Best 601 quotes of Criss Jami on MyQuotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

A major gap between many of the denominations stems from how people define some of the most basic terms, such as 'religion' itself.

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.

An artistic perspective will jab at you from a different angle; its logic comes like a pitcher with a curveball.

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.

An insincere critic of a sincere person never wins.

A number of our scientists boast intelligence but lack wisdom. I find those to be the predictable ones.

A part of me genuinely wanted to be the worst because I was so sick of everyone fighting to be the best.

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?'

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)?

A sign of a lover of wisdom is his delight in not running his mouth about things he doesn't know.

A thief is one who insists on sharing his victimhood.

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.

Beware: open-mindedness will often say, 'Everything is permissible except a sharp opinion.'

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.

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.

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.

Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.

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.

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.

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.

Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.

Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.

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.

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.

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.

Every new generation believes its own period to be absolutely superior intellectually - greater than all past cultures yet equal among its modern cultures.

Everyone has a natural slant towards seeking themselves. This gets in the way of seeking God unless God intervenes.

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.

Faithfulness imparts God's reason for all circumstances. No matter what the world says, losing is no longer an option.

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.

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.

Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see.

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.

God gives His deepest discernment and sharpest marksmanship to men who aim to expose His truth before an enemy's lies.

God loves atheists. The former ones make the most compelling theists because they're so empirically familiar with how atheists think.

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.

Great minds think alike because a greater Mind is thinking through them.

Great philosophers become immortal - they make undeniable impacts on culture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.