Noah

“Kenneth Clark referred to Leonardo’s “inhumanly sharp eye.” It’s a nice phrase, but misleading. Leonardo was human. The acuteness of his observational skill was not some superpower he possessed. Instead, it was a product of his own effort. That’s important, because it means that we can, if we wish, not just marvel at him but try to learn from him by pushing ourselves to look at things more curiously and intensely. In his notebook, he described his method—almost like a trick—for closely observing a scene or object: look carefully and separately at each detail. He compared it to looking at the page of a book, which is meaningless when taken in as a whole and instead needs to be looked at word by word. Deep observation must be done in steps: “If you wish to have a sound knowledge of the forms of objects, begin with the details of them, and do not go on to the second step until you have the first well fixed in memory.”
― Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci

“Feelings of guilt will never motivate anyone to spend more time with God; in actuality, they will discourage you and make you feel like a failure. Guilt has the potential to totally snuff out whatever small flame there presently might be.”
― Bob Sorge, Secrets of the Secret Place

“In those days,” Ruth-Alice recalled, “the Nazis were always marching and saying, ‘The future belongs to us! We are the future!’ And we young ones who were against Hitler and the Nazis would hear this and we wondered, ‘Where is our future?’ But there in Finkenwalde, when I heard this man preaching, who had been captured by God, I thought: ‘Here. Here is our future.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God”
― Tim Challies, Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity