William Barclay quotes

There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why. (William Barclay)
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
William Barclay
We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.
William Barclay
In the time we have it is surely our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can.
William Barclay
The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.
William Barclay
All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get. There is a price to be paid for anything. Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill of craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, and eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline.
William Barclay
Love always involves responsibility, and love always involves sacrifice. And we do not really love Christ unless we are prepared to face His task and to take up His Cross.
William Barclay
When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive.
William Barclay
If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.
William Barclay
A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing.
William Barclay
For the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be for ever with Him. (William Barclay)
Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.
William Barclay
God himself took this human flesh upon him.
William Barclay
But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him any more.
William Barclay
When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father's hand will never cause his child a needless tear. We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer.
William Barclay
The awful importance of this life is that it determines eternity.
William Barclay
Jesus is to God as we must be to Jesus.
William Barclay
A reverent agnosticism can be on occasion a better evangelism than a religion which knows all the answers.
William Barclay
Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church' service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.
William Barclay
Jesus promised his disciples three things-that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.
William Barclay
The greatest thing is a life of obedience in the routine things of everyday life. No amount of fine feeling can take the place of faithful doing. (William Barclay)
We may not understand how the spirit works but the effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to see and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life. No man can disregard a religion and a faith and a power which is able to make bad men good. . .
William Barclay