Quotes About Priorities

You can't divide human beings into the "those who make sacrifices" and "those who don't." We all carry things in our hearts for which we are very willing to make sacrifices. The issue that divides us is for what, or for whom, are we willing to make these personal sacrifices.

We all need to be reminded again and again of what God has declared are the most important things in life.

if you begin to want things out of ministry and leadership that you shouldn't want, other areas of calling will not receive the attention from you that they need.

I propose that so much of what drives our responses to our kids is an unannounced set of laws that are more about what we want for ourselves and our lives than what God wants for and from our children. In our allegiance to our law, we end up breaking God's law in our interactions with our children. In this way we are just like our children: people who need to be rescued from ourselves.

He reminds us not to live for the treasures of the moment:

If eternity is the plan, then it makes no sense to shrink your living down to the needs and wants of this little moment.

My research and my experiences tell me that life is less about trading off happiness now for happiness later (and vice versa) and more about trading off pleasure and purpose at different rates at different times.

I never refused an autograph, never refused to buy someone a drink. Now I'm learning to say I've got other things on, instead of doing it and wondering why.

Work takes all the time and with it one has no leisure for the republic and his friends.

When you first get money, you buy all these things so no one thinks you're mean, and you spread it around. You get a chauffeur and you find yourself thrown around the back of this car and you think, I was happier when I had my own little car! I could drive myself!

Loving means losing control of our schedule, our money, and our time. When we love we cease to be the master and become a servant.

We begin to resemble what we focus on. If we devote our lives to our jobs, then we mentally take the office to our daughter's lacrosse game.

I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?

You can get straight As in marketing and still flunk ordinary life. —NEWMAN TO LEE IACOCCA AFTER IACOCCA'S PINTO CAUGHT FIRE

when you reach a point where you can distinguish between the things you thought you wanted and the things you actually need, that is an epiphany.

What a pity to see a mind as great as Napoleon's devoted to trivial things such as empires, historic events, the thundering of cannons and of men; he believed in glory, in posterity, in Caesar; nations in turmoil and other trifles absorbed all his attention ... How could he fail to see that what really mattered was something else entirely?

We know who we are when we know the concerns for which we are willing to sacrifice.

God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. HIs goal is not to pamper us physically, but to perfect us spiritually.

I'm into being a dad, that's where my focus is most of the time. I'm an actor that's my job, but it's not my life. I have a lot of other interests too.

There's more to life than movies.

You know, all that really matters is that the people you love are happy and healthy. Everything else is just sprinkles on the sundae.

how can we live in the richest, most privileged country in the world, at the peak of its economic performance, and still hear the Republicans, and too many Democrats, that we cannot afford to provide a good education for every child, that we cannot afford to provide health security for all our citizens?

Right now, it hasn't affected my music other than the fact that I don't have time to write any of it. That's no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come home and I'd have to quit.

I needed peace just as much as he did, and to believe in the value of my work again. I wanted to run far away until the dark voices in my head quieted. But his needs upstaged mine.