It’s a real test of what you are as a preacher and minister whether you’re better at showing people their own sin or at showing people Jesus Christ; and the former is far easier than the latter because most of us are much more familiar with our sin than we are with the riches of the glory of the gospel. Which means that, even in the Reformed world, our ministry can be very subjectively oriented and not Trinitarian centered and Christ centered.

- Sinclair Ferguson (from a class lecture at WTS)

Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without a doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

- Marie Curie

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

- Horace

I wish you therefore to take time; and if you have a desire to enter into the Established Church, endeavour to keep your zeal within moderate bounds, and avoid everything that might unnecessarily clog your admission with difficulties. I would not have you hide your profession, or to be backward to speak for God; but avoid what looks like preaching, and be content with being a learner in the school of Christ for some years. The delay will not be lost time; you will be so much the more acquainted with the Gospel, with your own heart, and with human nature; the last is a necessary branch of a minister’s knowledge, and can only be acquired by comparing what passes within us, and around us, with what we read in the word of God.

- John Newton

The main difference between a minister and a private Christian seems to consist in these ministerial gifts, which are imparted to him, not for his own sake, but for the edification of others. But then I say, these are to appear in due season; they are not to be expected instantaneously, but gradually, in the use of proper means. They are necessary for the discharge of the ministry; but not necessary as pre-requisites to warrant our desire after it.

- John Newton

Beware, my friend, of mistaking the ready exercise of gifts for the exercise of grace. The minister may be assisted in public for the sake of his hearers; and there is something in the nature of our public work, when surrounded by a concourse of people, that is suited to draw forth the exertion of our abilities, and to engage our attention in the outward services, when the frame of the heart may be far from being right in the sight of the Lord.

- John Newton