Response To Challenges Quotes

Do not rely on the outer world as your measuring stick for your own spiritual growth. Rely on your response to the outer world to determine how much you have grown. ~ Bashar

When life brings hardships beyond our understanding, it's not up to us to look for the silver lining. We are the silver lining. We become God's well-tuned instruments of peace, His gift to one another, each of us a miracle, according to His strange and wonderful plan. ~ Christy Wilson Beam

The purpose of such propaganda phrases as "war on terrorism" and attacking "those who hate freedom" is to paralyze individual thought as well as to condition people to act as one mass, as when President Bush attempted to end debate on Iraq by claiming that the American people were of one voice. The modern war president removes the individual nature of those who live in it by forcing us into a uniform state where the complexities of those we fight are erased. The enemy-terrorism, Iraq, Bin Laden, Hussein-becomes one threatening category, something to be defeated and destroyed, so that the public response will be one of reaction to fear and threat rather than creatively and independently thinking for oneself. Our best hope for overcoming perpetual thinking about war and perpetual fear about both real and imagined threats is to question our leaders and their use of empty slogans that offer little rationale, explanation or historical context. ~ Nancy Snow

It is a quality of life to be cultivated that goes deeper than a checklist. Thus "discernment does not change the challenges we face; it changes our ability to face them. ~ Hannah Anderson

Reading [poetry], you know, is rather like opening the door to a horde of rebels who swarm out attacking one in twenty places at once - hit, roused, scraped, bared, swung through the air, so that life seems to flash by; then again blinded, knocked on the head - all of which are agreeable sensations for a reader (since nothing is more dismal than to open the door and get no response) ... ~ Virginia Woolf

One of the greatest theological challenges of our time is to move our worship beyond self-absorption. ~ Kelly M. Kapic

It's a challenge getting rid of an accent by yourself. I have parents that have such thick accents. They are like, "She sounds fine." They didn't know. To them, I spoke perfect English because their accents were so heavy. I don't even want to know what I sounded like. I don't want to know! ~ Odeya Rush

When Beethoven made sharp response to a letter from his brother Karl, who embellished his signature with the phrase "land-owner," the composer added "brain-owner" to his own autograph. ~ Russell Sherman

I can say I won a Senior British Open at Turnberry. I think that's the best thing about it, the whole week, was playing this course. It's a challenging, very tough course, under extreme weather. But you know, it's nice to win any event. ~ Fred Couples

We are married."
"We're about to get divorced." ...
"No." He licked up her ear to bite the shell.
She shivered in response. "Yes."
"Nope." His palm spread out across her bare midriff. "I may have screwed up, and we'll find out why, but I won't hurt you again. You're mine, angel. The only thing in life that matters. ~ Rebecca Zanetti

Our perceptions shape whether challenges are obstacles that block our path to success or important arrows that steer us in the direction we want to go. ~ Julie Connor

I want you to smile. I want you to truly smile today.

Realize that right now you are where you need to be. And, there is no need to rush. You are on-time, you always have been and you will always be. Please keep smiling. ~ Ana Ortega

Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on His own terms, regardless of the personal cost. ~ Philip Yancey

Education is not the only answer and it's certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it's a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality. ~ Robert Reich

Sometimes Carlie hands me the squirt bottle of "Bam" (an acronym for something that begins, ominously, with "butyric" - the rest of it has been worn off the label) and lets me do the bathrooms. No service ethic challenges me here to new heights of performance. I just concentrate on removing the pubic hairs from the bathtubs, or at least the dark ones that I can see. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

As I've said, ARPA had been created in response to Sputnik, and one of its key organizing principles was that collaboration could lead to excellence. ~ Ed Catmull

Denmark should be a green and sustainable society with a visionary climate and energy policy ... The answer to these challenges lies in the way we produce and consume energy and in our ability to adapt our society to climate change. ~ Connie Hedegaard

We're so accustomed to laughing. It's harder for us when the time comes that we can't laugh. ~ Lois Lowry

If the face appears, the picture is inevitably a portrait and the expression of the face will dictate the viewer's response to the body. ~ Charis Wilson

First, say to yourself, 'I'm totally independent of the good or bad opinions of others.' Second: 'I'm beneath no one.' Third: 'I'm fearless in the face of any and all challenges.' ~ Deepak Chopra

I find life itself provides ample and sufficient tests of my valor and mettle: illness; betrayal; fruitless searches for love; working for the abusive, the insane, and the despotic. All challenges easily as thrilling to me as scrambling over icy rock in a pair of barely adequate boots. ~ David Rakoff

How many people have more than one bible in your house? If you have more than one Bible in your home, I challenge you to have a bit more compassion and think about those who have never had access to the Word of God. ~ Brother Yun

Saba: "You want this one to guide you?" Leia: "If you would consider it." Saba: "This one?" Leia: "Yes. I want someone who will challenge me in unexpected ways. I want someone who will teach me what I don't know. ~ Troy Denning

The whole, 'Is the Internet a good thing or a bad thing'? We're done with that. It's just a thing. How to maximise its civic value, its public good - that's the really big challenge. ~ Clay Shirky

The complaints of many Christians as to lack of joy and strength, as to failure and want of growth, are simply owing to this - the place God gave Holiness in His call they have not given it in their response. God and they have never yet come to an agreement on this. ~ Andrew Murray

Every Day Is for the Thief, by turns funny, mournful, and acerbic, offers a portrait of Nigeria in which anger, perhaps the most natural response to the often lamentable state of affairs there, is somehow muted and deflected by the author's deep engagement with the country: a profoundly disenchanted love. Teju Cole is among the most gifted writers of his generation. ~ Salman Rushdie

At a time when everybody in our culture is talking about tolerance, it seems that tolerance has the highest premium of any response - "If we just tolerate one another ... " But my feeling is: Who wants to be tolerated? People don't want to be tolerated; they want to be loved. ~ Derek Webb

When an opinionated person starts to challenge something, his mind shuts out all that could clear up the matter. The argument irritates him, however just it might be, and it seems that he is afraid of discovering the truth. ~ Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

The most challenging thing for the spiritual seeker to do is to stop struggling. ~ Adyashanti

We love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, extend kindness to the ungrateful, and flood evil people with mercy not because such behavior will always work at confronting injustice, but because such behavior showcases God's stubborn delight in un-delightful people. Faithfulness rather than perceived effectiveness motivates our response to evil. ~ Preston Sprinkle

It is a pity that the great dramatist did not select from Plutarch's works some hero who took the side of the people, some Agis or Cleomenes, or, better yet, one of the Gracchi. What a tragedy he might have based on the life of Tiberius, the friend of the people and the martyr in their cause! But the spirit which guided Schiller in the choice of William Tell for a hero was a stranger to Shakespeare's heart, and its promptings would have met with no response there. ~ William Shakespeare

Professor Schumann Antelme makes it clear that the Egyptians viewed the tomb as a remote-control switch that caused actions in heaven in response to the terrestrial activities with which they were associated. This concept can be summed up best by the alchemists' celebrated formula of "as above, so below," which in other words means that there is a precise correspondence between heaven and earth. This theory is also the rationale behind astrology and other esoteric doctrines. The alchemical tradition, and all religious tradition, had its origin in the sacred science of the ancient Egyptians. ~ Ruth Schumann Antelme

The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform. ~ Ari Fleischer

AESTHETICS OF OPERA
Don't sing an aria
To someone who can't
Sing one back. ~ Kenneth Koch

He points out that mystics have always worked systematically to modify their brain chemistry, whether through fasting, self-flagellation, sleeplessness, hypnotic movement, or chanting.* The brain can be made to drug itself, as seems to happen with certain placebos. We don't merely imagine that the placebo antidepressant is working to lift our sadness or worry - the brain is actually producing extra serotonin in response to the mental prompt of swallowing a pill containing nothing but sugar and belief. What all this suggests is that the workings of consciousness are both more and less materialistic than we usually think: chemical reactions can induce thoughts, but thoughts can also induce chemical reactions. ~ Michael Pollan

Shoes. I needed to get on my tennis shoes. I scrambled through my things on the floor and found them, shoving my feet in and tying the knots. Of course Kaidan Rowe would know what freesia smelled like. He probably had to take a flower course during lust training.
"Going somewhere?"
In my peripheral vision I saw him standing in the bathroom door. I wouldn't meet his eyes, afraid they'd be as stormy as they were after our kiss.
I stood and looked at the clock. It was nine. "Yeah, I'm going for a run."
"Mind if I join you?"
I huffed out a determined breath and looked at him now. "Only if you'll do something for me."
He raised his eyebrows in response.
"Teach me to hide my colors. ~ Wendy Higgins

The 'clean energy' challenge deserves a commitment akin to the Manhattan project or the Apollo moon landing. ~ Martin Rees

The awakening passed from simple recognition of my need for God at the center of my life, to a depth where the will is stirred And that is a deeper place by far. That is the place of response, of unifying one's heart, mind, soul and feet around a decision. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Feminism is a way of understanding reality, not just a series of things to do. Feminism challenges our predilection for one right answer, one right God, one size fits all.
As a feminist, one can be spiritual or secular. One can lead an outwardly conservative life and yet, in feminist terms, be profoundly radical. So too, feminist leaders (like everyone else) can be sexist, or racist, or class-blind, in either their professional or personal lives. Or in both.
Feminist of my generation told the truth about women's condition. We were messengers from the past, or from the future. As ever, some people thought that killing, or at least defaming, the messengers was a way of making us and our truths disappear.
I'm counting on you not to do that. ~ Phyllis Chesler

Racism is a complex and interconnected system that adapts to challenges over time. Colorblind ideology was a very effective adaptation to the challenges of the Civil Rights Era. Colorblind ideology allows society to deny the reality of racism in the face of its persistence, while making it more difficult to challenge than when it was openly espoused. ~ Robin DiAngelo

Ian Fleming

The CBC Interview, 1953

He doesn't use Anglo-Saxon four-letter words, "I don't like seeing them on the page."

When asked why his novels are so popular in light of the dirtiness of the trade (of espionage), Fleming said, "The books have pace and plenty of action. And espionage is not regarded by the majority of the public as a dirty trade. They regard it as a rather sort of ah, ah very romantic affair… Spying has always been regarded as (a) very romantic one-man job, so-to-speak. A one man against a whole police force or an army."

Regarding heroes of his time, Fleming said, "I think that although they may have feet of clay, ah, we probably all have, and all human beings have, there's no point in dwelling entirely on the feet. There are many other parts of the animal to be examined. And I think people like to read about heroes."

BBC Interview on Desert Island Discs

Question: Had the character of James Bond been growing in your mind for a long time?
Ian Fleming's response: "No, I can't say I had, really. He sort of, ah, developed when I was just on the edge of getting married, after having been a bachelor for so long, and I really wanted to take my mind off the agony. And so I decided to sit down and write a book."

Question: How much long do you think you can keep Bond going?
Ian Fleming's response: "Well, I don't know. It depends on how much I, how much more I can go on following ~ Ian Fleming

Through the Savior's Atonement and by following these basic patterns of faithfulness, we receive "power from on high" to face the challenges of life. We need this divine power today more than ever. ~ Robert D. Hales

I think everybody faces challenges in their lives. I've definitely been through it - not to the extreme that Astrid did. I try to keep some kind of identity and strength. ~ Alison Lohman