I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claim to perform that service are imperious.
The only service that you can render God is to give expression to what he is trying to give to the world, through you. The only service you can render God is to make the very most of yourself in order that God may live in you to the utmost of your possibilities.
In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue. The issue is service, the service of real people. The question is, 'How can I be most useful?', not, 'How can I feel most useful?'
A store's best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.
From Christ on down to Edison, the men who have achieved most have been those who met with the most stubborn forms of temporary defeat. This would seem to justify the conclusion that Infinite Intelligence has a plan, or a law, by which it hurdles men over many obstacles before giving them the privilege of leadership or the opportunity to render useful service in a noteworthy fashion.
The most useful man in the most useful world, so long as only commodity was served, would remain unsatisfied. But, as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high value.
I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary.
Mr. Speaker, there are some in this Chamber who believe that Christians, like well-behaved children, should be seen and not heard... Christians will not remain silent. We are here to stay.
Sometimes a people lose their right to remain silent when pressured to remain silent.
There's mediocre jazz, mediocre salesmen, mediocre golfers. If you want to be good, you have to really hone your skills.
I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. "A good colonel makes a good regiment," is an axiom.
A big reason I'd spent my career as a writer and not a public speaker is that I am a person who refines my worldview in a silent room, waiting for my thoughts to arrange themselves on the screen before me.
When public figures remain silent about depression, there is a cost to the rest of society. Silence contributes to the misperception that successful people do not get depressed, and it keeps the public from seeing that treatment allows many individuals to return to competitive professional lives.
...you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself.
One of the things that I did before I ran for president is I was a professional speaker. Not a motivational speaker - an inspirational speaker. Motivation comes from within. You have to be inspired. That's what I do. I inspire people, I inspire the public, I inspire my staff. I inspired the organizations I took over to want to succeed.
Most companies, 97 percent or more, put all their focus on clever advertising and clever taglines to get people to buy average or mediocre products. You need to back off and offer a really good product or service.