This morning, I’m going to go outside the norm with my blog entries and post a quote that was kindly sent to me by a very good friend.  It very eloquently sums up some things I’ve been “preaching” for some time now, and I think it’s important to pass along.

“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005

While I realize this may not be a popular sentiment with everyone, it is a realistic and timely message.

Ok, now on to my devotional quotes to my lovely wife Shannon.  I’ve still been managing to keep up with these, although lately it’s been harder and harder to find ones that I like that I haven’t already used.  Anyways, here they are…

03/23 – “True love is night jasmine, a diamond in darkness, the heartbeat no cardiologist has ever heard. It is the most common of miracles, fashioned of fleecy clouds — a handful of stars tossed into the night sky.”  – Jim Bishop

03/24 – “All the pictures that hung in my memory before I knew you have faded and given place to our radient moments together. Now I cannot live apart from you… Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.”  – Sarah Bernhardt

03/25 – “Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. Its eternal goal is life.”  – Smiley Blanton

03/26 – “As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.”  – Napoleon Bonaparte

03/27 – “The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.”  – Truman Capote

03/30 – “The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word ‘love.’ It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.”  – Lydia Maria Child

03/31 – “Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.
And I do lift my aching arms to you,
And I do lift my anguished, avid breast,
And I do weep for very pain of you,
And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest. “  – D.H. Lawrence

04/01 – “This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected – in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life.”  – Thomas Mann

04/02 – “The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it… you and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.”  – George Moore

04/03 – “Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”  – Saint Augustine of Hippo

04/06 – “We’ve grown to be one soul – two parts; our lives so intertwined that when some passion stirs your heart, I feel the quake in mine.”  – Gloria Gaither

04/07 – “When love is your greatest weakness, you will be the strongest person in the world.”  – Garman Wold

04/08 – “Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.”  – Marguerite De Valois

04/09 – “Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”  – Vincent Van Gogh

04/10 – “Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a heaven in hell’s despair.”  – William Blake

It’s amazing how often I think of her during the day…