Top 468 Quotes & Sayings by Criss Jami - Page 3

To better understand God we must first shatter our own idea of God - maybe even day after day. Maybe he's too great to stay compressed in the human mind. Maybe he splits it wide open; this is why pretentious intellectualism so often fails to comprehend the concept of God: it is only accepting of what it can explain while in the process finding higher sources offensive. What we may confidently assert is that faith is the opening that allows God, this unpredictable, unseen power, to travel in and out of the mind without all the pains of confusion.

I never feel unsafe except for when the majority is on my side.

Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind.

To me it seems that too many young women of this time share the same creed. 'Live, laugh, love, be nothing but happy, experience everything, et cetera et cetera.' How monotonous, how useless this becomes. What about the honors of Joan of Arc, Beauvoir, Stowe, Xena, Princess Leia, or women that would truly fight for something other than just their own emotions?

An insincere critic of a sincere person never wins.

In God's eyes, a man who teaches one truth and nothing else is more righteous than a man who teaches a million truths and one lie.

Part of God's work in his people is synchronizing the heart and the mind thus providing freedom from the deceit of emotion-based beliefs. Emotions are changing while truth is absolute. They don't believe simply because it sounds good, or deep, beautiful, happy, fun, cool, simple, or intelligent to them; but because it's true.

When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.

Ultimate prosperity is one's value within. It takes a man of depth, morality, and charm to be envied yet without a sign of wealth or romance. A passion to prove such inner worth is his permission to achieve whatever he desires.

Envy is a sign of insecurity, yes; but so is longing to be envied.

Advanced technology does not always promise a more intelligent civilization. On the contrary, the more the common people rely on technology to do their thinking and solving for them, the less practice there is left for their own brains.

Thoughts are like burning stars, and ideas, they flood, they stretch the universe.

If it's true what is said, that only the wise discover the wise, then it must also be true that the lone wolf symbolizes either the biggest fool on the planet or the biggest Einstein on the planet.

I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.

Intelligence entails a strong mind, but genius entails a heart of a lion in tune with a strong mind.

To ask, 'How do you do it?' is already starting off on the wrong foot. When reaching for the stars, there does not have to be a 'how' if there is a big enough 'why'.

The last thing Scripture should do is make you blind in the world. Instead, you hear everything, see everything, and feel everything because everything just so happens to point right back to it.

Tolerance! The virtue that makes one bite his tongue so that he can tear out his hair.

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.

If what you create seems to turn out much stranger than who you are as a person, it's probably because your heart is talking.

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.

When focusing only on one's credentials one boasts his own incompetence in his capacity for discernment of the individual.

Beyond all sciences, philosophies, theologies, and histories, a child's relentless inquiry is truly all it takes to remind us that we don't know as much as we think we know.

If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy.

It often seems as though the silent, humble servant is secretly wiser and more discerning than the haughty master; yet through dutiful (and sometimes insecure) surrender he continues to serve and carry out petty orders in loyal acquiesce.

When you aren't satisfied with what has already been done, make something better. That is the greatest responsibility and the true freedom of creativity. The freedom is in that it doesn't need to complain.

You have to lift a person up before you can really put them in their place.

As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning.

Women rescue men just as much as, if not more than, men rescue women.

It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.

Emotion is always multiplied in the art of a person who doesn't really show much emotion. It once expanded deep within his hidden soul, and following the downplay his audience is blown away.

The first ingredient to being wrong is to claim that you are right. Geniuses have a knack for raising new questions. Hence by the public they are either admired for their creativity or, even more commonly so, detested for disturbing the daily peace of mind.

It is never just disagreement but always intellectual dishonesty that is the apologist's worst enemy. And its apprentice is ignorance.

Love tames the benumbed beast. A man is put to use regarding a woman's physical safety, but a woman is put to use regarding a man's mental safety.

The factory of love encompasses all, but on some days, does it seem to be one of suffocation, squeezing its target too tightly? And on other days not tight enough? Or maybe that is the breath of a living love knowing when to protect, when to release, and when to protect again. For we are the products of an active love - the Father the creator, the Son the perfecter, the Spirit the supervisor - but just like in a factory, to deny the process is to ultimately create a defect of oneself.

It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.

The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.

Man was created to glorify God. Now, that may encompass other things which God has planned for each man, but essentially, man was created to glorify God.

The manlier you are, the harder it is to understand what a woman wants: there is not a hint of female brain in you.

The love of conflict is most evident when opposing forces join sides to defeat the peacemaker.

It is the nature of physics to hear the loudest of mouths over the most comprehensive ones.

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.

I believe in evolution in the sense that a short-tempered man is the successor of a crybaby.

I don't pretend to know everything; I just only speak on matters I know I'll win.

Seemingly minor yet persistent things penetrate the mind over time making it difficult to ever realize the impact; hence, though quite unfortunate, the most dangerous forms of corruption are those that are subtle and below the radar.

We have better relationships with those who truly seek us rather than those sitting on the couch watching us move mountains trying to prove ourselves.

To seek greatness is the only righteous vengeance.

In the modern Christian attempt to take a stand as Christ did, and maybe for others, win the approval of the world, the Christian will often think that it consists of targeting and demoralizing fellow Christians and only fellow Christians. It is one thing to stand against religious hypocrisy when one sees it, but it is another to go on snorting at anything or anyone who might seem 'too Christian' to us. The irony is that by doing this we are further advocating hypocrisy and 'half-hearted Christians'.

It's a good sign but rare instance when, in a relationship, you find that the more you learn about the other person, the more you continue to desire them. A sturdy bond requires a degree of youthful intrigue. Love loves its youth.

Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.

I will never deny that life isn't fair. It seems as though when a woman leaves a man she is strong and independent, but when a man leaves a woman he is a pig and a jerk.

Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.

If you're waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you'll never make it.

It is not true that everyone is special. It is true that everyone was once special and still possesses the ability to recover it.

Imagination doesn't always make you long for what you cannot have, but rather thrive in what you do not have.

Ask anyone and they'll most likely say their family is crazy, and if they don't say their family is crazy, their friends are crazy. That's because everyone is crazy after taking the mask off. People are most themselves when not really trying to fit in, when either alone or around those already closest to them, and that is crazy.

The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch.

Honesty is not the same as truth. That is the obstacle of the notion of relative truths. I would like to put my trust in the lunatic. He is the one least concerned of what I think of him, the mark of an honest man. I can always depend on him to be completely honest in what he thinks and feels, about anything, no matter the consequences laid before him, however with no course of rationale, I cannot necessarily take his word for even the well-being of him in his own reality.

People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them.

With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.