James C. Dobson Books & Quotes

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Failure to put the relationship on a slower timetable may result in an act that was never intended in the first place. Another important principle is to avoid the circumstances where compromise is likely. A girl who wants to preserve her virginity should not find herself in a house or dorm room alone with someone to whom she is attracted. Nor should she single-date with someone she has reason not to trust. A guy who wants to be moral should stay away from the girl he knows would go to bed with him. Remember the words of Solomon to his son, “Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house” (Proverbs 5:8). I know this advice sounds very narrow in a day when virginity is mocked and chastity is considered old-fashioned. But I don’t apologize for it. The Scriptures are eternal, and God’s standards of right and wrong do not change with the whims of culture. He will honor and help those who are trying to follow His commandments. In fact, the apostle Paul said, “He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1Corinthians 10:13). Hold that promise and continue to use your head. You’ll be glad you did.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Thus, we knew at the onset of the sexual revolution back in 1968 that this day of disease and promiscuity would come. It is here, and what we do with our situation will determine how much we and our children will suffer in the future. God created the moral basis for the universe before He made the heavens and the earth. His concept of right and wrong was not an afterthought that came along with the Ten Commandments. No, it was an expression of God’s divine nature and was in force before “the beginning.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Whether right or wrong, it is my belief that Christian colleges place their emphasis not on that which divides us, but on the substance that binds us together. That commonality is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He commanded us to love one another—to set aside our differences and to care for “the least of these” among us. It is our unity, not our diversity, that deserves our allegiance.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Now I need to speak directly and with compassion to those who have already pushed open the door of premarital sex. The monster has been released. You've lost your virginity and may have been sexually active for years. Perhaps you've been carrying a load of guilt for doing what you knew was wrong.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“12. There will come a day, much quicker than your parents would wish, when you will no longer be comfortable living at home. You will want to move out and establish a home of your own. After that time, your mother and father will be more like your friends than your parents. And someday, if they live long enough, you will be more like a parent to them than a son or daughter.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“To have been possessed by something so awful and so alien, and then the next morning wake up from it, remember what happened, and realize what I had done, with a clear mind and all my essential moral and ethical feelings intact at that moment, [I was] absolutely horrified that I was capable of doing something like that.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“19. Those who are the happiest are not necessarily those for whom life has been easiest. Emotional stability results from an attitude. It is refusing to yield to depression and fear, even when black clouds float overhead. It is improving that which can be improved and accepting that which is inevitable.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“34. Sexual contact between a boy and a girl is a progressive thing. In other words, the amount of touching and caressing and kissing that occurs in the early days tends to increase as they become more familiar and at ease with one another. Likewise, the amount of contact necessary to excite one another increases day by day, leading in many cases to an ultimate act of sin and its inevitable consequence. This progression must be consciously resisted by Christian young people who want to serve God and live by His standards. They can resist this trend by placing deliberate controls on the physical aspect of their relationship, right from the first date.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“If we conform our behavior to God’s ancient moral prescription, we are entitled to the sweet benefits of life. But if we defy its imperatives, then death is the inevitable consequence. AIDS is only one avenue by which sickness and death befall those who play Russian roulette with God’s eternal moral law.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“What I am recommending to the unmarried person, therefore, comes straight out of the Word: Stay out of bed unless you there alone! I know that advice is difficult to put into practice today. But I didn't make the rules. I'm just passing them along. God's moral laws are not designed to oppress us or deprive us of pleasure. They are there to protect us from the devastation of sin, including disease, heartache, divorce, and spiritual death. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward is the Creator's own plan, and no one has devised a way to improve on it.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Until we know who we are and why we are here, no amount of success, fame, money, or pleasure will provide much satisfaction.”

Success Pleasure Money Amount Fame Satisfaction Will Know Why We No And Of Who Are Much Until Here Or Provide

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Lifelong pain, an unwanted pregnancy, and even death may be the reward for such a brief window of pleasure. What a foolish gamble!”

Death Pleasure Paint Foolish Lifelong Gamble Reward Brief Unwanted Pregnancies

Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“A guy never has a right to force a woman to have sex with him under any circumstances. She should be able to say no at any point, and he must honor that denial. It is criminal that so many girls and women are raped today. Fully 60 percent of all females who lose their virginity before age fifteen say that their first sexual experience was forced! That is a tragedy with far-reaching consequences.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Let me leave you with this thought, written by my father before he died. If you incorporate it into your system of values, it will serve as a worthy guide to the management of your sexual energy: Strong desire is like a river. As long as it flows within the banks of God’s will—be the current strong or weak—all is well. But when it overruns those boundaries and seeks its own channels, then disaster lurks in the rampage below.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“There is no indication that God explained to Joseph what He was doing through those many years of heartache or how the pieces would eventually fit together. He had no ways of knowing that he would eventually enjoy a triumphal reunion with his family. He was expected, as you and I are, to live out his life one day at a time in something less than complete understanding. What pleased God was Joseph’s faithfulness when nothing made sense.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“That’s why we must continue to support godly men and women who have dedicated their lives to Christian principles and to continuing those ideas in our offspring. Professors’ worldviews influence whatever they teach, from humanities to basic sciences, and what they think about God cannot be hidden from their students.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Husbands and wives need to return regularly to the kinds of romantic activities that drew them together in the first place.”

Together Romantic Place First Wives Them Husbands Activities Drew Regularly

Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“16. Christians should never consult astrologers, psychics, or those who practice witchcraft (see Isaiah 47:13-14). They are usually phonies who only pretend to have extrasensory powers. But in some cases, they are working in cooperation with Satan. Rather than tamper with this evil world, the one true God wants us to bring our needs, problems, and decisions to Him. He has promised to lead us into all truth (see John 8:32).”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“15. “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1Timothy 6:10, KJV). That’s why Jesus issues more warnings about materialism and wealth than any other sin. Obviously, it takes a steady hand to hold a full cup.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“I feel strongly that Christians have a scriptural mandate to love and care for all the people of the world. Even those who are living in immoral circumstances are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. There is no place for hatred, hurtful jokes, or other forms of rejecting towards those who are gay.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Learning how to fight properly and deciding what to fight about are two of the secrets to a successful marriage. It usually comes down to the "line of respect" one way or the other.”

Marriage Learning Successful Respect Secrets Fight Properly

Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Beautiful, enticing, forbidden fruit will be offered to you when your "hunger" is greatest. If you are foolish enough to reach for it, your fingers will sink into the rotten mush on the back side. That's the way sin operates in our lives. It promises everything. It delivers nothing but disgust and heartache.”

Beautiful Sin Fruit Hunger Foolish Heartache Forbidden Nothing Rotten Everything Promises Greatest Enticing Disgust Delievers

Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“31. The human body seems indestructible when we are young. However, it is incredibly fragile and must be care for if it is to serve us for a lifetime. Too often, the abuse it takes during early years (from drugs, improper nutrition, sporting injuries, etc.) becomes painful handicaps during later years.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon and a favorite author of mine. He writes the most beautiful and compassionate descriptions of his patients and the human dramas they confront. In his book Letters to a Young Doctor, he said that most young people seem to be protected for a time by an imaginary membrane that shields them from horror. They walk in it every day but are hardly aware of its presence. As the immune system protects the human body from the unseen threat of harmful bacteria, so this mythical membrane guards them from life-threatening situations. Not every young person has this protection, of course, because children do die of cancer, congenital heart problems, and other disorders. But most of them are shielded—and don’t realize it. Then, as years roll by, one day it happens. Without warning, the membrane tears, and horror seeps into a person’s life or into the life of a loved one. It is at this moment that an unexpected theological crisis presents itself.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“There is no record in Scripture that an angel visited John’s cell to explain the meaning of his persecution. This great, godly man who was the designated forerunner to Jesus went through the same confusing experiences as we. It is comforting to know that John responded in a very human way. He sent a secret message to Jesus from his prison cell, asking “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3). Have you ever felt like asking that question?”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“As I indicated in an earlier chapter, it is so important to pause and think through some of these basic issues while you are young, before the pressures of job and family become distracting. Everyone must deal with the eternal questions sooner or later. You will benefit, I think, from doing that work now. As I said earlier, whether you are an atheist, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a New Ager, an agnostic, or a Christian, the questions confronting the human family are the same. Only the answers will differ.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“17. One of the secrets of successful living is found in the word balance, referring to the avoidance of harmful extremes. We need food, but we should not overeat. We should work, but not make work our only activity. We should play, but not let play rule us. Throughout life, it will be important to find the safety of the middle ground rather than the imbalance of the extremes.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“33. Satan will attempt to offer you whatever you hunger for, whether it be money, power, sex, or prestige. But Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6).”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“He concluded in the last scene that we are given two choices in life. We can allow ourselves to love and care for others, which makes us vulnerable to their sickness, death, or rejection. Or we can protect ourselves by refusing to love. Lewis decided that it is better to feel and to suffer than to go through life isolated, insulated, and lonely.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“One of the most breathtaking concepts in all of Scripture is the revelation that God knows each of us personally and that we are in His mind both day and night. There is simply no way to comprehend the full implications of His love by the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is all-powerful and all-knowing, majestic and holy, from everlasting to everlasting. Why would He care about us—about our needs, our welfare, our fears? We have been discussing situations in which God doesn’t make sense. His concern for us mere mortals is the most inexplicable of all.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Ask yourself what you will care about when everything is on the line.”

Care You Will Yourself Everything The Ask Is What About When On Line

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Abraham Lincoln quoted the Scriptures in an 1858 speech to the Illinois Republican Convention. He said, “ A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That, I fear, is where diversity leads. If by that term we refer to love and tolerance for peoples who are different from one another, it has great validity for us. But if by diversity we mean that all of us have been given reason to resent one another. Having no common values, heritage, commitment, or hope, then we are a nation in serious trouble.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Diversity, rather than cohesiveness, is the new passion, and it pits us against each other for “rights.”

Passion Rights Diversity Pits New Us It And For Against Each Other Cohesiveness

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“It is impossible to credit one gender with every good and perfect gift without slighting the other. That’s what extreme diversity does to us.”

Perfect Impossible Diversity Gender Credit Good Gift The One Us To And Other With Every Without Extreme Does Slighting

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Jesus Christ is the source—the only source—of meaning in life. He provides the only satisfactory explanation for why we’re here and where we’re going. Because of this good news, the final heartbeat for the Christian is not the mysterious conclusion to a meaningless existence. It is, rather, the grand beginning to a life that will never end. That same Lord is waiting to embrace and forgive anyone who comes to Him in humility and repentance. He is calling your name, just as He called the name of Pete Maravich. His promise of eternal life offers the only hope for humanity. If you have never met this Jesus, I suggest that you seek spiritual counsel from a Christian leader who can offer guidance. You can also write to me, if that would help. Thanks for reading along with me. I hope to meet you someday. If our paths don’t cross this side of heaven, I’ll be looking for you in that eternal city. By all means, Be there!”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Given these differences between the sexes, the sexual revolution was the biggest joke men ever played on women. By convincing them that the old rules didn’t apply and that two could play the predator game, men enticed women to do what men have always wanted women to do. But what a price was paid for the new “freedom.” And predictably, women were the ones who got stuck with the bill.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Well, there is no sin in being gay. The immorality comes from engaging in forbidden behavior. Therefore, the Christian homosexual is in the same situation as the unmarried heterosexual. He (or she) is expected to control his or her lusts and live a holy life. I know this is a tough position to take, and some will argue with it. But I stand on the authority of Scripture, and I have no license to edit it.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Well, that brings us to the point: There is only one way to protect ourselves from the deadly diseases that stalk the human family. It is abstinence before marriage, then marriage and mutual fidelity for life to an uninfected partner. Anything less is foolhardy and potentially suicidal. Don't let anyone tell you differently. There is no such thing as "safe sex," just as there is no "safe sin." For thousands of years, people have been trying to find ways to disobey the laws of God without suffering the consequences. It can't be done. Scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death, and we'd better believe it!”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“29. Most loneliness results from insulation rather than isolation. In other words, we are lonely because we insulate ourselves, not because others isolate us.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Even if you have been having sex for years with many people, you can still become a "secondary virgin." That occurs when you repent of previous sexual sins and then determine not to be intimate with anyone until you are married. It will require discipline to stay in the hallway of doors, but it still bring the sweet benefits of healthiness, greater self-respect, and above all, harmony with the King. He will honor you for doing what is right.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“The idea that Love Must Be Tough dictates that we be willing to set another person free- even if it causes us great pain to let go. When we do this, we maximize the chances that that loved one will not leave, because the cage door has been opened and self-respect has been affirmed.”

Love Pain Causes Willing Tough Self Respect Great Free Will Person Not Us Leave Chances Door Be Go Must Maximize Another Let Opened Affirmed

Book:Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Seventy-five percent of students visiting the Cowell Health Center at Stanford University describe themselves as “sexually active.”

Students Health University As Center Themselves Describe Cowell Sexually Active Standford

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength about them. They were Christians, and they taught their children that God loved them and had a plan for their lives. Their little boy, David, internalized that message of hope. He never thought of himself as a victim even though he had every reason to feel cheated. His family was at the bottom of the social ladder without even a house to live in, but his worth as an individual was rooted in his faith.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“14. God created two sexes, male and female. They are equal in worth, although each is unique and different. It is not only impossible to blend maleness and femaleness into a single sex (unisex), it is dangerous to even attempt it.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“I don't want to die. I deserve, certainly, the most extreme punishment society has, and I think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me. That's the irony. What I'm talking about is going beyond retribution because there is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the pain.”

Source: Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in the media- in particular pornographic violence- are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons, and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families.”

People Violence Media Grew Need Inherent Not Us To Families We Of Up In Sons Your Are Recognize Husbands Those Ted Bundy Regular Ted Bundy Influenced Monsteres Pornographic Violence

Author:James C. Dobson

“35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give it.”

Needs God Income Need Entitled Give Not To It A We Is Of He But Our Because Portion

Book:Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“10. Comparison is the root of all feelings of inferiority. The moment you begin examining other people’s strengths against your most obvious weaknesses, your self-esteem starts to crumble!”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“When you strip away all the layers one by one, not much remains to “discover.” You will never find real meaning among your selfish interests, feelings, and aspirations. The answers do not lie within you.”

Source: Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

James C. Dobson Books

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