Ana Oprea > Ana's Quotes

“In the opening pages of Genesis, we see that our Trinitarian God made everything “good.”

The only thing that is not called “good” is that our first father, Adam, was alone. He had creation below him, and God above him, but no one alongside of him to walk as an equal.”
― Mark Driscoll

“Tragically, when sin entered the world, human beings were separated from God and from one another.

For example, in Genesis 3 we see our first parents hiding from God and one another in shame that includes confusion over their nakedness and sexuality.”
― Mark Driscoll, Porn Again Christian

“we must refuse to speak in sanitized clinical euphemisms like calling adulteries “affairs,” fornication “dating,” and perverts “partners” because God uses frank words for deplorable sin so we will feel its sickness without anesthesia.”
― Mark Driscoll

“Don't cohabitate. Don't fornicate. Don't look at pornography. Don't create a standard of beauty. Have your spouse be your standard of beauty. This is one of the great devastating effects of pornography: you lust after people and compare your spouse to them. It's impossible to be satisfied in your marriage if you don't have a standard that is biblical; that standard is always your spouse.”
― Mark Driscoll

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lampost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: "it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks." And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it.

When I read this letter of Van Gogh's it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *acedemical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on.

But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it.

And Van Gogh's little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

“I don't know exactly where ideas come from, but when I'm working well ideas just appear. I've heard other people say similar things - so it's one of the ways I know there's help and guidance out there. It's just a matter of our figuring out how to receive the ideas or information that are waiting to be heard.”
― Jim Henson

“For example, highly sensitive people tend to be keen observers who look before they leap. They arrange their lives in ways that limit surprises. They're often sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, pain, coffee. They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there are new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron's husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions -- sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments -- both physical and emotional -- unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss -- another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Fear doesn't go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Always be reading. Go to the library. There’s magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to. Collect books, even if you don’t plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.” Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“It is the blood that unites the beginning and the end; that GLORIOUSLY RESTORES WHAT SIN HAD DESTROYED.”
― Andrew Murray, The Power of the Blood of Jesus

“„Și nu ne duce pe noi în ispită”. Prin aceste cuvinte Isus se roagă Tatălui să nu ne ducă în situații în care am putea fi ispitiți. Sunt multe situații în viață care nu sunt rele în ele însele, dar îi oferă lui Satan prilejul să ne biruiască.

Isus nu zice „Și nu ne duce pe noi în păcat”, ci „Și nu ne duce pe noi în ispită”. Dacă mă rog așa înseamnă că sunt dispus să renunț la lucrurile asupra cărora există semne de întrebare. Sunt gata să renunț nu numai la lucrurile care sunt păcat, ci și la toate acele domenii din viața mea care tind să mă ducă în ispită.

Tu știi care anume sunt acele domenii. A-L face pe Hristos Domn al vieții tale înseamnă că ești dispus să renunți la ele.”
― Walter A. Henrichsen, Disciples Are Made Not Born: Helping Others Grow to Maturity in Christ

“Te-ai gândit vreodată în ce măsură infimă deții controlul asupra vieții tale? Tu ai hotărât data nașterii tale? Tu ți-ai ales părinții? Tu ai ales țara în care te vei naște sau culoarea pielii tale, a ochilor sau a părului tău? De tine a depins inteligența , darurile și talentele cu care ai fost înzestrat? Dar înălțimea ta, tu ai ales-o? Sau înfățișarea ta, frumoasă sau urâtă, tu ți-ai ales-o? Răspunsul la toate aceste întrebări este nu. În toate aceste domenii și în multe altele tu nu ai nimic de spus. Votul tău nu are nicio importanță.

Atunci unde îți exerciți tu controlul? Biblia spune că tu ai controlul asupra unei părți mici, dar importante din viața ta, și anunme voința ta. A-L recunoaște pe Hristos ca Domn este în directă legătură cu voința ta, pentru că implică supunerea voinței tale lui Isus Hristos. Aceasta înseamnă că Isus este Domnul tău în întregime, și nu numai al unei părți din viața ta. Luând această hotărâre cu privire la voința ta, gândește-te că El are controlul asupra multor lucruri care te privesc pe tine, indiferent că-ți place sau nu.”
― Walter A. Henrichsen, Disciples Are Made Not Born: Helping Others Grow to Maturity in Christ