Criss Jami
Never take advice about never taking advice. That is an old vice of men - to dish it out without being able to take it - the blind leading the blind into more blindness.Collection: Men
Those who live as though God sets the rules are not going by their own rules. That is the self-sacrifice, or selflessness, that peace more often than not requires. Those who insist on going by their own rules cannot make that sacrifice. They are the steady adherents of (global) conflict because they are forever fighting both themselves and others to do whatever they think that they want to do.Collection: Fighting
Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend.Collection: Children
All individuals have moral deficiencies, and when introducing these to reality one not only strengthens himself but also the confidence of others in the human exigency for Christ due to a reflection throughout the body of Christ.Collection: Reflection
You can't be a rebel without the scars that come with it. Truth is, some days scars are just as ugly as they are beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
When you're appeasing too much, you might be egotistically over-estimating everyone's need for your approval.Collection: Approval
Joy, like love, is an impenetrable, God-given state of being. The distinctions between joy and happiness and love and affection are important ones under the notion that happiness is an 'iffy' emotion, a highly dependent feeling both aroused and destroyed by external conditions apart from God. And the distinction between love and affection is parallel to such.Collection: Love Is
Hopefully, when your actions and deeds - and therefore other people - boast for you, you're made tired of hearing it, too, from your own mouth because if not, all could lose sight of those actions and deeds behind the gong of your boasting.Collection: Tired
In a general sense, I admit to valuing the worldviews of men under the age of 40 and women over the age of 30.Collection: Men
If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.Collection: Bullying
Whenever you feel like feeling like a devil's advocate, Bible-thump. That, in a worldly world, is the great irony and satire of evangelism.Collection: Feelings
Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations - they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.Collection: Beautiful
Many people in a rather reckless context claim to 'just tell it like it is'. In actuality, nobody really stresses what one says so much as the motive behind what one says; hence, he is merely blowing hot air and detracting from 'what is'.Collection: Stress
The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.Collection: Atheist
Philosophy may serve as the bridge between theology and science. All atheism is a philosophy, but not all philosophy is atheism. Philosophy ('love of wisdom') is simply a tool depending on how one uses it, and in some cases, logically understanding the nature of God and existence.Collection: Philosophy
Christianity, like genius, is one of the hardest concepts to forgive. We hear what we want to hear and accept what we want to accept, for the most part, simply because there is nothing more offensive than feeling like you have to re-evaluate your own train of thought and purpose in life. You have to die to an extent in your hunger for faith, for wisdom, and quite frankly, most people aren't ready to die.Collection: Train Of Thought
It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort...only to find a big bear hug coming his way.Collection: Counter Attack
Labeled fools to the world are geniuses to the cosmos.Collection: Cosmos
Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.Collection: Settlement
Everyone judges constantly: positively judging one person is the same as negatively judging everyone else; it is to say that that person is superior in some sense.Collection: Judging
A thief is one who insists on sharing his victimhood.Collection: Thieves
It is easier for one to take risks and to chase his dreams with a mindset that he has nothing to lose. In this lies the immense passion, the great advantage of avoiding a materialistic, pleasure-filled way of life.Collection: Dream
It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.Collection: World
The evangelist is the world's hopeless romantic, and just like a hopeless romantic, he must hope for the miracle of God more than the romance itself.Collection: Romance
Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.Collection: Character
Sometimes a people lose their right to remain silent when pressured to remain silent.Collection: People
Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche - originality loses its authenticity in one's efforts to obtain originality.Collection: Men
When it comes to judging individuals, I do not like remarks such as 'too good to be true.' They speak as though one is rewarding the nature of evil. Yet, ironically, we still wonder where all the good people have gone.Collection: Judging
I like solitude. It is when you truly hear and speak your natural, unadulterated mind, and out comes your most stupid self as well as your most intelligent self. It is when you realize who you are and the extents of the good and the evils which you are capable ofCollection: Stupid
Don't change your mind just because people are offended; change your mind if you're wrong.Collection: People
Women show men beauty in things beyond their ambitions. Women tell men to stop and smell the roses.Collection: Ambition
I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.Collection: Fear
Every new generation believes its own period to be absolutely superior intellectually - greater than all past cultures yet equal among its modern cultures.Collection: Believe
My confidence is in the idea that I may be wrong on this or that. No man in this life should ever have to bear the burden of perfection.Collection: Men
In the age of technology there is constant access to vast amounts of information. The basket overflows; people get overwhelmed; the eye of the storm is not so much what goes on in the world, it is the confusion of how to think, feel, digest, and react to what goes on.Collection: Fear
Those who speak of progression but are afraid of change are self-repressed and therefore unable to reach any further than their eyes can already see.Collection: Fear
A young outcast will often feel that there is something wrong with himself, but as he gets older, grows more confident in who he is, he will adapt, he will begin to feel that there is something wrong with everyone else.Collection: Outcast
A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.Collection: Fear
The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.Collection: Fear
We often hear about stepping outside ourselves, but rarely about stepping outside our generation.Collection: Our Generation
Bad luck with women is a determined man's road to success. For every affliction, he makes, out of indignation, yet another advancement in order to exceed the man that the woman chose over him. This goes to show that great men are made great because they once learned how to fight the feeling of rejection.Collection: Fighting
The reality of loving God is loving him like he's a Superhero who actually saved you from stuff rather than a Santa Claus who merely gave you some stuff.Collection: Life
It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.Collection: Judgement
When most of the greatest individuals in history were misunderstood and you've spent so much of your own adult life misunderstood, you can't help but believe that the majority of people know very little worth knowing.Collection: Believe
We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer.Collection: Looks
Christians walk as strangers in the world: They are untamed. They are free. To persevere with love, yet untamed by man, is often what leaves that open space for divine revelation when God so wills.Collection: Christian
I would say that introverts make some of the best international philosophers. The less common attribute of the introverted lifestyle - a close societal connection, as such a connection disappears or changes in relevance as the currents of the winds change - leaves too much room for one's own cultural bias. Instead, introverts tend to turn inward, the laboratory of being and all its forms. This is the most accurate study of the individual human being, which is in turn, rather than those affected by cultural limitations, the most universal reflection of human understanding and human behavior.Collection: Reflection
Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move onCollection: Forgiveness
An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.Collection: Encouragement