39 Quotes by James Keller

My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, my left is wavering. The situation is excellent. I shall attack!

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside."

A young man, just beginning the study of musical composition, once went to Mozart and asked him the formula for developing the theme of a symphony. Mozart suggested that a symphony was rather an ambitious project for a beginner: perhaps the young man might better try his hand at something simpler first. "But you were writing symphonies when you were my age." the student protested. "Yes, but I didn't have to ask how."

During a heavy storm at sea a nervous woman passenger on a large liner went to the captain, seeking reassurance. "Captain," she asked tremulously, "are we in great danger?" "Don't worry, madam," he answered, "after all, we in the hands of God." "Oh," she gasped, terror written on her face, "is it as bad as that?"

A high-school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking: "What do you do for a living?" "I study astronomy," he replied. "Really? said the teenager, wide-eyed. "I finished astronomy last year."

Some time ago we heard a strange story. The pilot of a small plane said that he had been caught in a one hundred fifty mile gale, which held his plane perfectly still. The motor was roaring, he claimed, but the plane was not moving. "It was weird," he said , "to be going one hundred fifty miles an hour and yet not be going anywhere at all."

A candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle.

What this country needs is more people to inspire others with confidence, and fewer people to discourage any initiative in the right direction more to get into the thick of things, fewer to sit on the sidelines, merely finding fault more to point out what's right with the world, and fewer to keep harping on what's wrong with it and more who are interested in lighting candles, and fewer who blow them out.

Hope regards problems, small or large, as opportunities.