Criss Jami Quotes

That most pleasant weather to feel is the one never felt.
Criss Jami
You get hit the hardest when trying to run or hide from a problem. Like the defense on a football field, putting all focus on evading only one defender is asking to be blindsided.
Criss Jami
One of the biggest contradictions in self-proclaimed open-mindedness is to say that we're all one but when a true bigot comes around tell him we're all different. It's usually the case that neither side is correct. One might have the right to do something, anything, but sure enough, that doesn't mean it's right and a benefit to other people.
Criss Jami
When you're truly awesome, you know that it's actually a burden and wish day after day to be relieved of such a curse. Think of about 95% of the superheroes.
Criss Jami
Chance is your godThough you're falling free you will land hard
Criss Jami
Even when the truth is in fact simple, simplicity is still relative.
Criss Jami
A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.
Criss Jami
Normality is the new eccentric.
Criss Jami
Always have there been great numbers of individuals who were very much eager to fight for good causes. Always there were these, but then there were even greater numbers of trendies who would then become wholly and completely misguided in the efforts.
Criss Jami
Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self-control. When mixed with an already clear conscience, the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps one's conscience both clear and at ease.
Criss Jami
What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
Extreme right-wingers are known for giving God a bad name; extreme left-wingers are known for giving God a weak name. He's not as simple as conservative versus liberal, old versus new. His wings are balanced. God is both and neither.
Criss Jami
By(e) pen, I've tried my hand at poetry; only to see how boring it is to me. That is, unless I get a chance to destroy each and every piece while doing it as I please.
Criss Jami
An insincere critic of a sincere person never wins.
Criss Jami
Drinking is such a necessity to human life that people cannot fathom an individual who, like a child confined to a church pew, gets little enjoyment out of it and would rather do other things.
Criss Jami
When focusing only on one's credentials one boasts his own incompetence in his capacity for discernment of the individual.
Criss Jami
Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.
Criss Jami
It's always funny that you can try and try again to steal all your critics' ammo, predict their responses, but no matter what, they'll still have a water gun stashed somewhere.
Criss Jami
The fans are always more radical than that which they are fans.
Criss Jami
Trying to be offensive for the sole purpose of being offensive should always deem one the least offensive of offenders.
Criss Jami
Narcissists often feign oppression because narcissists always feel entitled.
Criss Jami
I am a fan of overdoing something, but not running it into the ground. They are complete opposites with only a fine line separating them.
Criss Jami
Comedy to me has always seemed a social tightrope for the comedian. For all axioms intellectually sound the general public would prefer to be amused, but in those emotionally sound, it then chooses to get offended.
Criss Jami
I appreciate a book intended to be judged by its cover. The insincere readers are often weeded out while the sincere readers remain curious.
Criss Jami
Is the phrase 'pay' or 'play the piper'I inquire, why'Cause I admire a desire to flip the switchYeah make a way to face the music likeLife savings for a mosh pit riotListen to a mixRock the tickets, higher volumeVelocity which shakes a cockpit's pilot
Criss Jami
Some things are so silly they have a certain brilliance to them. Other things, set as standards for brilliance and therefore exalted by many who don't know why, become tarnished because of it.
Criss Jami
Genius - the pursuit of madness.
Criss Jami
To merely blank the page and vaguely assume that 'religion' is the cause of all the world's problems is, on the contrary, an allegation brought about by nothing more than cognitive lethargy; it is when unburied, unpacked, and exposed but a stale conclusion and a misdirection for the one overwhelmed by centuries of sound theology, scholarly thought, and spiritual development.
Criss Jami
The first reaction is surely the most natural one, but not always the most correct one; thereupon, the invention of apologies.
Criss Jami
Sometimes you feel as though you've slandered yourself, but the joke's on them.
Criss Jami
Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive.
Criss Jami
A good work ethic is not so much a concern for hard work but rather one for responsibility. There have been a great many men and women who have in fact used work or hustle or selfish ambition as an escape from real responsibility, an escape from purpose. In matters such as these, the hard worker is just as dysfunctional as the sloth.
Criss Jami
Civic duty? Perhaps it would be a little naive to try to coerce me into voting. I assure you my basic standards of healthy living are very different from yours, which is the reason I do not vote. You should note that, as nonsensical a scenario, if forced to choose I would most definitely rather live in a failing, Christ-honoring, God-fearing nation than a flourishing one that mocks said Creator. Beware of my personal ambitions.
Criss Jami
The man who is most aggressive in teaching tolerance is the most intolerant of all: he wants a world full of people too timid and ashamed to really disagree with anything.
Criss Jami
Oftentimes winning can become an addiction, whether good or bad, to the point where you would rather lose it all before you lose at all.
Criss Jami
The only honorable, desirable kind of fear that shouldn't be feared is the fear of harm on a loved one. It's the kind of fear that leads to self-sacrifice and the kind of fear where you would truly jump in front of a bus to save another.
Criss Jami
I think that most artists scorned would prefer to be known as the one with the genius brain risking no career over the one with the good brain and great career.
Criss Jami
A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.
Criss Jami
Walk and loveWe're walking in loveFor the walk of love
Criss Jami
If we all knew who God really was and what he really wanted for each and every one of us, we would all know that only a fool could really deny him.
Criss Jami
How to love is the real question. We all know to love and to keep loving more, but man's confusion comes from the differing opinions on how to love. The Church will always be accused of not loving enough by human standards - which should be its motivation to love more - however that is, in many cases, because its focus is and should also be to love on levels of eternal significance. This is the level of love that will inevitably go unnoticed by those who do not believe in eternity.
Criss Jami
Tolerance is not infinite patience, but slain patience; patience that has lost its hope and love and has thrown in the towel.
Criss Jami
A god who gave us everything we wanted would be the most malevolent god of all. With an infantile curiosity, we insist on tasting the cockroach on the floor while our father is preparing a magnificent feast for us.
Criss Jami
Let them spend their time condemning every action of persons they do not like; by this let them revoke their own condemnation licenses: no one will take them seriously when it comes time to condemn something that really needs to be condemned, and thus hear, hear, despite the excess noise, the reasonable voices may prevail.
Criss Jami
I've played Romeo for Juliet(But in depth)It's vignettes of silhouettes(And then read)And watched Russian roulette, yeah red SovietYet doing it simultaneouslyWhile dropping down shed oubliettesTurned around and took truth to the head thatLove is the ugliest thing too beautiful for death
Criss Jami
Love does not dwell on how much one receives in return. If there is ever any balance in love, it is in a contest of who can love who more.
Criss Jami
If I love a dose of (good) theology or philosophy, I probably also love discipline, improvement, wisdom, and challenges. If I hate it, I am probably too comfortable and proud to try to question myself.
Criss Jami
We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.
Criss Jami
All the good stuff has already been said by someone somewhere at some point in time. You just have to find it. Today, communication pretty much comes down to understanding - saying what you have to say clearly and effectively...and then living it.
Criss Jami
The eye of true equality often seems to have some degree of disrespect for the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty to the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty, although in reality, it's simply irrespectiveness.
Criss Jami
When I look at a person, I see a person - not a rank, not a class, not a title.
Criss Jami
Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.
Criss Jami
To be extremely happy but extremely intelligent is a task of being optimistic without being cheesy.
Criss Jami
Seeing the glass as half empty is more positive than seeing it as half full. Through such a lens the only choice is to pour more. That is righteous pessimism.
Criss Jami
Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.
Criss Jami
Some virtues, when they become fashions, also become exaggerated. Just because nobody likes a judgmental attitude does not mean that there isn't a sort of spoiled, self-righteous hypocrisy when one man obsessively commands other men not to judge without knowing the circumstances without himself, too, knowing their circumstances behind their judgments.
Criss Jami
If you don't like the solution, change the problem.
Criss Jami
Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: 'Perhaps I need someone else to control me.
Criss Jami
The height of cleverness is in one's ability to be very clever without seeming clever at all.
Criss Jami