so he says."
"He is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him without knowing what he does. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Nina was enjoying the book; the writing was beautiful, the characters were real, the situations were bittersweet, but it was after an hour or so of reading that she came across a line that struck her so forcefully she had to close the book for a moment: "I'm lonely, " the young character Ulysses said, "and I don't know what I'm lonely for. ~ Abbi Waxman

Let the soul who is desirous of advancing in perfection hasten to My Sacred Heart. ~ Gertrude The Great

That great, mighty current of evolution which is advancing the life of everything in creation is simply invincible - no one can resist it. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I have seen lonely people of advancing age, yet as constant as angels, keeping faith to those they loved who fell in wars that current generations, not having known them, cannot even forget. The sight of them moving hesitantly among the tablets and crosses is enough to break your heart. ~ Mark Helprin

Thanks to quality education, Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world .. Israel is advancing in high-tech even more than other developed countries. ~ Bill Gates

With what characters she had filled this lost stage of emptiness! It was here that she would see the people of her imagination, the fierce figures of her making, as they strolled from corner to corner, brooded like monsters or flew through the air like seraphs with burning wings, or danced, or fought, or laughed, or cried. This was her attic of make-believe, where she would watch her mind's companions advancing or retreating across the dusty floor. ~ Mervyn Peake

The role of business in advancing women's rights is growing, particularly in the area of economic opportunity including opening access to training, mentoring, networks, markets, technology and even to capital in some circumstances. ~ Melanne Verveer

I like being in focus, in the moment, changing and adapting and creating and advancing a scene. ~ Dominic Cooper

For now it seems that by advancing into unknown territories, I entered into my life ~ Isabelle Eberhardt

The McCarthy boys, at the proper moment, gave orders to fire upon the advancing enemy. ~ Buffalo Bill

Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air then anywhere else - even with a learned air - as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. ~ Charles Dickens

Switch from a Performance Focus to a Mastery Focus

There's a way to keep your standards high but avoid the problems that come from perfectionism. If you can shift your thinking from a performance focus to a mastery focus, you'll become less fearful, more resilient, and more open to good, new ideas. Performance focus is when your highest priority is to show you can do something well now. Mastery focus is when you're mostly concerned with advancing your skills. Someone with a mastery focus will think, "My goal is to master this skill set" rather than "I need to perform well to prove myself."
A mastery focus can help you persist after setbacks. To illustrate this, imagine the following scenario: Adam is trying to master the art of public speaking. Due to his mastery goal, he's likely to take as many opportunities as he can to practice giving speeches. When he has setbacks, he'll be motivated to try to understand these and get back on track. His mastery focus will make him more likely to work steadily toward his goal. Compare this with performance-focused Rob, who is concerned just with proving his competence each time he gives a talk. Rob will probably take fewer risks in his style of presentation and be less willing to step outside his comfort zone. If he has an incident in which a talk doesn't go as well as he'd hoped, he's likely to start avoiding public speaking opportunities.
Mastery goals will help you become less upset about individual instances of fa ~ Alice Boyes

That golden sky, which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest. ~ George Eliot

If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatic belief is no less indispensable to him in order to live alone than it is to enable him to co-operate with his fellows. If man were
forced to demonstrate for himself all the truths of which he makes daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory demonstrations without ever advancing beyond them.
As, from the shortness of his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to act in this way, he is reduced to take on trust a host of facts and opinions
which he has not had either the time or the power to verify for
himself, but which men of greater ability have found out, or which
the crowd adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; he is not led to proceed in this manner by choice, but is constrained by the inflexible law of
his condition. There is no philosopher in the world so great but that he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates. (Tocqueville 1945 2:9-10; Oeuvres Completes (M) 1(2):16-17, (B) 3:15-16). ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Sitting on the divan, she touched a finger to the bullet wound in his chest. It seemed so small, so incapable of creating the exodus of blood which had drenched his clothes and skin as he lay in the hospital, waiting for her to claim him. Death has been instantaneous, they said, as if there were a relief in that. She did not want death to have been instantaneous; she wanted to have at least held his hand as he lay dying and said goodbye to him in terms other than the, 'Why are you doing again? You'll find nothing. Stay. Oh all right, go,' that had been her farewell to him that morning.

Stay. Stay. Stay. She should have repeated it like a madwoman, banged her head against the wall in a frenzy, hit him and wept. She should have said it just one more time, just a little more forcefully. She should have taken his dear, sweet head in her hands and kissed his eyes and forehead. Stay. ~ Kamila Shamsie

[I retained] only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words 'Certainly, 'undoubtedly', or any others that I give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say 'I conceive', or 'I apprehend a Thing to be so or so', 'It appears to me', or 'I should think it so or so for such & such Reasons', or 'I imagine' it to be so or so, or 'it is so' if I am not mistaken. - This Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting. - And as the chief Ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lessen their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which Speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving Information or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction & prevent a candid Attention. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, the United States has pursued a policy of containment in various forms, essentially relying on political coercion and economic pressure to press Iran in the right direction. The failure of this policy is routinely documented by the U.S. State Department, which insists on issuing reports denouncing Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism and warning that its nuclear program is rapidly advancing toward weapons capability. The American diplomats fail to appreciate how, after twenty-seven years of sanctions and containment, Iran's misbehavior has not changed in any measurable manner. Even more curious, the failed policy of containment enjoys a widespread bipartisan consensus, as governments as different as the Clinton and Bush administrations have largely adhered to its parameters. Although at times the Bush White House has indulged in calls for regime change, its essential policy still reflects the containment consensus. In Washington policy circles evidently nothing succeeds like failure. ~ Ray Takeyh

'Politico Magazine' listed me among the top 50 'thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics' for my work in coalitions advancing net neutrality. ~ Marvin Ammori

Unfortunately, there's no law against being smart and living stupid, no matter how harmful it may be to you. You can unknowingly ricochet away from your deepest values because you've mistakenly come to believe you don't deserve to live them - and spend much of your life sabotaging what you want most by aiming for just the opposite. This doesn't mean your values haven't always been your values. They're driving you still and they're waiting for you still. Toss them away as forcefully as you want, then duck: boomerang. ~ Stan Slap

Asking Hollywood to begin to show some restraint and balance in its antireligious fury is not the same as suggesting that the industry must transform itself into an agency for advancing the Word of God. ~ Michael Medved

... evangelicals were instrumental in advancing the ideal of companionate marriage, one built on shared faith and mutual affection, a revolutionary notion in an era in which forced marriages were a not-so-distant memory. ~ Karen Swallow Prior

You will be astonished to find how the whole mental disposition of your children changes with advancing years. A young child and the same when nearly grown, sometimes differ almost as much as do a caterpillar and butterfly. ~ Charles Darwin

When we are succeeding - that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level - that's when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we're about to cross a threshold. We're poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. ~ Steven Pressfield

There's a feeling that feels like what I've been told is love. It has to do with what Louis Schwartzberg said today about beauty, love, whether it's squirrels outside my door, the rabbits, or the birds. They're not trying to impress me or anything, and me watching them isn't getting me or advancing me in anything. It's just beautiful. When I think of the relationship I'm in, there's a feeling that comes over me sometimes. ~ Daphne Zuniga

At every step of her rise, she did the work long before she was granted the title. It was like advancing through empty rooms. Nobody opposed her, yet nobody approved of her progress. ~ Ayn Rand

Advance yourself by advancing others. Do not judge others. Be of service to them, but realize that you are not necessarily the instrument of perfecting and immortalizing others. ~ Frederick Lenz

A big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path. ~ Douglas Adams

A professor was telling students about his colleagues class. Students in the other class had taken to tossing erasers at the clock. Each precise hit caused it to jump ahead one minute. Before class one morning they succeeded in advancing the clock by ten minutes. Since the new time indicated that the professor was beyond the accepted starting time, the class left. The professor never said a word about the incident. However, he presented the class with a killer of a final exam. As the students labored to finish in the allotted time, the professor amused himself by tossing erasers at the clock. ~ Vicki Davis

So I decided to do it [hike the Appalachian Trail]. More rashly, I announced my intention - told friends and neighbors, confidently informed my publisher, made it common knowledge among those who knew me. Then I bought some books ... It required only a little light reading in adventure books and almost no imagination to envision circumstances in which I would find myself caught in a tightening circle of hunger-emboldened wolves, staggering and shredding clothes under an onslaught of pincered fire ants, or dumbly transfixed by the sight of enlivened undergrowth advancing towards me, like a torpedo through water, before being bowled backwards by a sofa-sized boar with cold beady eyes, a piercing squeal, and slaverous, chopping appetite for pink, plump, city-softened flesh. ~ Bill Bryson

I don't think I'm cut out to be a supervillain. [Laughs.] I think I'd be a supervillain that would exercise some form of mind control. Rather than war, I'd force people to get on with each other and I'd force people to argue reasonably about things rather than be polemical. So I'd be a supervillain that makes everyone get on, but forcefully. There would be no choice about it. No free will. ~ Jemaine Clement

John O'Sullivan has forcefully argued that the simultaneous presence in the highest offices of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II was the cause of the Soviet collapse. ~ Roger Scruton

We should forcefully call out China whenever it violates international standards. ~ Sherrod Brown

...advancing through my schedule without volition, feeling more and more like the graphical lozenge on a media player's progress bar. ~ Jonathan Franzen

In an instant it became clear to us that the nearly - but not quite - perfect uniformity of the advancing columns, dissolving chaotically in the clash of the fronts, reformed itself after he battle in a far more perfect form: as the utterly precise, utterly indistinguishable rows of crosses in the heroes' cemeteries, where the lines spread out into a broad perspective, moving in its spare monotony, cut at right angles and chopped in blocks, so that an absolute order was finally achieved. ~ Gregor Von Rezzori

Rule #4 is entitled "Think Small, Act Big." It's in this understanding of career capital and its role in mission that we get our explanation for this title. Advancing to the cutting edge in a field is an act of "small" thinking, requiring you to focus on a narrow collection of subjects for a potentially long time. Once you get to the cutting edge, however, and discover a mission in the adjacent possible, you must go after it with zeal: a "big" action. Pardis ~ Cal Newport

I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to. ~ Amelia Earhart

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured mar ~ William Golding

Our understanding of how DNA informs our health and development is advancing at an incredible pace. ~ Anne Wojcicki

Get your hands off me," she commanded faintly, grimacing. "People don't order Billy Bonnet around," he snapped at her. "What's you name?" he demanded forcefully. "You arrogant brute! Leave me alone. Can't you see I'm hurt and sick?" she panted breathlessly. "Don't pain me none," Billy retorted as if utterly insensitive. "Please, Mister Bonnet," Cal entreated softly. "Please, what?" Billy taunted, his mood becoming larkish. "Please take your filthy hands off my wife before I put a slug in your miserable hide," Lynx warned icily from behind him.

-Calinda, Billy, & Lynx ~ Janelle Taylor

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good. ~ Michael Franti