Quotes about Growth
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
— St. Augustine
Flowers often grow more beautifully on dung-hills than in gardens that look beautifully kept.
— Francis de Sales
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
— Francis de Sales
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.
— Francis de Sales
Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice.
— Saint Jerome
Christians are not born but made.
— Saint Jerome
It is a dangerous thing to be satisfied with ourselves.
— Teresa of Avila
What Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:6 clearly indicates that one's gift does not always operate at the same level of intensity. Timothy is exhorted to "kindle afresh" his spiritual gift. This would imply that a gift can fluctuate on a sliding scale of relative effectiveness, the latter being in some measure dependent on us. Although a gift is from God, it can be improved upon. We can always learn to use it better, and with greater fruit.
— Sam Storms
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
— Samuel Beckett
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
— Samuel Johnson
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us
— Samuel Johnson
We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor,
— Samuel Johnson