“Aurelius Augustine (354-430), Martin Luther (1483-1546), and John Calvin (1509-1564) had this in common: they experienced, and then built their lives and ministries on, the reality of God’s omnipotent grace” (p. 18).

“For John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd, the loving purpose of God in pain was one of the most precious truths in the Bible and one of the most powerful experiences of their lives” (p. 25).

“Perseverance is a gift. That I will wake up and be a believer tomorrow morning is not finally and decisively owing to my will, but to God. I have known too many mornings on the precipice to think otherwise. That I have been snatched back every time is sheer mercy” (p. 22).

“Some swans are alive and sing in our day. But not many. And only time will tell if their song will survive the centuries. But time has already rendered that judgment for hundreds of swans. They have died, and their work has stood the test of time. Their song is, therefore, especially valuable for us to hear” (p. 9).

“In other words, offending God is the essential consideration, not killing man or imperiling a nation. That is what made Wilberforce tick. He was not a political pragmatist. He was a radically God-centered Christian who was a politician. And his true affections for God based on the ‘peculiar doctrines’ of Christianity were the roots of his endurance in the cause of justice” (p. 25).

“The unhidden and unashamed aim in this book is to fan the flame of your passion for the centrality and supremacy of God” (p. 12).

"I am eager for people to know Calvin not because he was without flaws, or because he was the most influential theologian of the last 500 years (which he was), or because he shaped Western culture (which he did), but because he took the Bible so seriously, and because what he saw on every page was the majesty of God and the glory of Christ" (p. 9).

“What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the lives of William Tyndale, John Paton, and Adoniram Judson, is how strategic it was that they died so many times and in so many ways before their lives on earth ended. This is no rhetorical flourish. The Bible speaks this way, and these followers of Christ knew it” (p. 13).

“At least two things have been burned on my mind with the help of John Calvin: the majesty of the Word of God—the Bible—and the supreme worth of the glory of God manifest above all in Jesus Christ” (p. 134).

"We are beggars — pray-ers. That is how we live, and that is how we study, so that God gets the glory and we get the grace" (p. 35).