Criss Jami Quotes

Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: 'Perhaps I need someone else to control me.

~ Criss Jami

If you don't like the solution, change the problem.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

To be extremely happy but extremely intelligent is a task of being optimistic without being cheesy.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

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

~ Criss Jami

The introvert's anthem for not wanting to hang out is 'It's not you, it's me.

~ Criss Jami

When I look at a person, I see a person - not a rank, not a class, not a title.

~ Criss Jami

The eye of true equality often seems to have some degree of disrespect for the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty to the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty, although in reality, it's simply irrespectiveness.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.

~ Criss Jami

If I love a dose of (good) theology or philosophy, I probably also love discipline, improvement, wisdom, and challenges. If I hate it, I am probably too comfortable and proud to try to question myself.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

I've played Romeo for Juliet(But in depth)It's vignettes of silhouettes(And then read)And watched Russian roulette, yeah red SovietYet doing it simultaneouslyWhile dropping down shed oubliettesTurned around and took truth to the head thatLove is the ugliest thing too beautiful for death

~ Criss Jami

Let them spend their time condemning every action of persons they do not like; by this let them revoke their own condemnation licenses: no one will take them seriously when it comes time to condemn something that really needs to be condemned, and thus hear, hear, despite the excess noise, the reasonable voices may prevail.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

Tolerance is not infinite patience, but slain patience; patience that has lost its hope and love and has thrown in the towel.

~ Criss Jami

How to love is the real question. We all know to love and to keep loving more, but man's confusion comes from the differing opinions on how to love. The Church will always be accused of not loving enough by human standards - which should be its motivation to love more - however that is, in many cases, because its focus is and should also be to love on levels of eternal significance. This is the level of love that will inevitably go unnoticed by those who do not believe in eternity.

~ Criss Jami

If we all knew who God really was and what he really wanted for each and every one of us, we would all know that only a fool could really deny him.

~ Criss Jami

Walk and loveWe're walking in loveFor the walk of love

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

I think that most artists scorned would prefer to be known as the one with the genius brain risking no career over the one with the good brain and great career.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

Civic duty? Perhaps it would be a little naive to try to coerce me into voting. I assure you my basic standards of healthy living are very different from yours, which is the reason I do not vote. You should note that, as nonsensical a scenario, if forced to choose I would most definitely rather live in a failing, Christ-honoring, God-fearing nation than a flourishing one that mocks said Creator. Beware of my personal ambitions.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

Sometimes you feel as though you've slandered yourself, but the joke's on them.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

The first reaction is surely the most natural one, but not always the most correct one; thereupon, the invention of apologies.

~ Criss Jami

To merely blank the page and vaguely assume that 'religion' is the cause of all the world's problems is, on the contrary, an allegation brought about by nothing more than cognitive lethargy; it is when unburied, unpacked, and exposed but a stale conclusion and a misdirection for the one overwhelmed by centuries of sound theology, scholarly thought, and spiritual development.

~ Criss Jami

Genius - the pursuit of madness.

~ Criss Jami

I appreciate a book intended to be judged by its cover. The insincere readers are often weeded out while the sincere readers remain curious.

~ Criss Jami

Is the phrase 'pay' or 'play the piper'I inquire, why'Cause I admire a desire to flip the switchYeah make a way to face the music likeLife savings for a mosh pit riotListen to a mixRock the tickets, higher volumeVelocity which shakes a cockpit's pilot

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami

Comedy to me has always seemed a social tightrope for the comedian. For all axioms intellectually sound the general public would prefer to be amused, but in those emotionally sound, it then chooses to get offended.

~ Criss Jami

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.

~ Criss Jami