Earth First

"Whoever fails to seek Earth first does not deserve to look for heaven. . . . A religious mood wherein we make achievement of blessedness our highest goal is foreign to the Christianity of the gospels. It is a mood which was proper to certain earlier religions like some of India's because the time of the ego had not yet dawned, nor had the Christ descended to Earth. To seek sprit, human beings had then to turn away from Earth toward heaven. Ever since Christ walked this Earth, since he was lowered into Earth's grave to become Lord of heavenly forces on Earth--ever since that time the urge to search for blessedness by turning away from Earth has been an aberration of the soul. Christianity that aims only at blessedness is not really Christian." --Emil Bock 

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
--To Kill a Mockingbird

"The hero is he who is immovably centered." --Emerson

"I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." — Galatians 2:19-21

Related post: http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2009/07/13-ways-of-looking-at-my-guru-4.html