The pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch one does want to scratch; but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasue of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither but have everything else (God, our fellow humans, animals, the garden, and the sky) instead.           -C.S. Lewis

In my preaching I was really in pain to bring forth children to God. I was not satisfied unless some fruit did appear in my work. If I were fruitless, it mattered not who commended me, but if I were fruitful, I cared not who condemned. – John Bunyan

In a long sunshine of outward prosperity, the dust of our inward corruptions is apt to fly about and lift itself up. Sanctified affliction, like seasonable rain, lays the dust, and softens the soul, and keeps us from carrying our heads too high. -Augustus Toplady

The more prominent you are in Christ’s service, the more certain are you to be the butt of calumny. I have long ago said farewell to my character. I lost it in the earlier days of my ministry by being a little more zealous than suited a slumbering age. And I have never been able to regain it except in the sight of him who judges all the earth, and in the hearts of those who love me for my work’s sake.   -Charles Spurgeon

The reason so many have been tricked into error is because they either did not know, or did not love, the truth.

(Heaven Taken By Storm, p. 6)