Quotes by Billy Graham

Pride consists not in wanting to be rich, but in wanting to be richer than your neighbor. It is not in wanting to be noticed but in wanting to be the most noticed. It is not in wanting to have things but in wanting more things than others.

The destructive power of pride is that it countenances nothing higher than itself. Because of an inherent fault in our nature, man’s bias is on the side of error. In our willful desire to live independently of God, we have severed the lifeline that flows from the source of all life.

We must not build up ourselves at the expense of others.

Pride always puts [self] above others—and cuts [itself] off from them as a result. No one likes an arrogant, prideful person.

Pride flees when we compare ourselves to God instead of [to] other people.

One of the ironies of human nature is that it often has a way of rejecting the best and accepting the worst.

Acknowledge that there is a defect in human nature, a built-in waywardness that comes from man’s rebellion against God.

Man is a rebel, and a rebel is naturally in confusion. He is in conflict with every other rebel. For a rebel by his very nature is selfish. He is seeking his own good and not the good of others.

Some people have said that man has improved . . . [and] that if Christ came back today, He would not be crucified but would be given a glorious reception. Christ does come to us every day in the form of Bibles that we do not read, in the form of churches that we do not attend, in the form of human need that we pass by. I am convinced that if Christ came back today, He would be crucified more quickly than He was two thousand years ago. Sin never improves. Human nature has not changed.

The deepest problems of the human race are spiritual in nature. They are rooted in man’s refusal to seek God’s way for his life. The problem is the human heart, which God alone can change.

Flesh is the Bible’s word for unperfected human nature. Leaving off the “h” and spelling it in reverse, we have the word self. Flesh is the self-life: it is what we are when we are left to our own devices.

Man’s nature and destiny are revealed in the Scriptures.

Science, they say, can tap the brain of man and alter his desires. But the Bible, which has withstood the ravages of time . . . says that we are possessed of a sinful, fallen nature which wars against us.

Our worldly wisdom has made us calloused and hard. Our natural wisdom, as the Scriptures teach, comes not from God, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish.

In taking our human nature upon Himself, [Jesus] showed us what we might become, what God intended us to be.

Man cannot control himself, and if he will not be controlled by Jesus Christ, then he will be controlled by Satan.

You cannot argue with [Satan], for he is the greatest debater of all time.

The devil is alive and kicking. But if you are in Christ and follow the rules of daily Bible study, prayer, and witnessing, he has no power over you.

Satan is the illusive manipulator. He prances and dances and drinks in the adulation of his worshippers as he glimmers and shimmers, displaying all that glitters and all that attracts the shallowness of man.

Satan is masterful at using just enough of God’s truth to capture a person’s attention and then mix it with his devious potion that will lead [believers] astray.