Quotes & Sayings About Being A Minister

The young minister was a very good young man, and tried to do his duty; but he was dreadfully afraid of meeting old Mr. Scott, because he had been told that the old minister was very angry at being set aside, and would likely give him a sound drubbing, if he ever met him. One day the young minister was visiting the Crawfords in Markdale, when they suddenly heard old Mr. Scott's voice in the kitchen. The young minister turned pale as the dead, and implored Mrs. Crawford to hide him. But she couldn't get him out of the room, and all she could do was to hide him in the china closet. The young minister slipped into the china closet, and old Mr. Scott came into the room. He talked very nicely, and read, and prayed. They made very long prayers in those days, you know; and at the end of his prayer he said. 'Oh Lord, bless the poor young man hiding in the closet. Give him courage not to fear the face of man. Make him a burning and a shining light to this sadly abused congregation. — L.M. Montgomery

We have reached a pivotal time in Indigenous affairs when for the first time, national attention is being paid to the horror of Indigenous family violence in this country. For the first time, an Australian Prime Minister has held a summit in the national capital to listen to concerns and ideas on this issue from a group of Indigenous leaders. — Jackie Huggins

Widen your shriveled heart, make the interests of others your own and serve them as much as you can by sympathy, kindness, presents and so forth. So long as one enjoys the things of this world and has needs and wants, it is necessary to minister to the needs of one's fellow men. Otherwise one cannot be called a human being. Whenever you have the opportunity, give to the poor, feed the hungry, nurse the sick - do service as a religious duty and you will come to know by direct perception that the person served, the one who serves and the act of service are separate only in appearance. — Anandamayi Ma

Ministry in no way is a privilege ... it is the core of the Christian life. No Christian is a Christian without being a minister. — Henri Nouwen

As the map of the Great Plain was being redrawn by a young Shazarian councillor, the ageing Shylonian king interrupted mid-speech to ask him his name. With a piercing glare and a haughty flick of his cloak, he retorted 'Lord Ratilla, Shazarian Imperial Secretary, and who might you be?' Behind the gasps of horror, the message was clear. It was Shazaria who now bestrode the Amaran world, henceforth the office of Shazarian minister now held greater prestige than even that of foreign monarchs. What became even clearer were the depths of Shazarian treachery. The impudent youth who stood before the kings of Amara stripping them of ancient provinces, was the same adolescent reputed to have delivered an eloquent speech which swayed the Shazarian councillors in favour of war.
Had this been their intention all along? — A.H. Septimius

The hot gossip in Washington is that Condoleezza Rice might have a new boyfriend. Secretary of State Rice is being linked to Canada's Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay. It's gotta be awkward dating a fellow diplomat. Like today, MacKay had to promise Condi he would get permission from the U.N. before he invaded her. — Jay Leno

Why would the Prime Minister make such an order, Mr. Chaudhry?" the General leaned forward to put out the barely smoked cigarette. "Would you advise him to do such a foolish thing? Are you tired of being in government already?" A barely noticeable sneer crept across his battle-worn face. — Khalid Muhammad

The "layman" need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. — A.W. Tozer

Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," said Lupin. "But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and — J.K. Rowling

So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister. — Tony Blair

Being a prime minister is a very demanding job. And as long as I have the strength, I will continue to do this and be of benefit to my country. — Dmitry Medvedev

If there were no hereafter, I would still prefer to be a Christian, and the humblest Christian minister, to being a king or an emperor, for I am persuaded there are more delights in Christ, yea, more joy in one glimpse of His face than is to be found in all the praises of this harlot- world, — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

In some circles emptiness is even made a goal to be sought after, under the guise of being "adaptable." Nowhere is this illustrated more arrestingly than in an article in Life Magazine entitled "The Wife Problem."* Summarizing a series of researches which first appeared in Fortune about the role of the wives of corporation executives, this article points out that whether or not the husband is promoted depends a great deal on whether his wife fits the "pattern." Time was when only the minister's wife was looked over by the trustees of the church before her husband was hired; now the wife of the corporation executive is screened, covertly or overtly, by most companies like the steel or wool or any other commodity the company uses. She must be highly gregarious, not intellectual or conspicuous, and she must have very "sensitive antennae" (again that radar set!) so that she can be forever adapting. — Rollo May

This is a very fundamental reason why man cannot become meditative - or why very few men have dared to become meditative. Our training is of the mind. Our education is for the mind. Our ambitions, our desires, can only be fulfilled by the mind. You can become president of a country, prime minister, not by being meditative but by cultivating a very cunning mind. The whole education is geared by your parents, by your society, so that you can fulfill your desires, your ambitions. You want to become somebody. Meditation can only make you a nobody. — Rajneesh

I've never considered being a cop. I could be a teacher, I could be a minister, a social worker or a professor. As long I don't have to see blood and see people die every day, if I could inspire or help in their lives, that's something I'd want to do. — Ruben Santiago-Hudson

I have been placed under surveillance, and I can't take a step without it being known to the Polish minister of internal affairs. — Konstantin Rokossovsky

I have no ambitions to be a cabinet minister, or prime minister. I wouldn't wish being prime minister on my worst enemy. — Louise Mensch

One other sacrifice of the New Testament believer-priests is the offering up of new converts to God. The apostle Paul saw himself by the grace of God as a minister to the Gentiles "that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost" (Ro 15:16; cf. Is 66:20). Although the apostle Paul was uniquely a minister to the Gentiles, every New Testament believer has the privilege of making this sacrifice of the fruits of evangelism. — Robert L. Saucy

Being prime minister is not a job to be performed with an eye for the exit. — Douglas Alexander

With the ministry's motto 'Research on a Shoestring' emblazoned on his coat of arms, he has to struggle with a treasury more interested in surtax relief than national survival. [Responding to an earlier statement by British Science Minister, Lord Hailsham, that British scientists were being recruited by the U.S.] — Harold Wilson

What the deuce does religion have to do with being a good minister? It is a profession like any other profession, young man. You fit yourself to the task, and keep your opinions private. That is what all good ministers do - or should! — Elizabeth Gilbert

In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way
as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career
the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was. — Douglas Adams

We've all changed," he said. "By coming here. By going through the trials that we're all going through, we've all been changed. When we go back, none of us will be the people we were before. The tragedy and the loss and the sense of wonder changes what it means to be human. Do you know what I mean?" Oddly, Anna thought she did. Being a minister meant being in the middle of people's lives. Anna had counseled dating congregation members, presided over their weddings, baptized their babies, and in one heartbreaking case presided over the infant's funeral a year later. Members of the congregation included her in most of the important events of their lives. She was used to it, and mostly enjoyed the deep connection to people it brought. Charting the course of a life was making a map of the ways each event changed the person, leaving someone different on the other side. Passing through the Ring and the tragedies it had brought wouldn't leave any of them the same. — James S.A. Corey

I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis. — Boris Johnson

I had some good friends - really funny ones. My best friend was a guy called Apolo Nsibambi. We shared an office at the Extra Mural Department at Makerere, and then I got a promotion - became Acting Director - and I was his boss! I used to tease him for calling himself "Doctor" - he had a Ph. D. in political science. I mocked him for wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase and being pompous. I went to his wedding. He came to my wedding. And then I completely lost touch with him. I wonder what happened to him.' 'Doctor Nsibambi is the Prime Minister of Uganda. — Paul Theroux

Being a playwright, a film producer, a minister, a general; these are all masks one wears over one's face in the society; masks don't mean anything, for a man is what he is! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. 'Compulsive' is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failure and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same - more work, more money, more friends. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Amongst these brave soldiers was Dfr Vir Singh (Retd) of 4 Horse, whose flesh was charred off his bones by a Cobra missile that hit his tank. He spoke with great regard for his Squadron Commander Maj Bhupinder Singh, MVC, who too was severely burned in the same attack after they had destroyed many tanks in the Battle of Phillora. When the then Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri visited a dying Maj Singh in the Army Base Hospital, Delhi, the officer had tears in his eyes. A touched Shastri told Maj Singh that tears didn't become a brave soldier like him. Maj Singh replied, 'Sir, I'm not pained because of any injury. I'm anguished that a soldier is not being able to salute his Prime Minister. — Rachna Bisht Rawat

It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Now you may do it badly, you may do it well, some people like you, some people hate you, all the rest of it - but you have got a real motivating life purpose. [on being Prime Minister — Tony Blair

The fact that I was a believer, a Christian, everybody immediately thought this guy's a minister, he's so nice and, oh by the way, he can play a little bit. The other thing for me is being undersized. What a great story, what an overachiever, kind of like Rudy. — Mike Singletary

The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians' State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter. — Leonardo Sciascia

I grew up in church. My mom's a minister, and my grandmother was an ordained minister. I was always very mindful of the presence of a greater being I call God. — Mahershala Ali

TO BE asked to minister without an informing vision of God (which is what theology is really all about), however, is like being told to make bricks without straw. What keeps people going in ministry, and what, in my experience, congregations are longing for, is an exciting and empowering vision of God, articulated in a theology that is integrated with worship, prayer, and social action. — Alister E. McGrath

In war and policy one should always try to put oneself in the position of what Bismarck called "the Other Man". The more fully and sympathetically a Minister can do this the better are his chances of being right. The more knowledge he possesses of the opposite point of view, the less puzzling it is to know what to do. But imagination without deep and full knowledge is a snare, — Winston S. Churchill

A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.' And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? "Resign, Resign" is a much more likely response! — Richard Dawkins

If you cannot forgive because of hurt inflicted by others, you will be unwilling to be vulnerable for fear of being hurt again. Because people are sinners, you cannot love and you cannot minister without getting hurt. — Walter A. Henrichsen

I was told by my grandfather who was a minister that we all were put here on earth to be of service to one another, and it is quite gratifying to know that if I am able to be of help to one that is not able to help themselves then I am fulfilling my obligation as a human being. — Dionne Warwick

A scrap of paper, accidentally coming to view, has been used as an occasion of conversion. This was the case of a minister in Wales, who had two livings, but took little care of either. Being at a fair he bought something at a pedlar's stall, and tore off a leaf of Mr Perkins' Catechism to wrap it in, and reading a line or two in it, God sent it home so as it did the work. — John Flavel

She had always hoped that Jane could have looked out over her surroundings and thought: 'I can create a better world than this', or 'You're much too unbearably boring, and perhaps I can't say anything about it without being impolite, but you are going to be absolutely wonderful in my next book. I need another ridiculous minister.' Still, Sara couldn't help but wonder what life must be like if you couldn't daydream about Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (how had she decided on that name? One of literary history's most inexplicable mysteries), because you yourself had created him. — Katarina Bivald

A commander-in-chief cannot take as an excuse for his mistakes in warfare an order given by his sovereign or his minister, when the person giving the order is absent from the field of operations and is imperfectly aware or wholly unaware of the latest state of affairs. It follows that any commander-in-chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forward his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The marriage relationship is one of God's creations for building up people. It gives husbands and wives the chance to minister to an immortal human being in a uniquely intimate fashion. To enjoy the meaningfulness of marriage, then, requires a once-made but ongoing commitment of mutual ministry to our mates and the more we seize them, the more meaning our marriage will have. — Larry Crabb

Mr. Anwar is a respected colleague and a man of integrity, who in his capacity as finance minister showed strong dedication to enhancing the financial well-being of the Malaysian people, — Paul Martin

This was the danger of sharing your dreams with your parents. If you told them you wanted to learn to play the guitar, all they heard you say was, "I want to learn to play the guitar," and then they found some practical, convenient, cheap way, often involving a church basement, for you to do it. But Hector had not come up with any plan of his own. And owning a guitar seemed like an important stepping stone on the way to being a guitar player. So he pawned his soul and said he would take the lessons from the Presbyterian youth minister. What the hell, he thought. Or heck, he thought. What the heck. — Lynne Rae Perkins

Israeli minister of defense Moshe Dayan - the architect of Israel's astonishing victory in the 1967 Six-Day War - also wrote an essay on the story of David and Goliath. According to Dayan, David fought Goliath not with inferior but (on the contrary) with superior weaponry; and his greatness consisted not in his being willing to go out into battle against someone far stronger than he was. But in his knowing how to exploit a weapon by which a feeble person could seize the advantage and become stronger. — Malcolm Gladwell

Faith is not about a building or a lifestyle. You can minister in many ways besides attending services or being a preacher. And I think that that's what I feel most thankful for
that I have the opportunity to minister now, in my own way. — Clay Aiken

Over the past year, I have realized something about myself. I suffer from a form of claustrophobia: I hate being at home by myself. I am a people person. My life has been a magnificent indulgence. I've been able to do what I love and share it. Who would want to quit? I suppose that I never completely gave up my childhood idea of being a minister. Only the medium and the message changed. I have still endeavored to touch people's souls, to raise their spirits and put smiles on their faces. — Dick Van Dyke

Short of being prime minister there isn't a better job in British politics than running London. — Ken Livingstone

Nowhere in politics is there such a mismatch between public and private realm as in transport. Everyone on the M6 last weekend would have agreed with Transport Minister Alasdair Darling's reported hatred of cars. They too wanted drivers off the roads and on to public transport. Go to it, Mr Darling, they cried in unison, get rid of all those cars. Except, of course, their own. Other people's cars are traffic. My car is the outward essence of my being. It is my hat, stick and cane. It embodies my freedom as a citizen and my right as a democrat. My car is my soul in flight. — Simon Jenkins

Being prime minister is a lonely job ... you cannot lead from the crowd. — Margaret Thatcher

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman. — Norman Maclean

Being the chief minister of a regional government is just a pastime compared with the hellish job of being prime minister of two different communities brought together. — Elio Di Rupo

It is one thing being able to contest an election and to give the people hope that I can be the next prime minister. It is a totally different situation where the people of Pakistan are told that the results are already taken and the leader of your choice is banned. — Benazir Bhutto

Fackelmann claimed to have started a Log just to keep track of Kite's attempted pickup lines
surefire lines like e.g. 'You're the second most beautiful woman I've ever seen, the first most beautiful woman I've ever seem being former Bristish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,' and 'If you came home with me I'm unusually confident that I could achieve an erection,' and said that if Kite wasn't still cherry at twenty-three and a half it was proof of some kind of divine-type grace. — David Foster Wallace

Without light, how can you keep the sight of the eyes? Without a future, how can you preserve the government? [ ... ] We could have a most dilligent Home Secretary of Lunchtime. We could have an excellent Prime Minister of the Quietest Part of the Late Afternoon. But when twilight comes -do you see?- our world disappears. It cannot see beyond the day because you have taken tomorrow. And because you have tomorrow in front of your eyes, you cannot see what is being done today. — Chris Cleave

Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was. — Lord Chesterfield

I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference. — Tony Abbott

The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan's elected female leader. Benazir — Hillary Rodham Clinton

I'm a very happy, content member of David Cameron's team. I fought very hard to get my friend elected as leader of the Conservative party, then elected as the prime minister of this country, and I'm very happy being part of that team that is bringing change to this country. — George Osborne

Soldier on guard says they've identified "someone on two legs a hundred metres from the outpost". The other soldier, in the lookout, says "A girl about ten," but by then they're already shooting. Girl's dead[ ... ]The point is this use of code, on two legs, denoting human. It reminded me of that speech by their Prime Minister saying that we were beasts walking on two legs [ ... ]The idea that having legs makes you human. I thought of adding a Primo Levi-ish dimension to it. Merging this two-legged idea with a sort of general question about what is a man, you know, linking it to "if this is a man who labours in the mud/ who knows no peace/ who fights for a crust of bread?" [ ... ] my thesis being that the occupation, the closures, the siege have made amputees of all of us, crawling around in the mud. Legless in Gaza. The lot of us. — Selma Dabbagh

I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen. — Henry David Thoreau

All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior. — Sarah Moore Grimke

It is a common on occurrence to see a Negro well situated as a minister or teacher aspiring to a political appointment which temporarily pays little more than what he is receiving and offers no distinction except that of being earmarked as a Jim Crow job set aside for some Negro who has served well the purposes of the bosses as a wardheeler in a campaign. — Carter G. Woodson

Abruptly, Templeton cut short his thoughts. There was a brief pause, almost as if he was uncertain whether he should continue.
'Uh ... but ... no,' he said slowly, 'he's the most ...' He stopped, then started again. 'In my view,' he declared, 'he is the most important human being who ever existed.'
That's when Templeton uttered the words I neer expected to hear from him. ' And if I may put it this way,' he said in a voice that began to crack, 'I ... miss ... him!'
With that tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face from me. His shoulders bobbed as he wept."

-Former Minister and now Agnostic Charles Templeton speaking of Jesus — Lee Strobel

The Impression that Pakistan being an Islamic State is thereby a Theocratic State is being sedulously fostered in certain quarters with the sole object of discrediting her in the eyes of the world. To anyone conversant with the basic principles of Islam, it should be obvious that in the fields of civics, Islam has always stood on complete social democracy and social justice, as the history of the early Caliphs will show, and has not sanctioned government by a sacerdotal class deriving its authority from God. The ruler and the ruled alike are #equal before Islamic Law, and the ruler, far from being a vicegerent of God on earth, is but a representative of people who have chosen him to serve them ... Islam has not recognized any distinction between man and man based on sex, race or worldly possessions ...
Fazul Rahman, First Education Minister of Pakistan, All Pakistan Educational Conference, Karachi, Nov 1947 — Fazul Rahman

I am being a minister of light and a destroyer of ignorance and I shall never keep quiet until this horrendous mountain is pulled down in my country, in the church of Christ and in my continent. — Sunday Adelaja

I have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them. — Shinzo Abe

I want to try and do as much as I can as an actor. So far I think I've done pretty well with being a minister's son. And now I know I'm pretty darn good at playing a woman too. — Barry Watson

My father being a Caribbean minister, one day I stole the radio. The radio that I stole, I took it to school, showing off how big this boom box was and how bad I was at the time. Once my father figured out where I left the radio, he then got his belt and he walked me, he beat me all the way to where I had hid the radio, and with the boom box. — Wyclef Jean

... on May 1, 1855, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell were married. Before the minister began the ceremony, Henry read the protest which he and Lucy had prepared:

"While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relation of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare this act ... implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to, such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess — Miriam Gurko

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it. — Shinzo Abe

We have to consider who is going to be the best prime minister to take on a "one nation" agenda. — Damian Green

The key to being a successful pastor is to be able to minister supernaturally, be a pastor without tears, in learning of Him, learning from His life. — Sunday Adelaja

You know, comrade Pachman, I don't enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play chess like you, or make a revolution in Venezuela. — Che Guevara

I'm a minister, and I serve as a minister in addition to being a university professor. — Tony Campolo