Monday, December 16, 2019

Commonplace Book

A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.


"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."
(James 3:17) 

"Nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind."
(Helen Klein, mother of Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book, The Choice, Rider, 2017)

"For every worry under the sun
There is a remedy or there is none.
If there is one, hurry and find it,
If there is none never mind it."
(LaGrand Richards, 1886-1983, Member of the Quorum of the Twelve from 1952-1983)

"Every morning in Africa when a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
(Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen)

"In a paradoxical period when violating the sanctity of human life is heralded as a right and chaos is described as liberty, how blessed we are to live in this latter-day dispensation when restored gospel light can shine brightly in our lives and help us to discern the adversary’s dark deceptions and distractions."
(Elder David A Bednar, Watchful unto Prayer Continually, October Conference 2019)

"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."
(1 John 3:18)

"A lot of times the Spirit doesn't tell me what to do. I have to act consistently with what I've learned to be right."
(A newly called bishop, Fast & Testimony Meeting, 3 November 2019, about four months after having been called as bishop)

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