Criss Jami Quotes - Page 9

Intelligence entails a strong mind, but genius entails a heart of a lion in tune with a strong mind.
Criss Jami
The sacrifices we make to stay healthy, to look good, the tasty foods we skip, the guilt trips, the exercising - all these things require great discipline, care, and even a paradoxical, self-denying self-love of sorts in order to be properly executed. However it is regretful that so many of us today are not as passionate about our spiritual holiness as we are about our physical health. They are indeed both important - we should worship in every aspect of our lives - and one even, in a sense, entails the other. Although, this disproportion in said priorities is still very much expected: we humans have always taken a liking to trendiness and the temporal side of things, doing what is judged vainly in the eyes of man before that which is judged vitally and eternally in the eyes of God (i.e. "cleaning the outside of one's cup while leaving a filthy inside"). But in a way, it all goes to show that the man who fully hates discipline hates himself fully; for within the spirit is where The Holy One judges true wellness or malady.
Criss Jami
There are those who feel that the world is ultimately moving closer to Truth and to prosperity as the times evolve; then there are those who feel that it is ultimately moving farther away from Truth and into self-destruction. From this, and if it were really that simplistic, one might get the impression that life gravitates slightly into two types of people whom which are diametrically opposed in spirit.
Criss Jami
Everybody knows basically what is right and what is wrong. Everybody knows better than to hate others. In fact, most people teach against it, and yet we still see it on the daily. But why do you think that is? It is because the problem was never really humans not loving humans enough; the problem was humans not loving righteousness enough. We must empty our own love for the world so that it can be replaced by the love of Christ; only then will we begin to love people as Christ loves people, as He always intended.
Criss Jami
God is our final say in who and what's negative and who and what's positive in our lives. It is best not to have this so over-simplified as the illusioned superstitionists have it; an infinite being's tests may not always be so flowery, and the things we may see as positive are in many cases simply desires of our sinful nature. We are to protect our spirit without falling into the narcissistic mistake of trying to protect our selfish emotions, which the latter, in turn, is more than unlikely to bring peace and happiness. But rather guilt and emptiness. When one walks around constantly, in his mind, attempting to separate positive versus negative people, he is already controlled by something even worse than those he calls the 'negative people', and that is before he spots it soon enough to avoid it as he hypocritically tries to avoid them.
Criss Jami
Time and time again does the pride of man influence his very own fall. While denying it, one gradually starts to believe that he is the authority, or that he possesses great moral dominion over others, yet it is spiritually unwarranted. By that point he loses steam; in result, he falsely begins trying to prove that unwarranted dominion by seizing the role of a condemner.
Criss Jami
The extent of creativity to which I admire in an individual is his ability to be richly creative while still, in a way, telling the truth. It is the fool who creates only his own lies, and the bore who simply repeats what he is told.
Criss Jami
In the heart of appeasement there's the fear of rejection, and in acts of fear there are mirrors of oppression.
Criss Jami
It is by continuing to put out good work that the artist best shows his gratitude.
Criss Jami
I'm a peasantI'm the muzhikA pest you're destined to play the musicAnd yes it's pleasant to say it's beauty I'mIndebted to rest respecting it truly
Criss Jami
I'm never proud of my old work. I always feel as though my skills have since improved.
Criss Jami
From recovery to rags and rags to recovery symbolizes art - a perfect compilation of human imperfections.
Criss Jami
It starts off like climbing a tree or solving a puzzle - poetry, if nothing else, is just fun to write. But deeper into each and every piece, you no longer hesitate to call it work. It's passion. A poet's sense of lyrical accomplishment is then his food and water, his means of survival.
Criss Jami
I'm often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush.
Criss Jami
Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.
Criss Jami
All great leaders find a sense of balance through their levels of reception. For instance, those who support a leader may soften him, those who ignore him may challenge him, and those who oppose him may stroke his ego.
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
...There are also those who inadvertently grant power to another man's words by continuously trying to spite him. If a man gets to the point where he can simply say, 'The sky is blue,' and people indignantly rush up trying to refute him saying, 'No, the sky is light blue,' then, whether they realize it or not, he has become an authority figure even to such adversaries.
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
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.
Criss Jami
Without Christ a people may always have the freedom to do, but never the power to complete.
Criss Jami
Every exceptional bias against Christianity I find to be evidence for its validity.
Criss Jami
Initially, the God of the Old Testament might seem overwhelming and domineering to you, or tyrannical, or perhaps even evil, which is good. It is the first telling that God is indeed God, by sheer definition, and not some ear-tickling fairy by which one in his depravity is guaranteed to find another form of stale romanticism or love at first sight. For such a first impression as the latter would be problematic to the essence of Christianity. Therefore the Christians are right in saying that the nature of imperfect men cannot ultimately co-exist with the nature of a perfect God; and that the hope of each man is now desperately found in God's sending of Christ.
Criss Jami
Some of the simplest of truths are also some of the most difficult of truths, but such is Christianity: 'If it's not about Christ, it's not about life.
Criss Jami
We are not as some people like to assume nowadays 'just being real' by embracing passively the sinful, fallen versions of ourselves. Quite the opposite really: our true selves were, from the beginning, intended to resemble the example which was then set by Christ Jesus; hence God wants to restore us to how we would have been had original sin never once befell.
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
A spirit ushered by false teachings is like a body nourished by sweets. The adult, as opposed to the child, will come to understand reasons one cannot live a healthy existence on nothing but candy; so likewise, the Christian must come to understand that one cannot know and love the will of God under false doctrine.
Criss Jami
Christ commands his people to love their enemies, because if not, that would rule out pretty much the entire world.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
The aim is to love God because the pure heart loves loving God and because the true mind knows He deserves it. Unlike the accusations and beliefs of the critics and skeptics, it is neither an obligation of duty; nor a fear of damnation; nor a wish for power; nor a desire to appear more righteous than others; nor because God needs it; but because through all love, truth, reason, faith, honesty, and joy in and beyond oneself and the universe, He is worthy.
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
Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction.
Criss Jami
If beauty is relative, then any and everything when compared to the beauty of God is absolutely hideous.
Criss Jami
To understand even remotely the holy omnipotence of God is to understand at least from mostly to wholly the magnificence of Christ.
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
There is this common notion that young conservatives are the few, that most people had liberal worldviews when they were young. If this is true, then it is with great irony that a number of old liberals must never had progressed into conservatives as they grew older.
Criss Jami
I am not convinced within myself that to its core and as a whole, humanity has, as some like to assume, progressed a great deal over the millennia. Human technology? Of course. Human beings? Hardly.
Criss Jami
Christ died not so that you could freely go on sinning, and therefore, continue dying; He died rather so that you could freely grow in obedience, and therefore, start living.
Criss Jami
Those who stand for different causes during different generations often experience the same oppositions and the same difficulties as those of the previous and the next generations. That is the basis of history repeating itself.
Criss Jami
Man is the only god of confusion. In a political sense the liberal man is like one shouting over the voice of God thus making it difficult to hear God; the conservative man is like one standing in the way of God, making it difficult to see God.
Criss Jami
Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice.
Criss Jami
Of course, if one does not fully trust the promise of God's Kingdom, he will have a hard time taking risks and making sacrifices in this life. A gospel centered around the temporal self - fleeting happiness, earthly success, vain prosperity, things such as these - is the primary ambition of the half-hearted Christian; the one who somewhat believes he is subject to an eternal death; the one who just might believe in men before God, who morbidly fears seeming less than anyone else. The man of this school feels deeply that he has but one life to live, that this must be his only chance, and therefore must have it all in his favor - from glory to comfort to riches - and have it right this instant. He is but hinting that he is overcome because he insists always that he must overcome, that his judgment comes now and by the persons around him. The point is, however, in this sense, that by grace the Christian is indeed free, but only for as long as he wants to be free - the practicality of true freedom: that of God which offers not so much freedom to be like the world as it does freedom from the pressures of having to be like the world. For Divine Law is based solely on love and freedom; whereas secular law, pressure and imitation.
Criss Jami
On the whole the modern world has been conditioned to have a chip on its shoulder against devoutly religious people. I disagree with this in some instances - particularly in, believe it or not, matters of integrity. Deep down I often rather believe the man who honestly thinks - or better yet even, prefers - that he has an omnipotent Judge breathing down his neck, holding his every word and his every move accountable, than the man who much like his modern peers, and ironically enough, claims or wishes to bask in complete independence. As it appears actually, the former is more free of guilt than the latter.
Criss Jami
Even the self-assured truth-finders and self-proclaimed freedom-fighters reject Truth. As admirable as such endeavors may be, they still only really want it so long as it to some extent confirms what they had already presumed to be true.
Criss Jami
They have a special confidence in Christ, plus thoughtfulness plus faithfulness plus humility: for there are no things, in all creation, more beautiful, more rare than the so very disciplined and free, joyful and principled daughters of God.
Criss Jami
The way of the consumerist culture is to spend so much energy chasing happiness that it has none left to be happy.
Criss Jami
He has a way of drawing His loves back to Himself. A psyche separated from the peace (and the freedom) of Christ is liable to entangle itself in all sorts of folly and vanity, or confused witchcraft. On the one side it will preach, 'Empowerment!' But on the other it will scream, 'Oppression!' Yes, you now have the power to be oppressed: because as long as you look to be a victim, you will find yourself to be a victim.
Criss Jami
To be respected is not my concern. So long as I seek to live in obedience to my Lord, respect will come accordingly from the people He deems it necessary.
Criss Jami
Freedom of speech is detestable only to those who have no desire to think for themselves.
Criss Jami
We tend to think that refusing to exalt Christ is staying true to our self-will and personal freedom when really we are condemning ourselves. Sure, we can pretend to stay true to ourselves, but if you want to talk about reality, all of that is completely trivial if this life is an island and He's the only pilot with a plane and a flight plan.
Criss Jami
Let's not grow with our roots in the ground.
Criss Jami
God knew man would evolve. People think some of the Old Testament laws are absurd now because we live in a very different culture, a different time period. They had their problems and we have ours. God is constant but man is not, and he foreknew the ever-changing world his people would have to deal with; therefore, and if there is indeed an omniscient God, a Christ-like figure would be our only rational, possible connection to a constant, holy God throughout the evolution of culture and social law. The only answer that makes sense when it comes to relevance regarding religions and time periods is Christ, and the chances are slim that men could have invented it.
Criss Jami
If ever it's necessary to ride the bandwagon, it's done with one leg swinging out and eyes scoping the fields.
Criss Jami
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.
Criss Jami
Sometimes a people lose their right to remain silent when pressured to remain silent.
Criss Jami
Their doubt is your fuel for dreams. You just have to drive.
Criss Jami
Peace ought not be regarded the height of civilization, else like barbarians we forever battle for peace.
Criss Jami
Best to live and love by the maxim that 'silence in the face of evil is evil itself', but when it's evil fighting evil, let evil kill itself.
Criss Jami
When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin.
Criss Jami