Albert Einstein failed his first college exam.
Napoleon Bonaparte finished bottom of his class at military school.
Alexander Graham Bell's invention the telephone was initially dismissed as a useless, electronic toy.
The then unknown Beatles were turned down by Decca Records.
A movie executive told a then unknown Fred Astaire that he could not act and could not sing.
Henry Ford was declared bankrupt five times.
Lucille Ball was asked to leave drama school for being too shy to act.
Thomas Edison carried out over 9,000 separate experiments before producing a workable light bulb.
Sean Connery worked as a coffin polisher, a male model, a bricklayer, and a lifeguard, before he made it as an actor.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.
Orison Marden
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
Pope John XXIII
Successes are incomplete without failures.
Qamar Rafiq
Nothing was ever changed by people who cared merely about themselves! The world was made better only when ordinary people like you and me seriously invested their lives in the service of the wider community and the greater good.
Rob Frost (2007) from his book Doing the right thing
To fear death is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not. For it is to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessing of human beings. And yet people fear it as if they knew for certain it is the greatest evil.
Socrates
I shall not live 'till I see God; and when I have seen Him, I shall never die.
John Donne
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
The deepest ingredient of God's love is Kindness.
Qamar Rafiq
When the church is seen to move straight from worship of God to affecting much-needed change in the world; when it becomes clear that the people who feast at Jesus' table are the ones at the forefront of work to eliminate hunger and famine; when people realize that those who pray for the Spirit to work in and through them are the people who seem to have extra resources of love and patience in caring for those whose lives are damaged, bruised, and shamed—then it is natural for people to recognize that something is going on that they want to be part of.
N. T. Wright , Surprised by Hope:
Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
There are two dangers…for the friends of Jesus. The first is the temptation to make compromises with a culture that marginalizes and crushes some people in order to avoid conflict and rejection.… The second danger is the temptation to like to disturb this status quo. When we are rebels at heart and like to shock people, we can create a fight in order to be in the limelight. We can do some of these things unconsciously, experience rejection and then think that we are being persecuted like Jesus was.
Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche communities
for people with developmental disabilities
When we are reading, we often find something that attracts our interest, It's not earth shattering, or life changing. But it's worth cutting out and keeping, or sticking on the refrigerator door; or maybe sending to us for this page!
We invite all our readers to contribute news items, quotes, or poems, that make you say 'hmm'. It could be in today's paper, or in a book hundreds of years old.
Try to send the original clipping, or a copy of the page to:
Hmm... The Plain Truth, PO Box 4421, Worthing, BN14 8WQ
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