quotes

Here are a few good quotes I've collected along the way...

Words of an old Hasidic rabbi
“When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew older, I perceived that this was too ambitious so I set out to change my state. This, too, I realized as I grew older was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state – and who knows, maybe even the world!”

The movie Contact
“I was given something that changed her forever, a vision of a universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish that everyone, even if for one moment could feel that awe, and humility and hope. That continues to be my wish.”

Tom Marshall in Understanding Leadership pg. 80
"[God] is concerned with the inner change, not the kind of things I do but the kind of person I become. For example, he does not want me to go around doing kind deeds all the time; he wants me to become a kind person. God does not want me to go round speaking the literal truth out on each and every occasion, he wants me to become a true person, then there will be integrity about everything I do or say. Therefore he is also not concerned about me going around doing servant things all the time but having a servant heart."

Soren Kierkegaard
"The truth consists not in knowing the truth intellectually but in being the truth... Knowing the truth is something which follows as a matter of course from being the truth, and not conversely. And it is precisely for this reason it becomes untruth when knowing the truth is separated from being the truth, or when knowing the truth is treated as one and the same thing as being the truth, since the true relation is the converse of this: to be the truth is one and the same thing as knowing the truth."

Sam Shoemaker “The Spiritual Angle” The Grapevine
“The church has always been a scratch company of sinners. It is not the best people in the community, gathered together for self-congratulation; it is the people who know they have a great need, gathered to find its answer in worship toward God and fellowship with one another. The church is not a museum; it is a hospital.”

Aristotle
“It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most human beings live only for the gratification of it.”