• “Paul’s life was a prophetic book for Jews to read and see how to be saved, so our lives should be an easy to read book for the lost on how they can easily be saved.” — Ken Ham

• “Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.” — Elias Boudinot

• “When she married you, she gave you her life to spend. Are you spending your life wisely?” — Dan Horn

• “I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx

• “The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value."— J. C. Ryle

• “Non-Christian investigators of nature are as successful as they are because they work with stolen capital.” — Cornelius Van Til

• “Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.” — George Washington

• “The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.” — La Rochefoucauld

• “Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.” — Martin Luther

• “TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.” — Unknown

• “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” — Sir Richard Steele

• “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” — C. S. Lewis

• “Luther once said, ‘The devil hates goose quills,’ and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit’s blessing, have done his kingdom much damage.” — C. H. Spurgeon

• “I will keep the ground that God has given me and perhaps in his grace, he will ignite me again. But ignite me or not, in his grace, in his power, I will hold the ground.” — John Knox

• “I’m not lost.” — Frank Churchill

• “Self-righteousness is being more aware of and irritated by the sins of others than you are conscious of and grieved by your own.” — Paul Tripp

• “Man does not need to know exhaustively in order to know truly and certainly.” — Cornelius Van Til

• “Thanks, modest girls. Appreciated by a male whose time studying the ground is proportional to each degree of rising temperature.” — Unknown

• “True education is not giving in the answer, it’s in showing them how to find it.” — Kelly Crawford

• “Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.” — Paxton Hood

• “My dear friend, when grief presses you to the dust, worship there.” — C. H. Spurgeon

• “If you don’t fear God, you’ll fear everything.” — Dan Horn

• “[N]ot one particle remains to man as a ground of boasting. The whole is of God.” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.3.6)

• “I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” — Jackie Mason

• “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” 
— Martin Luther

• “People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.” — J. C. Ryle

• “Dreams don’t work unless you do.” — John C. Maxwell

• “One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine.” — Richard Baxter

• “The measure of a great teacher isn’t what he or she knows; it’s what the students know.” — John C. Maxwell

• “[T]he ministry of Satan is employed to instigate the reprobate, whenever the Lord, in the course of his providence, has any purpose to accomplish in them...” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.4.5)

• “A lot of men have a wishbone where they ought to have a backbone.” — Unknown

• “What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.” — J. C. Ryle

• “People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke

• “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they simply make the best of everything they have.” — Unknown

• “Drag and Drop for Windows users: DRAG your peecee off your desk, and DROP it in the trash.” — some forum member’s tagline

• “I began my education at a very early age—in fact, right after I left college.” — Winston Churchill

• “We should never do what we cannot pray God to bless.” — James Smith

• “Some people get an education without going to college; the rest get it after they get out.” — Mark Twain

• “Even if you are on the right track, but just sit there, you will still get run over.” — Will Rogers

• “A ship in the harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.” — John Shedd

• “The cold water of persecution is often thrown on the church’s face to fetch her to herself when she is in a swoon of indolence or pride.” — C. H. Spurgeon

• “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
 — Edmund Burke

• “Heaven is eternity in the presence of God through a Mediator. Hell is eternity in the presence of God with no Mediator.” — Tony Reinke

• “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.” — St. Augustine

• “People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.” — Thomas Sowell

• "When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy." — Corrie ten Boom

• “Question everything but Scripture.” — Geoff Botkin

• “Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your own living room by people you wouldn’t have in your house.” — David Frost

— February 16th, 2012 —

Concerning the Old Stuff, and a Poem

I love the Old Stuff.
 
I don’t know what it is, exactly; but there’s just something about the Old Stuff. By “Old Stuff” I mean not junk; mind you, but useful things, like old typewriters, old Linotypes, and old books—things like that. For me, those old things are like breaths of fresh air because they’re so different; they’re from another period of history. They are history, in some ways.
 
To be clear: Technology isn’t evil; it’s just a tool. I have absolutely nothing against technology, and I use and appreciate modern technology all the time—for example, I’m writing this on my MacBook Pro, and earlier today I was listening to music on my iPod. It’s just that there’s a special something that I love about the Old Stuff and doing certain things the Old Way. (I grinned from ear to ear when I learned that R. J. Rushdoony wrote all of his books with a fountain pen, when he could have used a typewriter. Now that’s cool.)
 
This poem by Mr. Phillips really embodies, I think, my own appreciation of the Old Stuff, the gadgetry of yesteryear.
 
 
ODE TO THE OLD FAMILY TYPEWRITER
by Douglas W. Phillips
 
Dear Typewriter, we love you.
Your keys are old, but still prove true,
Your name which speaks of royalty,
Reminds us of antiquity.
 
We think of men who long ago
Gave us worlds we long for so,
By tapping on your metal letters
And with words free’d us from fetters.
 
Preachers, fathers, and mothers too,
Would come to you to peck and hew
A life of thoughts and hopes and dreams,
By ribbons inky, metal seams.
 
Glowing screens and digital books
Will not replace your steampunk looks.
Before your hefty, iron frame
Our tired eyes extoll your fame.
 
So thank you for reminding all
That long before the iPads call
Our fathers tapped upon your keys,
And brought down nations to their knees.

Posted on February 16th, 2012 by Kyle Shepherd | Tags: ,old stuff, poetry |

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