Criss Jami Quotes - Page 3

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
One of the bigger mistakes of our time, I suppose, was preaching the demonization of all judgment without teaching how to judge righteously. We now live in an age where, apart from the inability to bear even good judgment when it so passes by, still everyone, inevitably, has a viral opinion (judgment) about everything and everyone, but little skill in good judgment as its verification or harness.
Criss Jami
Self-awareness - the commendable ability to be yourself without being a nuisance to someone else.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
Simplicity is a bliss that makes one comprehend.
Criss Jami
Everything at some point has been declared the root of all evil.
Criss Jami
As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be the simplicity of good versus evil, but good versus fools who think they are good.
Criss Jami
Goodness is sparked by a caution for the sake of what is good, not a fear of what is bad.
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
The pride of man hopes but to blame God for the evils of the world, and to praise himself for the good.
Criss Jami
Perhaps it is true that, by some definitions, Satan is more religious than God. Many of the particularly proud sinners are deceived into thinking that Satan is anti-religious, that he likes seeing people do immoral things simply because he likes immoral things. Doubtful; Satan likes for people to do immoral things so that he can blame them for doing immoral things. The Father of Lies laughs not with his teammates, but at them.
Criss Jami
The worst evil is that most subtle evil. It is the evil that is merely 'base' which is more evil than evil itself. For it is the one closest to righteousness, the one indistinguishable and doused in virtue.
Criss Jami
They call good evil and evil good. There are those who are so easily offended that they lose their ability to ever discern any truth, and this is often derived from a sort of frenzy by way of their own masked prejudice.
Criss Jami
If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace - some people think that simply being nice and not harming others is morality; others think that following rules and tithing are morality. But without Christ, all moral beliefs ultimately boil down to the one sin which perpetually rails against the concept of grace: man's lawful, religious, and futile attempt at establishing his own righteousness.
Criss Jami
The conscious attempt to be a good person without Christ is as legalistic as an attempt to make it into Heaven through empty religiosity.
Criss Jami
It is neither just the religious, the spiritual, the power-hungry, the evil, the ignorant, the corrupt, the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Jew, nor the atheist that makes a hypocrite, but being a human being. Any man who thinks himself to be free of hypocrisy while committed to cherry-picking others for such, I am confident, the Almighty can prove to him a great deal of his own hypocrisy even beyond his earthly comprehension.
Criss Jami
What we fail to realize is we often become like Pharisees in our ruthless attempts to identify Pharisees (and impostors). While indeed some people use the old laws of religious pride to tear down men of God, others use the new laws of anti-religious anger to tear down men of God.
Criss Jami
We live in an age so legalistic, we find it hard to imagine someone wanting to obey their Lord simply because they love their God.
Criss Jami
If you are not there for other people, do not expect them to be there for you. In many a case one might conclude that this is part of God's sovereign justice. His grace, however, is that He Himself will always be there for you, no matter what.
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
It's okay to be honest about not knowing rather than spreading falsehood. While it is often said that honesty is the best policy, silence is the second best policy.
Criss Jami
Heresy would like to think of itself as 'invented Truth'. But of course, all Reason and Logic would agree that no man can ever create Truth; he can only discover it. If heresy were ever at all beneficial, God would use it really to bring one right back to Truth, as countless 'inventions' have brought men to discovery.
Criss Jami
The man who sins but wants to purify it is no more a sinner than the man who doesn't sin but wants to sin.
Criss Jami
Assuming what people want is about as controlled as using fireworks to start a fire.
Criss Jami
The pressure of adversity is the most powerful sustainer of accountability. It's as though everything you do is multiplied by 50 in order to surpass those with a head-start. I was never capable of slacking when at the threshold of failure.
Criss Jami
It is a noble responsibility to not back down when you know that you know that you know that you are right.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
The Christian should never have to put others down in order to feel good about himself. Instead, he can simply check out the media's insistent portrayal of Christianity and feel grateful that he isn't as deceived as the masses who really swallow the garbage. Ignorance is ultimately how people put themselves down, and the mere Christian who knows what entails the mere Christian is ultimately free from such.
Criss Jami
Confidence turns into pride only when you are in denial of your mistakes.
Criss Jami
The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you.
Criss Jami
Where neither go wrong, the naive only see the world as a victim of bad doctrine; the cynic only sees good doctrine as a victim of the world.
Criss Jami
Mankind, in all his lusts, punishes himself. The gods have to do very little.
Criss Jami
The actual confident man, the man truly sure of himself, is not he who esteems himself higher than others, but he who is sure enough that he can bear to esteem others higher than himself.
Criss Jami
If one should criticize one should always have a meaningful explanation to accompany.
Criss Jami
A part of me genuinely wanted to be the worst because I was so sick of everyone fighting to be the best.
Criss Jami
The only truths worth arguing about are those truths that could prevent or lead to circumstances that may bite us in the rear sooner or later.
Criss Jami
Reason begets honesty, and honesty, if given its head, begets confidence; so consequently, there is a sort of grand authority in the stances of those who know why they are standing.
Criss Jami
A wise man's goal shouldn't be to say something profound, but to say something useful.
Criss Jami
No man voluntarily expresses his opinion without some intent to make a difference, and even if he does, he shouldn't.
Criss Jami
You can be yourself without pursuing yourself. Have you ever seen a dog chase his own tail? He just runs in circles.
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
To spend your time wanting things is to smother your time for achieving things beyond your expectations.
Criss Jami
An anomaly has his own ambitions. You can try reasoning with him, but that's like using money to bribe a beast.
Criss Jami
We are to love God most importantly so that we can grow to love people as he loved us, not so that we can feel more divine and worthy than the worldly.
Criss Jami
Let me be content with myself to the degree that my capacity to serve others is present, yet discontent with myself to the degree that I may still like to grow in better service for others.
Criss Jami
People assume that repetition is always a static thing, but I beg to differ. Repetition is just as often the complete opposite of that: or a sign of rapid personal growth. In this repetition manifests one's ability to go on experiencing again the very same thing from a different perspective and in a brand-new light.
Criss Jami
If you're capable of despising your own behavior, you might just love yourself.
Criss Jami
The spirit of arrogance most definitely makes you shine. It paints a bright red target on your own forehead.
Criss Jami
How is it that some celebrities, whom the average person would believe to have all the popularity a human being could want, still admit to feeling lonely? It is quite naive to assume that popularity is the remedy for loneliness. Loneliness does not necessarily equal physical solitude, it is the inability to be oneself and rightfully represented as oneself.
Criss Jami
Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.
Criss Jami
For the case that one thinks he has plateaued in life, God has already set yet another peak for him to reach: and a much more challenging peak than his own, one that which is to serve others.
Criss Jami
Those 'back burner' thoughts, the ones the brain isn't quite sure about yet, may cook the slowest yet they often manage to be the tastiest when they come out.
Criss Jami
When you're appeasing too much, you might be egotistically over-estimating everyone's need for your approval.
Criss Jami
As a kid my heart would break for the villains.
Criss Jami
It's easy to make a mess when you're not the one who has to clean it up.
Criss Jami
Treat people like people. Beware of pity and patronization because in them, you can't see when you're unashamedly looking down on someone.
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
People, generally, are equally insecure. They just show it (or hide it) differently.
Criss Jami
The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself.
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