Criss Jami Quotes

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
Trying to be offensive for the sole purpose of being offensive should always deem one the least offensive of offenders.
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
When I look at a person, I see a person - not a rank, not a class, not a title.
Criss Jami
One is not necessarily made self-centered because he is foolish, but one is very often made foolish because he is self-centered.
Criss Jami
One of the Christian's biggest fears is appearing 'too Christian'. God forbid, because that's often characterized as god-awful! We want to be one, but without being 'one of them'.
Criss Jami
The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.
Criss Jami
My heart goes out to some of those rather hostile yet highly intelligent individuals who may see problems really because they have solutions. That hostility is learned in defense; not offense. An often stubborn and prideful world, in its self-destructive, temporary bliss of ignorance, may be violently resistant to the watchful mind.
Criss Jami
The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch.
Criss Jami
Sure, some of us humans might be angry at a sovereign God about Hell, but know that that is about as meaningful as a few germs being angry at humans about bleach.
Criss Jami
A distaste for the new is not always fear of the unknown, but sometimes ambition. Some people don't like the new way simply because they never got a chance to master the old way.
Criss Jami
Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question.
Criss Jami
Some people's theologies come across as blatantly wrong when weighed against what is revealed in Scripture. However God has mercy on those who may be wrong but genuinely seek understanding before seeking themselves.
Criss Jami
Assuming what people want is about as controlled as using fireworks to start a fire.
Criss Jami
The 2 extremes, neither one worse than the other: the result of bad religion is self-loathing and violence; the result of bad spirituality is self-worship and narcissism.
Criss Jami
When you're appeasing too much, you might be egotistically over-estimating everyone's need for your approval.
Criss Jami
It's easy to make a mess when you're not the one who has to clean it up.
Criss Jami
Perhaps a seemingly dull, boring person is not a person who lacks personality, but rather a person with so much personality most other things bore them.
Criss Jami
The exaggerated dopamine sensitivity of the introvert leads one to believe that when in public, introverts, regardless of its validity, often feel to be the center of (unwanted) attention hence rarely craving attention. Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to never get enough attention. So on the flip side it seems as though the introvert is in a sense very external and the extrovert is in a sense very internal - the introvert constantly feels too much 'outerness' while the extrovert doesn't feel enough 'outerness'.
Criss Jami
I've finally decided to write about profit for a changeBut before I really started I already started to feel lameBaby what's it to a beast who manely to money remains untamed
Criss Jami
You are believing not in your god but in yourself if your god knows no better than you do...and yet, in this alone, I am afraid, you have already been fooling yourself.
Criss Jami
When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.
Criss Jami
Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.
Criss Jami
Pride is born as a mountaintop on a valley, but dies as an abyss in which it is too deep and too dark to see the better.
Criss Jami
The hardest chore to do, and to do right, is to think. Why do you think the common man would choose labor, partially, as a distraction from his own thoughts? It is because that level of stress, he most absolutely abhors.
Criss Jami
It is the nature of physics to hear the loudest of mouths over the most comprehensive ones.
Criss Jami
The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.
Criss Jami
Some skeptics believe religious people are religious because they fear Hell. It's about as fair as saying skeptics are skeptics because they fear the ridicule of modern society.
Criss Jami
It is a harsh reality that some of the most important and respectable jobs which deserve high salaries might be better off with low salaries. A politician, or a minister, or a teacher is sure to be working sincerely and selflessly for the good of the people when through and through there is little monetary reward guaranteed. This is how the charlatans are weeded out of the field.
Criss Jami
Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all.
Criss Jami
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'.
Criss Jami
The greater ignorance towards a country is not ignoring what its politicians have to say, it is ignoring what the inmates in its prisons have to say.
Criss Jami
Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.
Criss Jami
Fame is an island, and right before the castaway, the getaway of being known without being known.
Criss Jami
I would rather have strong enemies than a world of passive individualists. In a world of passive individualists nothing seems worth anything simply because nobody stands for anything. That world has no convictions, no victories, no unions, no heroism, no absolutes, no heartbeat. That world has rigor mortis.
Criss Jami
I'm a lion in a strange land.
Criss Jami
Where everyone wants to be a leader, it makes one a follower to want to be a leader, and a leader to know what to follow.
Criss Jami
Power without compassion is like a giant that blocks the sunlight.
Criss Jami
Pretentiousness isn't always just big words and meaningless jargon, but also pretty words that either when put into action don't mean beans or hurt you in the long run. Oftentimes, the former appeals to the intellect whereas the latter appeals to the heart.
Criss Jami
I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
A man of God has many brothers. He is a wounded soldier - he is familiar with the pain one feels in his heart, as a close and loving brother, when a brother falls victim of evil men or turns to evil desires (the latter sometimes even betrayal). Because of this, too, he is and must be well-acquainted with and trained in the strengths of hope and the gentleness of forgiveness and mercy.
Criss Jami
The best of fiction, as we know, of course, doesn't tell the truth; it tales the truth.
Criss Jami
Lingering, bottled-up anger never reveals the 'true colors' of an individual. It, on the contrary, becomes all mixed up, rotten, confused, forms a highly combustible, chemical compound then explodes as something foreign, something very different than one's natural self.
Criss Jami
I wouldn't think that God is quite as much concerned with whether or not one actually sins as He is with whether or not in one's heart one genuinely wants to turn from sin; and therefore, continues working passionately with Him in doing so. It is not some pleasure of God's, as some might imagine, to stand around critiquing, arms crossed, holding a whip. I suppose that when someone weeps over their sins, He extends His hands; He wants them to lift their head and embrace Him and the mercy He's willing to show. But when someone is proud of their sins, He delivers His justice swiftly and righteously. Sin does not intimidate God - although He takes it very seriously - it does no real harm to Him whatsoever, only to the sinner and to other people: and He loves people.
Criss Jami
To be happy to be sad and sad to be happy is to sing an echo in that beautiful language called Sorrow.
Criss Jami
Speaking a painful truth should be done only in love - like wielding a sword with no hilt - it should pain oneself in direct proportion to the amount of force exerted.
Criss Jami
Work was intended not to give a man a reason to live, but rather to give him a means to live.
Criss Jami
If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.
Criss Jami
Every new generation believes its own period to be absolutely superior intellectually - greater than all past cultures yet equal among its modern cultures.
Criss Jami
Be careful not to appear obsessively intellectual. When intelligence fills up, it overflows a parody.
Criss Jami
There is this common notion that people are shallow and ignorant until they go out and see the world. I, on the other hand, went out and in comparison realized I was in pretty good standing.
Criss Jami
It is by continuing to put out good work that the artist best shows his gratitude.
Criss Jami
A sign of power in a man is not only when people follow what he suggests, but also when people make a conscious effort to do the exact opposite of what he suggests.
Criss Jami
If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.
Criss Jami
Like most arts, the link between the mind and the pen can chain you like an enslaved workaholic. Even on an intended vacation you suddenly have this killer urge to record whatever the vacation may teach.
Criss Jami
Growing up I sometimes imagined that for Christ's return perhaps He would appear as 'Black Jesus' to white people and 'White Jesus' to black people just to screw with the racists.
Criss Jami
For the believer, humility is honesty about one's greatest flaws to a degree in which he is fearless about truly appearing less righteous than another.
Criss Jami
Perhaps not everything happens for a reason. That is, until you make it so; because for everything there is a season, which can, in fact, become beautiful.
Criss Jami