Ben Carson · 224 pages
Rating: (12.9K votes)
“Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“To THINK BIG and to use our talents doesn't mean we won't have difficulties along the way. We will--we all do. If we choose to see the obstacles in our path as barriers, we stop trying. "We can't win," we moan. "They won't let us win.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“...I became acutely aware of an unusual ability--a divine gift, I believe--of extraordinary eye and hand coordination. It’s my belief that God gives us all gifts, special abilities that we have the privilege of developing to help us serve Him and humanity. And the gift of eye and hand coordination has been an invaluable asset in surgery. This gift goes beyond eye-hand coordination, encompassing the ability to understand physical relationships, to think in three dimensions. Good surgeons must understand the consequences of each action, for they’re often not able to see what’s happening to see on the other side of the area in which the area they’re actually working.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“I'm a good neurosugeon. That's not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and sharpening for my skills. ”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“Do what you have to do so that you can be what you want to be”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“I came to realize that if people could make me angry they could could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life?”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“It's not what you do but that kind of job you do that makes the difference.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“if you can read, honey, you can learn just about anything you want to know. The doors of the world are open to people who can read. And”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“One reason I didn’t hold any grudges or harsh feelings toward Dad must have been that my mother seldom blamed him—at least not to us or in our hearing. I can hardly think of a time when she spoke against him.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“No one ever said, “This isn’t the way normal people live.” Again, I think it was the sense of family unity, strengthened by the Averys, that kept me from being too concerned about the quality of our life in Boston.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (RSV).”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“The culture in which we live stresses looking out for number one. Without adopting such a self-centered value system, we can demand the best of ourselves while we are extending our hands to help others.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“close the wounds, and the 22-hour surgical ordeal was over. The Siamese”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“being a member of a minority race doesn’t mean being a minority achiever.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“Abraham Lincoln once said, “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“No knowledge is ever wasted. To quote the apostle Paul: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“70,000 to 100,000 births; twins joined at the head occur only once in 2 to 2.5 million births. Siamese twins received their name because of the birthplace (Siam) of Chang and Eng (1811 - 1874) whom P.T. Barnum exhibited across America and Europe. Most cranio pagus Siamese twins die at birth or shortly afterward. So far as we know, not more than 50 attempts had previously been made to separate such twins. Of those, less than ten operations have resulted in two fully normal children. Aside from the skill of the operating surgeons, the success depends largely on how much and what kind of tissue the babies share. Occipital cranio pugus twins (such as the Binders) had never before been separated with both surviving.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“Successful people don’t have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“when the Vietnamese came to the United States they often faced prejudice from everyone—White, Black, and Hispanics. But they didn’t beg for handouts and often took the lowest jobs offered. Even well-educated individuals didn’t mind sweeping floors if it was a paying job. Today many of these same Vietnamese are property owners and entrepreneurs. That’s the message I try to get across to the young people. The same opportunities are there, but we can’t start out as vice president of the company. Even if we landed such a position, it wouldn’t do us any good anyway because we wouldn’t know how to do our work. It’s better to start where we can fit in and then work our way up.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“I can tolerate amazing amounts of stress and ridicule. By God’s grace, it still doesn’t require any effort to shake off unpleasant, irritating things. God has helped me to conquer my terrible temper, once and forever. During those hours in the bathroom I also came to realize that if people could make me angry they could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life? Over the years I’ve chuckled at people who deliberately did things they thought would make me angry. I’m no better than anyone else, but I laugh inside at how foolish people can be, trying to make me angry.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“God has an overall plan for people’s lives and the details get worked out along the way, even though we usually have no idea what’s going on.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“sure. I know I hated it when a resident disregarded a”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“Craig is not yours that you should demand to keep him. He doesn’t belong to you, Susan. He is mine.”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn’t be any good for anything if I couldn’t change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. “If you don’t do this for me, God, I’ve got no place else to go.” At one point I’d slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“go on hating myself forever for all the terrible things I’d done. I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn’t be any good for anything if I couldn’t change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. “If you don’t do this for me, God, I’ve got no place else to go.” At one point I’d slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and began”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“began to read in Proverbs. Immediately I saw a string of verses about angry people and how they get themselves into trouble. Proverbs 16:32 impressed me the most: “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (RSV). My lips moved wordlessly as I continued to read. I felt as though the verses had been written just to me, for me. The words of Proverbs condemned me, but they also gave me hope. After a while peace begin to fill my mind. My hands stopped shaking. The tears stopped. During those hours alone in the bathroom,”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“something happened to me. God heard my deep cries of anguish. A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different. At last I stood up, placed the Bible on the edge of the tub, and went to the sink. I washed my face and hands, straightened my clothes. I walked out of the bathroom a changed young man. “My temper will never control me again,” I told myself. “Never again. I’m free.” And since that day, since those long hours wrestling with myself and crying to God for help, I have never had a problem with my temper. That”
― Ben Carson, quote from Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
“There are a lot of things in this world to be afraid of, but a dead body isn't one of them.”
― Amanda Stevens, quote from The Restorer
“Others, however, perhaps overwhelmed by what they read, say Africa should be written off, that it’s beyond repair. My experiences so far say we should put it in perspective. For instance, a new nation that has just won its independence from a colonial power struggles with internal graft and corruption, civil war and economic turbulence—more developed nations see it as a basket-case. Yet 200+ years later it emerges as the world’s sole superpower. Yes, America.”
― Kevin Sites, quote from In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars
“The ability to transform money rapidly into force returns the international system to the dangers of lowered costs of war.31 A new international market of private military services means that economic power is now more threatening.”
― P.W. Singer, quote from Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
“You have a wife?” Caxton demanded.
“I killed a vampire twenty years ago, and another one last night. I had to keep myself busy in the meantime,” he told her.”
― David Wellington, quote from 13 Bullets
“• While Rommel was going to see Hitler to beg for more tanks and a tighter command structure, Eisenhower was visited by Churchill, who was coming to the supreme commander to beg a favor. He wanted to go along on the invasion, on HMS Belfast. (“Of course, no one likes to be shot at,” Eisenhower later remarked, “but I must say that more people wanted in than wanted out on this one.”) As Eisenhower related the story, “I told him he couldn’t do it. I was in command of this operation and I wasn’t going to risk losing him. He was worth too much to the Allied cause. “He thought a moment and said, ‘You have the operational command of all forces, but you are not responsible administratively for the makeup of the crews.’ “And I said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ “He said, ‘Well, then I can sign on as a member of the crew of one of His Majesty’s ships, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ “I said, ‘That’s correct. But, Prime Minister, you will make my burden a lot heavier if you do it.’ ” Churchill said he was going to do it anyway. Eisenhower had his chief of staff, General Smith, call King George VI to explain the problem. The king told Smith, “You boys leave Winston to me.” He called Churchill to say, “Well, as long as you feel that it is desirable to go along, I think it is my duty to go along with you.” Churchill gave up.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
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