Criss Jami (quotes) - Wisdom Trove

Normality is the new eccentric.
Old words are reborn with new faces.
I have a thing for things that last.
Music is not my life. My life is music.
Drunken men give some of the best pep talks.
Let’s not grow with our roots in the ground.
Absurdity is the ecstasy of intellectualism.
A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.
I’m not offended until you think I’m offended.
The devil’s happy when the critics run you off.
Let your confidence reflect your contentedness.
Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
Simplicity is a bliss that makes one comprehend.
Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.
To seek greatness is the only righteous vengeance.
An insincere critic of a sincere person never wins.
If ever you feel like an animal among men be a lion.
Unlike wealth, there is an infinite value in legacy.
When a man is penalized for honesty he learns to lie.
A thief is one who insists on sharing his victimhood.
Thunderstorms are as much our friends as the sunshine.
Labeled fools to the world are geniuses to the cosmos.
There’s more to logic than identifying logical fallacies.
Armed neutrality makes it much easier to detect hypocrisy.
As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning.
Cleverness isn’t always true nor is the truth always clever
Humility is, in a sense, admitting how egotistical you are.
The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.
When there’s music in your soul, there’s soul in your music.
To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something.
Let what offends God offend me, and what God pardons, I pardon.
I never feel unsafe except for when the majority is on my side.
Yes, be different, but not for the vanities of being different.
Everything at some point has been declared the root of all evil.
In the fashion industry, everything goes retro except the prices.
Envy is a sign of insecurity, yes; but so is longing to be envied.
Maturity is when you’re able to say, ‘It’s not just them. It’s me.’
The first ingredient to being wrong is to claim that you are right.
Competition works best in sports, but humans get addicted to stuff.
Women rescue men just as much as, if not more than, men rescue women.
One who enjoys finding errors will then start creating errors to find.
When everyone believes they are the life coaches, who are the players?
When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.
Great minds think alike because a greater Mind is thinking through them.
I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation.
It’s easy to make a mess when you’re not the one who has to clean it up.
The artist lives to have stories to tell and to learn to tell them well.
Confidence turns into pride only when you are in denial of your mistakes.
A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.
You can’t let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you.
You have to lift a person up before you can really put them in their place.
The sea in all its vastness is its own, real world. Man is nature’s sci-fi.
Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.
Great philosophers become immortal – they make undeniable impacts on culture.
We first become salesmen as children in the confession booths of our parents.
Never rebel for the sake of rebelling, but always rebel for the sake of truth.
If you’re capable of despising your own behavior, you might just love yourself.
The real test of love is loving those who we feel are the hardest ones to love.
Tension, in the long run, is a more dangerous force than any feud known to man.
When I look at a person, I see a person – not a rank, not a class, not a title.
An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.
Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.
I don’t pretend to know everything; I just only speak on matters I know I’ll win.
People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them.
It’s not at all hard to understand a person; it’s only hard to listen without bias
If you’re waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you’ll never make it.
Thoughts are like burning stars, and ideas, they flood, they stretch the universe.
When you have wit of your own, it’s a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.
It is not so much freedom of speech but the right to truth that great men protect.
Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.
The role of genius is not to complicate the simple, but to simplify the complicated.
The hated man is the result of his hater’s pride rather than his hater’s conscience.
Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.
Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.
I enjoy melancholic music and art. They take me to places I don’t normally get to go.
If one should criticize one should always have a meaningful explanation to accompany.
The hard part about one being tough yet meek is the illusion of being a punching bag.
Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.
Sometimes a people lose their right to remain silent when pressured to remain silent.
A wise man’s goal shouldn’t be to say something profound, but to say something useful.
A lonely day is God’s way of saying that he wants to spend some quality time with you.
Tolerance! The virtue that makes one bite his tongue so that he can tear out his hair.
I’m never proud of my old work. I always feel as though my skills have since improved.
I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.
I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules.
To love without need or without expectation of restitution, that is how we ought to love.
Some concepts are so incredibly risky they take an honest fool to try to articulate them.
If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it.
Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don’t laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions
I’m often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush.
The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.
Don’t change your mind just because people are offended; change your mind if you’re wrong.
It is the nature of physics to hear the loudest of mouths over the most comprehensive ones.
Beware: open-mindedness will often say, ‘Everything is permissible except a sharp opinion.’
I believe in evolution in the sense that a short-tempered man is the successor of a crybaby.
People think that fun in Christ is non-existent, but there is fun wherever your heart lives.
The height of cleverness is in one’s ability to be very clever without seeming clever at all.
The love of conflict is most evident when opposing forces join sides to defeat the peacemaker.
Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do.
It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.
Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.
I do not care about happiness simply because I believe that joy is something worth fighting for.
The idea that all souls are mortal is the only notion surely terminating love and all its forms.
It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.
The humble ones are always learning and improving, and their secret is always that it’s a secret.
A sign of a lover of wisdom is his delight in not running his mouth about things he doesn’t know.
What man is really anti-progressive? For he is only anti-certain-people’s-visions-for-the-future.
We often hear about stepping outside ourselves, but rarely about stepping outside our generation.
Ingredients to success: know what you do well, know what to do well, and know someone who’s swell.
Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness.
God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.
Women show men beauty in things beyond their ambitions. Women tell men to stop and smell the roses.
To be extremely happy but extremely intelligent is a task of being optimistic without being cheesy.
The writer’s curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored.
Intelligence entails a strong mind, but genius entails a heart of a lion in tune with a strong mind.
I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.
Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.
To be truly positive in the eyes of some, you have to risk appearing negative in the eyes of others.
When your only regret is if anyone thinks you regret anything – that is the definition of conviction.
A mature heart for Christ would much rather spend its time praising him than condemning his fanatics.
There is more to joy than looking only for affirmation; refusing to be challenged is the only bigotry.
What further helps to reveal reality is when our personal thinking ceases to take reality for granted.
The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.
A number of our scientists boast intelligence but lack wisdom. I find those to be the predictable ones.
Learning isn’t acquiring knowledge so much as it is trimming information that has already been acquired.
To spend your time wanting things is to smother your time for achieving things beyond your expectations.
A rebel adult often seems like a glorious savior, whereas a rebel child often seems like a little devil.
A part of me genuinely wanted to be the worst because I was so sick of everyone fighting to be the best.
From recovery to rags and rags to recovery symbolizes art – a perfect compilation of human imperfections.
Feel what it’s like to truly starve, and I guarantee that you’ll forever think twice before wasting food.
Love may be harder to find in some people, but when they do love you know it must be something marvelous.
It takes a courageous fool to say things that have not been said and to do things that have not been done.
To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told…and have a sense of humor doing it.
It is a noble responsibility to not back down when you know that you know that you know that you are right.
It’s much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.
With too much pride a man cannot learn a thing. In and of itself, learning teaches you how foolish you are.
You can receive all the compliments in the world, but that won’t do a thing unless you believe it yourself.
To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.
The spirit of arrogance most definitely makes you shine. It paints a bright red target on your own forehead.
In the philosophical dialect, a cynic takes an insult as a compliment since opposition is already his style.
We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.
Imagination doesn’t always make you long for what you cannot have, but rather thrive in what you do not have.
To believe in the truth of Christ is to be introduced to another form of hatred, and that is not sharing Him.
When you’re appeasing too much, you might be egotistically over-estimating everyone’s need for your approval.
Disasters work like alarm clocks to the world, hence God allows them. They are shouting, ‘Wake up! Love! Pray!
If ever it’s necessary to ride the bandwagon, it’s done with one leg swinging out and eyes scoping the fields.
I think that I am too warm to negatively judge individuals, yet I am cold enough to negatively judge humanity.
In a general sense, I admit to valuing the worldviews of men under the age of 40 and women over the age of 30.
It is better to doubt that a concept is stupidly flying under your head than profoundly flying over your head.
Anger’s like a battery that leaks acid right out of me And it starts from the heart til it reaches my outer me
The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch.
If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.
I claim neither liberalism nor conservatism – one tends to be airheaded while the other tends to be brickheaded.
An artistic perspective will jab at you from a different angle; its logic comes like a pitcher with a curveball.
The best people are always the worst. They drive everyone mad by being so good at second-guessing everything bad.
At first, they’ll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they’ll dislike you.
Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.
When good people consider you the bad guy, you develop a heart to help the bad ones. You actually understand them.
The manlier you are, the harder it is to understand what a woman wants: there is not a hint of female brain in you.
Everyone has a natural slant towards seeking themselves. This gets in the way of seeking God unless God intervenes.
A pure heart does not demean the spirit of an individual, it, instead, compels the individual to examine his spirit.
You can be yourself without pursuing yourself. Have you ever seen a dog chase his own tail? He just runs in circles.
The thing about stereotyping is it’s usually just throwing rocks into a crowd hoping to hit somebody who deserves it.
God gives His deepest discernment and sharpest marksmanship to men who aim to expose His truth before an enemy’s lies.
Faithfulness imparts God’s reason for all circumstances. No matter what the world says, losing is no longer an option.
The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest of friends to know – for comedians are the caricatures among us.
When comprehending how different people truly are, you also comprehend the absolute necessity of some divine authority.
Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters.
Whatever thing a man gets quickly enraged about is his idol, and whatever thing he makes his idol becomes his religion.
The power of hope! Even a lack of ambition can, for a time, pay off as a necessary facet, as long as hope outweighs it.
Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears.
These days when Christians bicker they exaggerate passion into a legalistic belief and prosperity into a lukewarm belief.
When focusing only on one’s credentials one boasts his own incompetence in his capacity for discernment of the individual.
I only seem negative to the fortunate. That’s because I show the less fortunate that they aren’t less fortunate after all.
The apologist is most entrusted with apologetics when capable of arguing his opponent’s position better than his opponent.
Pride and power fall when the person falls, but discoveries of truth form legacies that can be built upon for generations.
As a writer of philosophy, it’s good to ask oneself, ‘Will I still believe this a week from now, or months, or even years?’
You can’t be a rebel without the scars that come with it. Truth is, some days scars are just as ugly as they are beautiful.
What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around.
Never hide things from hardcore thinkers. They get more aggravated, more provoked by confusion than the most painful truths.
Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: ‘Perhaps I need someone else to control me.
Your love is as stable as you are: It’s not about how good a person makes you feel, but rather what good you can do for them.
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.
Let our information and social technologies raise awareness and not propaganda, build connections and not passive-aggression.
I still believe that many Americans have a deep longing for that glorious moment when a sermon is more Biblical than American.
When you mature in your relationship with God you realize how suffering and patience are like eating your spiritual vegetables.
Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see.
If you have to say or do something controversial, aim so that people will hate that they love it and not love that they hate it.
There’s nothing more contagious than the laughter of young children; it doesn’t even have to matter what they’re laughing about.
It is not true that everyone is special. It is true that everyone was once special and still possesses the ability to recover it.
The unteachable man is sentenced to being taught only by experience. The tragedy is he reaches nothing further than his own pain.
The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is the pretense of intelligent ignorance. The former is teachable; the latter is not.
I find it a challenge to cooperate in a society where it’s considered moral to critique a résumé yet immoral to critique morality.
I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don’t even need or want to look ‘intelligent’ anymore.
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.
If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy.
A lack of common sense usually ends in some heroic feat, much like the soldier who dives onto the grenade so that others may live.
If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you’ll see your rivals scrambling for second place.
A major gap between many of the denominations stems from how people define some of the most basic terms, such as ‘religion’ itself.
A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.
Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.
Great artists are a little too gifted to be bound by boxes and labels, and in saying that, the label ‘artist’ is to be used lightly.
When we find that God’s ways always coincide with our own ways, it’s time to question who we’re really worshipping, God or ourselves.
God loves atheists. The former ones make the most compelling theists because they’re so empirically familiar with how atheists think.
It is never just disagreement but always intellectual dishonesty that is the apologist’s worst enemy. And its apprentice is ignorance.
Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives.
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.
Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on
There’s sometimes a tugging feeling you get to push further when you aren’t being challenged enough or when things get too comfortable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The conscious attempt to be a good person without Christ is as legalistic as an attempt to make it into Heaven through empty religiosity.
Simply minding one’s own business is more offensive than being intrusive. Without ever saying a word one can make a person feel less-than.
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.
Treat people like people. Beware of pity and patronization because in them, you can’t see when you’re unashamedly looking down on someone.
The love of Christ is always there and unchanging, no matter what we do, but it is when we are obedient that we actually begin to feel it.
Wisdom is nothing more than confirmed imagination: just because one did not study for his exam does not mean that he should leave it blank.
After awhile you realize that putting your actions where your mouth is makes you less likely to have to put your money where your mouth is.
Whenever you feel like feeling like a devil’s advocate, Bible-thump. That, in a worldly world, is the great irony and satire of evangelism.
I enjoy poetry where I can talk as bizarre as I please, but theology or philosophy, I always respect the truth by taking it a step further.
Vivid simplicity is the articulation, the nature of genius. Wisdom is greater than intelligence; intelligence is greater than philosobabble.
The common man prays, ‘I want a cookie right now!’ And God responds, ‘If you’d listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.
I appreciate a book intended to be judged by its cover. The insincere readers are often weeded out while the sincere readers remain curious.
It’s not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.
The best ideas will eat at you for days, maybe even weeks, until something, some incident, some impulse, triggers you to finally express them.
The hardest thing for a sane person to do is not care what anyone thinks, although everyone swears by it, hence our glorification of insanity.
A man does not have to feel less than human to realize his sin; oppositely, he has to realize that he gets no special vindication for his sin.
You are evidence of your mother’s strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.
The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal.
When emerging from humble beginnings, those around you tend to underestimate your authenticity because they knew you before you were ‘somebody’.
Tolerance never exists without negative judgment. It is the sentiment of having a negative opinion about something yet still putting up with it.
We men are fascinated by the things we don’t really understand. It gives us something to think and talk about: like females, they drive us nuts.
People don’t care about being duped as long as they’re happy, which is the shortest form of happiness; hence ‘self-duprication’ becomes a habit.
The surface of learning is hearing what your ears aren’t prepared to hear, and the core of learning is hearing what your ears don’t want to hear.
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.
Of course, in our train of thought, we would all like to think we’re on the right track, or at least the same railroad company as the right track.
A writer is one who communicates ideas and emotions people want to communicate but aren’t quite sure how, or even if, they should communicate them.
When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin.
Even if there are instances in which it can be mistook by onlookers, never fool yourself into using misunderstood genius as an excuse to be a fool.
For the believer, humility is honesty about one’s greatest flaws to a degree in which he fearless about truly appearing less righteous than another.
You think you’re losing your mind, but do keep in mind, as long as you may, that the ability to go on thinking such a thing means it’s not all gone.
Those who speak of progression but are afraid of change are self-repressed and therefore unable to reach any further than their eyes can already see.
The evangelist is the world’s hopeless romantic, and just like a hopeless romantic, he must hope for the miracle of God more than the romance itself.
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.
A man who loves others based solely on how they make him feel, or what they do for him, is really not loving others at all – but loving only himself.
I’d rather strive for the kind of interview where instead of me asking to introduce myself to society, society asks me to introduce myself to society.
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.
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.
In the end, only God can see the heart of an individual and distinguish the difference between legalistic deadweight and the passion of holy solemnity.
There’s no need to curse God if you’re an ugly duckling. He chooses those strong enough to endure it so that they can guide others who’ve felt the same.
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.
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.
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.
The reality of loving God is loving him like he’s a Superhero who actually saved you from stuff rather than a Santa Claus who merely gave you some stuff.
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.
Good intentions but bad results; bad results but lessons learned. There is a dark corner on every task beautiful and a beautiful corner on every task dark.
An exceedingly confident student would in theory make a terrible student. Why would he take school seriously when he feels that he can outwit his teachers?
Every new generation believes its own period to be absolutely superior intellectually – greater than all past cultures yet equal among its modern cultures.
The hope is indeed that some will experience and believe: The purpose of a number of spiritual gurus is to demonstrate to God-fearing men faux spirituality.
Just as some people may conceal their own sinfulness thus seeming better than the norm, others expose their own sinfulness thus seeming worse than the norm.
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.
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
Oftentimes in reality, the genius is in the position of the antihero. Neither the good guys nor the bad guys really trust him because his truth is universal.
In the land where excellence is commended, not envied, where weakness is aided, not mocked, there is no question as to how its inhabitants are all superhuman.
Everyone pretends to be ‘free thinkers’, but few individuals pass the line into expressive territories that may be detrimental to their own social well-being.
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.
Man was designed in a way in which he must eat in order to give him a solid reason to go to work everyday. This helps to keep him out of trouble. God is wise.
There are two circumstances that lead to arrogance: one is when you’re wrong and you can’t face it; the other is when you’re right and nobody else can face it.
I’ve come to the point where I never feel the need to stop and evaluate whether or not I am happy. I’m just ‘being’, and without question, by default, it works.
In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.
The most judgmental people are often those who complain most about being judged. The ones not complaining will look as though they’re the ones doing the judging.
In societies where coolness and being cool is a top priority, the religious replace the word ‘religious’ with ‘spiritual’ to make their faiths seem less extreme.
Sometimes it takes a lowly, title-less man to humble the world. Kings, rulers, CEOs, judges, doctors, pastors, they are already expected to be greater and wiser.
To swear day and night by media slander will make one a bigger victim than the slandered. It doesn’t take much to begin to fear a mere illusion of human badness.
Gloating is a superficial glowing, floating is an idle flowing, and bloatedness is the paralysis of blowing up; because silent movement results in loud victories.
Everyone judges constantly: positively judging one person is the same as negatively judging everyone else; it is to say that that person is superior in some sense.
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.
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’.
Psychobabble attempts to redefine the entire English language just to make a correct statement incorrect. Psychology is the study of why someone would try to do this.
Whenever I think of something but can’t think of what it was I was thinking of, I can’t stop thinking until I think I’m thinking of it again. I think I think too much.
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.
Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I’ll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that’s what I call pure, honest fun.
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.
Never take advice about never taking advice. That is an old vice of men – to dish it out without being able to take it – the blind leading the blind into more blindness.
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.
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.
Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.
Everyone claims to be okay with freedom of religion, but the moment you mention God there is a strange tension that fills the air. If there was a 6th sense, that would be it.
If I were to vote, I would intentionally vote for the goofiest candidate. It is my theory that when the people can outwit the leader, the more respected their voices will be.
One of the greatest gifts from God is the eternal perspective. It is a level of fearlessness, a level of understanding where one can experience even emotional harmony with God.
In order to share one’s true brilliance one initially has to risk looking like a fool: genius is like a wheel that spins so fast, it at first glance appears to be sitting still.
I am not sure if women are attracted to genius. Can you imagine the wise wizard winning the woman over the gallant swordsman? It seems rather otherworldly in more ways than one.
Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.
I am not here to merely argue about the perplexities regarding theism or philosophy, but to be a light to the world and to reach out to those who long to be a part of that light.
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.
What good is there in being blind, you ask? Well, maybe it’s to see the beauty on the inside without being vainly distracted, or superficially blinded, by the ugly on the outside.
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.
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’.
The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.
Wise men are not pacifists; they are merely less likely to jump up and retaliate against their antagonizers. They know that needless antagonizers are virtually already insecure enough.
The logic behind patriotism is a mystery. At least a man who believes that his own family or clan is superior to all others is familiar with more than 0.000003% of the people involved.
Faith, in its most correct form, never removes responsibility; it removes fear of responsibility. The results are complete opposites with the greater saying, ‘God’s will is my delight.’
The weather is nature’s disruptor of human plans and busybodies. Of all the things on earth, nature’s disruption is what we know we can depend on, as it is essentially uncontrolled by men.
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 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.
I would rather my descendants have greater abilities and a greater knowledge of the love of Christ than I do, much like standing on one’s shoulders in order to get a clearer view of the valley.
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.
There is a master way with words that cannot be learned but instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper.
What may intimidate a man is a woman who thinks with her mind before she feels with her heart. Nevertheless what determines the strength in the man is his ability to accept one when he sees one.
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.
Peaceful disputes are maintained when men sincerely believe that they are morally, logically correct about the issues at hand. It is when neither side is really certain that wars are instigated.
What is hard work? It takes strength, energy, and stress to truly care about others enough to place oneself last, but it is easy to wrap oneself up and selfishly scramble on the heads of others.
I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination.
Intelligent people, as some say, in their openness, are indeed slow to criticize, but conversely, in their openness to the concerns of others, the genuine are slow to fret about being criticized.
Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.
The humble sinner will sometimes be interpreted as one of the filthiest in the eyes of man yet immersed in the eyes of God, and this is due to the volition of honesty regarding his own corruption.
The trouble with poetry is it’s often written to the sound of a drum only the poet may hear; nonetheless, blessed are those poets who always manage to find unshakeable pleasure in their own works.
Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.
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.
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.
Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.
It’s not about going around trying to stir up trouble. As long as you’re honest and you articulate what you believe to be true, somebody somewhere will become your enemy whether you like it or not.
One does not have to be a philosopher to be a successful artist, but he does have to be an artist to be a successful philosopher. His nature is to view the world in an unpredictable albeit useful light.
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.
Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone’s parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone’s child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend.
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.
An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.
Love is as simple as the absence of self- given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions.
There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion.
Man has 2 common problems with God: the one is that there is evil in the world; the other is that free will is limited. The one, he is charging that the world is too evil; the other is that it is not evil enough.
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.
It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort…only to find a big bear hug coming his way.
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.
It is easier for one to take risks and to chase his dreams with a mindset that he has nothing to lose. In this lies the immense passion, the great advantage of avoiding a materialistic, pleasure-filled way of life.
Society tells me to follow my own truth, but I don’t let society tell me what to do. If you need someone to tell you that, chances are you’re part of the crowd that will move on to the next fashion that comes around.
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.
Frequent risk-takers have had their fair shares of failures and successes, hence, being confident in reaching their goals, they will usually seem insensitive to whether or not they look foolish or cool to other people.
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.
When it comes to judging individuals, I do not like remarks such as ‘too good to be true.’ They speak as though one is rewarding the nature of evil. Yet, ironically, we still wonder where all the good people have gone.
I’m convinced that most men don’t know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man’s atrocities, but wouldn’t dream of imprisoning a mother for her son’s crime?
I cannot encourage any fabrication even for the sake of making people feel good. If I were to fabricate consciously and knowingly, I would not only be ordaining myself their enemy, but also ordaining myself God’s enemy.
A young outcast will often feel that there is something wrong with himself, but as he gets older, grows more confident in who he is, he will adapt, he will begin to feel that there is something wrong with everyone else.
I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult.
If truth is like the terrain, are we the generation who sees it as one who has worn shoes all his life or one who has never worn shoes? Yet still, even if the walk starts out as painful, the experience may be well worth it.
To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.
In a society where dirt sells, for every good story told as it is, you will hear the whole of that day’s 10 bad stories sensationalized; although in reality, it could be that 100 good deeds happened that day which went unsung.
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.
It’s simple, it’s not that simple; or life is simple, but the things in it are not. When a man does not understand it, he tends to inflate it. When he does, he tends to deflate it. In the end, neither images are fully accurate.
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.
Creativity is the highest form of intelligence. Over time, after developing a more advanced creative brain, I started feeling that my college education was more so something to be ashamed of rather than something to be proud of.
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.
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.
When a man has a gift in speaking the truth, brute aggression is no longer his security blanket for approval. He, on the contrary, spends most of his energy trying to tone it down because his very nature is already offensive enough.
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.
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.
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.
Many of us fight for and boast our freedom of what is ultimately the ability to prove ourselves to other people. It is unfortunate that only a few of us are so free in our joy, we no longer feel the need to prove ourselves to anyone.
If you use a philosophy education well, you can get your foot in the door of any industry you please. Industries are like the blossoms on a tree while philosophy is the trunk – it holds the tree together, but it often goes unnoticed.
Christ delves far beyond the means of superficiality, not simply because of his immaculate love, but also because he considers the distinct cases of each individual rather than withholding a broadened perception by use of stereotypes.
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.
Every job from the heart is, ultimately, of equal value. The nurse injects the syringe; the writer slides the pen; the farmer plows the dirt; the comedian draws the laughter. Monetary income is the perfect deceiver of a man’s true worth.
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.
Many people in a rather reckless context claim to ‘just tell it like it is’. In actuality, nobody really stresses what one says so much as the motive behind what one says; hence, he is merely blowing hot air and detracting from ‘what is’.
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.
Genius, throughout history, has been found difficult to classify because it varies in amount: It’s rare to find a genius in the context of the noun, but most people, if not all, have a bit of genius in them in the context of the adjective.
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.
Hopefully, when your actions and deeds – and therefore other people – boast for you, you’re made tired of hearing it, too, from your own mouth because if not, all could lose sight of those actions and deeds behind the gong of your boasting.
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.
Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.
In learning and argumentation, the quality brain is similar to a facility of maximum security. What passes the logic test, free of fallacy and pretense, then must pass the test of biblical accuracy in order to proceed as an adopted, reliable truth.
God’s relationship with man does not work in a way in which man stumbles and then God has to drop what he is doing in order to lift him up; rather, man stumbles so that God can lift him up. Hence it is utterly impossible to truly diminish his glory.
Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations – they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.
I am thankful when I am hungry because then I know that when I eat, the food will taste better. Life has taught me that my true contentment rests in hope, and the pleasure itself is secondary. It is self-awareness, not happiness, that maintains peace.
Considering the notion that the spiritual battlefield is infinitely greater than the physical, perhaps God is more willing to bless with a sort of divine ecstasy those who see the devil as the enemy rather than those who see other people as the enemies.
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.
Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo’s vision, ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Most men either compromise or drop their greatest talents and start running after, what they perceive to be, a more reasonable success, and somewhere in between they end up with a discontented settlement. Safety is indeed stability, but it is not progression.
When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There’s no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own.
I like solitude. It is when you truly hear and speak your natural, unadulterated mind, and out comes your most stupid self as well as your most intelligent self. It is when you realize who you are and the extents of the good and the evils which you are capable of
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.
If I were to envy any persons on this planet, it would be mountain hermits. You often hear old platitudes such as, ‘Speak out. Be heard.’ On the contrary, a breath of fresh air would be something like: ‘Silence, think for at least 15 minutes, and then maybe speak out.
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.
Self-righteousness is much like a spiritual egocentricity. It constitutes a secular type of love that thrives under conditionality, one in which is only existent after an individual meets the adopted standards of the condemner; oppositely, unconditional love is a holy love.
I’ve been able to sleep with my eyes open ever since I started watching baseball.” “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.
In essence I find that the foundation of modern conservatism is driven by a clinging to God in fear of the world, whereas the foundation of modern liberalism is a clinging to the world in fear of God; albeit, the true foundation should be one’s clinging to God in fear of God.
Credentials are like potential energy, the compliments of a name on paper, in documents, word of mouth, but faith is like kinetic energy, the motion and the force that which is witnessed. Hence in the end it is the faith rather than the credentials that really takes you places.
Philosophy may serve as the bridge between theology and science. All atheism is a philosophy, but not all philosophy is atheism. Philosophy (‘love of wisdom’) is simply a tool depending on how one uses it, and in some cases, logically understanding the nature of God and existence.
Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche – originality loses its authenticity in one’s efforts to obtain originality.
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.
A common mistake we make is that we look for God in places where we ourselves wish to find him, yet even in the physical reality this is a complete failure. For example, if you lost your car keys, you would not search where you want to search, you would search where you must in order to find them.
Senses of humor define people, as factions, deeper rooted than religious or political opinions. When carrying out everyday tasks, opinions are rather easy to set aside, but those whom a person shares a sense of humor with are his closest friends. They are always there to make the biggest influence.
I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.
To be acceptable is for one to ignore his weakness while knowing his strength, to cover the scar even though it’s always there, however, to be impossible is for one to see his weakness as, not an adversary, but the cherry on top of his strength, to rearrange the scar so that it compliments his features.
Bad luck with women is a determined man’s road to success. For every affliction, he makes, out of indignation, yet another advancement in order to exceed the man that the woman chose over him. This goes to show that great men are made great because they once learned how to fight the feeling of rejection.
The theistic philosopher has a tendency to devalue insufficient worldviews, ideologies, and quite often common sense for the greater good, and in such cases, one should not be discouraged when seen as a bad guy. If he stresses over man’s perception of a righteous heart, then he has given his heart to man.
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.
The ultimate story of success: When a nobody, who has never once in his entire life known the feeling of being remembered or respected, suddenly snaps and becomes a world dictator. On one hand it sounds just, but on the other, it illustrates the reason why a prosperity message has and needs its limitations.
Even though artists of all kinds claim to put their hearts and souls into their works, it will only confuse you, for example, if you try to discern a painter by his paintings. His masterpiece may be the master because of its iridescence; it may display a hundred different perspectives through his single face.
Oftentimes in a society when people of a certain type, whether individual or a group, are subconsciously portrayed by the media as abnormal, they also slowly, subconsciously become enemies of that society due to feelings of cultural guilt. Ultimately by this the inflated media is an enemy of its very own cause.
In our worldly perceptions of Jesus, we tend to embrace the kindness of his love (‘be encouraged’) but not the discipline of his love (‘and sin no more’). But with the whole scope of his love, or maturity in Christ, we begin relying on him for guidance where we would prefer him to walk beside us rather than behind us.
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.
I think that there are excellent and poor thinking habits just as there are healthy and unhealthy eating habits; and when a man really knows how to think, you cannot necessarily assert that he thinks too much in a strictly negative connotation. Perhaps this is in a sense food for thought, whereas the other is fool for thought.
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.
Love is without a doubt the laziest theory for the meaning of life, but when it actually comes a time to do it we find just enough energy to over-complicate life again. Any devil can love, whom he himself sees as, a good person who has treated him well, but to love also the polar opposite is what separates love from fickle emotions.
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.
The barrier during self-improvement is not so much that we hate learning, rather we hate being taught. To learn entails that the knowledge was achieved on one’s own accord-it feels great-but to be taught often leaves a feeling of inferiority. Thus it takes a bit of determination and a lot of humility in order for one to fully develop.
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.
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.
As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.
If life is music, I sometimes feel as though I was born on the off-beat of the song, and I love it. As Christian numbers reportedly decrease in America, my love for Christ feels as though it increases. I must be honest about such strange feelings: I now want to be thought unfaithful about as much as a bougie aristocrat wants to be thought a hobo.
To reach only for that which pleasantly enchants you is the least of imagination, if even imagination at all, by the obvious reality of remaining within your means. The greater of imagination is parallel to risk. It extends beyond your comfort zone or haven, or sense of beauty, or what you personally believe suits you in exploration of what may not.
As Aristotle said, ‘Excellence is a habit.’ I would say furthermore that excellence is made constant through the feeling that comes right after one has completed a work which he himself finds undeniably awe-inspiring. He only wants to relax until he’s ready to renew such a feeling all over again because to him, all else has become absolutely trivial.
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.
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.
Joy, like love, is an impenetrable, God-given state of being. The distinctions between joy and happiness and love and affection are important ones under the notion that happiness is an ‘iffy’ emotion, a highly dependent feeling both aroused and destroyed by external conditions apart from God. And the distinction between love and affection is parallel to such.
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?
For God to prove himself on demand, physically, would be a grave disappointment, and the strongest Christians should be considerably grateful that he chooses not to do so. The skeptic endlessly demands proof, yet God refuses to insult the true intelligence of man, the ‘6th sense’, the chief quality, the acumen which distinguishes man from the rest of creation, faith.
…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.
The challenge of abating one with a genuine ego problem is to not try to put him down. Any and all antagonization, in his mind, is merely compensated for by his own descriptions: his feelings of persecution by the envious and his ideals of worth. Arguably, the genuine ego is more of a circumstantial defense mechanism rather than a steady arrogance in need of starvation.
Usually without realizing it, our ultimate peace starts and ends in the authority of God alone, which means the solution to living in joy, peace, and harmony with our fellow men has been here for all since the beginning of mankind and throughout civilization. I have yet to feel the urge to argue politics: it reminds me of getting off the freeway to sit in raging traffic.
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.
It can be a good thing if deeper theology, or philosophy, only makes one more uncertain. It may lead to a healthy doubt; he may throw his hands up saying, ‘God, I just don’t know anymore. If you’re out there, I’m giving it all to you.’ From there, after the surrender, he is allowing God himself, rather than theories, books, and documents, to take over and lead him into all truth.
One may not always know his purpose until his only option is to monopolize in what he truly excels at. He grows weary of hearing the answer ‘no’ time and time again, so he turns to and cultivates, monopolizes in his one talent which others cannot possibly subdue. Then, beyond the crowds of criticism and rejection, the right people recognize his talent – among them he finds his stage.
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.
I believe God himself will someday debate with and answer every objection arrogant men can come up with against him; I believe he will humble us and humor himself. Know-it-alls, pseudo-intellectuals, militant anti-theists, for Christ’s sake, or rather their own sake, best beware of getting roasted by their own medicine. Ah! Our delusions of trying to argue against an omniscient Creator.
The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet ‘Heavenly Father’ is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.
As followers of Christ, we are to be careful not to remain victims of the many cultural presuppositions of who he is, and what he teaches, insofar as taking for granted our own caricatures of him. Let it boil in both mind and heart the question, ‘If Jesus were to appear today, how many of us would actually recognize him and his teachings (or would it simply be a recount of his first visit)?
Those who live as though God sets the rules are not going by their own rules. That is the self-sacrifice, or selflessness, that peace more often than not requires. Those who insist on going by their own rules cannot make that sacrifice. They are the steady adherents of (global) conflict because they are forever fighting both themselves and others to do whatever they think that they want to do.
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.
There is a greater Christian faith than one which settles for the temporal happiness, and that is the augmentation of faith. The more faithful you become, the harder the obstacles get; but the harder the obstacles get, the tougher your spine grows; and the tougher your spine grows, the less dependent you are on man’s approval. I came to know this about Christianity when valuing faith before comfort.
Christianity, like genius, is one of the hardest concepts to forgive. We hear what we want to hear and accept what we want to accept, for the most part, simply because there is nothing more offensive than feeling like you have to re-evaluate your own train of thought and purpose in life. You have to die to an extent in your hunger for faith, for wisdom, and quite frankly, most people aren’t ready to die.
I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you understand God’s reason for it, and are then able to make the best of everything that you are handed. The darkness is only frightening after constant sunshine.
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.
It turns out that the men who ultimately, who unpretentiously value peace are willing to sacrifice their own peace of mind in order to render it. The question is, ‘Who, between opposing forces, would do such a thing?’ It seems only theoretical albeit true that men who accept an objective rather than subjective moral standard are, in a general sense, more capable of making such sacrifices for the sake of peace.
To be honest, one can only feel glad that so many modern iconoclasts consider Christianity to be full of exceptionally hypocritical, religious zealots – it’s biblically accurate and a prophecy fulfilled. The old smoke screen is one of Satan’s favorite tricks. He conceals the authentic. He has a persistent strategy of targeting those who remind him of Christianity because he fears those who remind him of Christ.
The crazy creatives are the creatives who never go completely mad. They aren’t so easily disheartened by the seemingly endless amounts of scrutiny that creative individuals tend to receive because they, like insanity, are the ones who feed off of opposition and negative feedback and manage to continue along with a healthy ambition. It is the crazy that teaches us to use our gifts wisely and own all the attackers.
You maintain hope for humanity as an infinite skeptic of gossip and slander. In all mankind’s desires for entertainment and exaggeration and sensationalism, when it comes to gossip, the individual always sounds worse than he really is. This is why adhering to gossip subtly affects the mental state of the listener – he goes on holding shady opinions regardless of where the realities of their lights and darknesses may stand.
Of all the major religions, or lack thereof, the atheist’s is one of the best pretenders: his foundation for all existences, as well as moral behaviors for the permanent good of mankind, begins at science but ends at himself, the Napoleon complex of both intelligence and imagination. On the other hand the anti-theist wouldn’t survive without a deity beyond himself to hunt. He doesn’t pretend, he simply nullifies his own position.
The skeptic says that the believer has lost his own mind under God. On the contrary, it is the people who follow God who are most like his children, who willingly and consciously walk in his will; but those who oppose him oppose him vainly and at their own expense, and, figuratively, seem to be more like his tools. They don’t diminish his glory, but instead he still manages to use them in ways of unconsciously carrying out his will.
Hypocrisy versus authenticity among men is not always so black and white, and as is righteousness, humility is often self-proclaimed. The Church is most definitely supposed to be a hospital for the spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically sick, hurting, and broken individual, yet ironically, many of its critics are those who ran away and permanently denounced its members after they visited and felt that they were sneezed on.
Love begets wisdom, thus it is, as often misconceived, more than vain layers of tenderness; it is inherently rational and comprehensive of the problem within the problem: for instance, envy is one of the most excused sins in the media of political correctness. Those you find most attractive, or seem to have it all, are often some of the most insecure at heart, and that is because people assume that they do not need anything but defamation.
There is such a thing as righteous judgment, but it seems that lately the word ‘judgment’ has become a curse word, period. The issue isn’t whether or not we’re insightful enough to avoid being judgmental, but whether or not we’re secure enough to accept being judged. It is inevitable for every conscious human being to judge. It may spring from insight and experience and sincerity, and in such cases, it is quite beneficial on the receiving end.
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.
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.
The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.
Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally distort the motives of a pure-intentioned individual, then, no longer have the opportunity to block his path; instead, they are the ones left to stand on the sidelines shouting frustratedly in the wind of his trail.
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.
When you’re socially awkward, you’re isolated more than usual, and when you’re isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages.
History does seem to repeat itself hence it’s mindboggling to still hear the ‘avoid all negative people’ speeches from, of all people, supposedly important spiritual teachers. Ironically, their congregations would probably be the ones hiding their faces from the accuracies of truth speakers like Christ. Now, Christ was the complete opposite of negative, however the danger is that truth is often misunderstood as negativity by those who are constantly taught to only seek flattery.
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 is ignorance that is at times incomprehensible to the wise; for instance, he may not see ‘the positive person’ or ‘the negative person’ in a black and white way as many people do. A wise man may not understand it because, as a catalyst of wisdom, but not wise in his own eyes, even he can learn from and give back to fools. To think that an individual has absolutely nothing to offer to the table is counter-intuitively what the wise man considers to be ‘the ignorance of hopelessness’.
When we find that God’s ways always coincide with our own ways, it’s time to question who we’re really worshipping, God or ourselves. The latter moves the nature of godliness from the King to our servant to a slave, a deduction into the realm of selfhood and then the lower, slavehood. It’s a spiritual mathematics in that men who need God in his godhood are humble yet strong and spiritually ambitious while men who need a slave in their selfhood are ultimately paralyzed and will remain paralyzed.
It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves.
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’.
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.
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’.
God judges men from the inside out; men judge men from the outside in. Perhaps to God, an extreme mental patient is doing quite well in going a month without murder, for he fought his chemical imbalance and succeeded; oppositely, perhaps the healthy, able and stable man who has never murdered in his life yet went a lifetime consciously, willingly never loving anyone but himself may then be subject to harsher judgment than the extreme mental patient. It might be so that God will stand for the weak and question the strong.
It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self.
When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man’s biography regarding God’s promised experiences and truth for him – his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences.
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.
There is a difference between criticizing people and criticizing a people’s uninformed ideals. That is, unless one defines himself or others by their ideals, then he is offended, and usually offended secretly. Because oddly enough, this person is the same person quickest to resort to dismissive name-calling, such as ‘bigot’ or ‘zealot’. And oddly enough, he is always the one, the ‘open-minded’ one, who adamantly protests for, not only himself, but others not to listen to any type of scholarly theological truth inherently for the sake of his own personal, moral beliefs.
I often ask myself, ‘Who would Jesus vote for?’ Then I start to think that he wouldn’t vote at all; however, it would not be out of apathy or disinterest, but out of perfection and light. As a miracle worker, I think he would, by the power of God’s teachings, the perseverance and the truth, influence in a modern sense whoever is put into office how to best serve his fellow men. One, like his skeptics, may find that impractical. But there is a message in that no man in power can slow the momentum of the will of God, and the miracles of his teachings will be forever victorious.
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.
Some people are ignorant of the world but educated in Scripture, and are therefore prone to missing the relevance of Scripture – these sometimes, later, amidst life’s challenges and doubts, turn from the faith; other people are ignorant of Scripture but educated in the world, and are therefore prone to missing the truth of Scripture – they are often those who ridicule the faith. The apologist stands somewhere in the center. He articulates where some are prone to understanding the truth in beauty, others the beauty in truth – that of a spiritual Creator in relation to his scientific creation.

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About Criss Jami

Quotes by Criss Jami