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Freedom, in childhood, may be the right to be totally self-centered. … But freedom in old age is the ability to be the best of the self I have developed during all those years.

Joan D. Chittister

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Joan D. Chittister
Freedom
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More quotes by Joan D. Chittister

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If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the kings acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people.
Joan D. Chittister
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The question is not, do we go to church the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor.
Joan D. Chittister
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We are living in a period of commerical globalization. What we really need is spiritual globalization.
Joan D. Chittister
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In scripture God brings the animals to the human for naming. In that simple act the human is brought to recognize the particular personality and worth of each living creature. Too bad we forget so often.
Joan D. Chittister
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Find the thing that stirs your heart and make room for it
Joan D. Chittister
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Beware the religion that turns you against another one. It's unlikely that it's really religion at all.
Joan D. Chittister
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Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time. It is the strange knock at the door, the sudden sight of an unceremoniously blooming flower, an afternoon in the yard, a day of riding the midtown bus. Just to see. Just to notice. Just to be there.
Joan D. Chittister
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When I get on the internet and hide behind a false identity, and then allow that hiding to free me from the standards of decency, to begin to use language I would never use in front of my mother, all of a sudden, there's nothing between me and you, but worse than that, there's nothing between me and my worst self.
Joan D. Chittister
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To insist on living until we die may be one of life's greatest virtues.
Joan D. Chittister
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Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thouhtfully, live life profouncly, live life well. Never neglect and never exaggerate. It is a lesson that a world full of cults and fads and workaholics and short courses in difficult subjects needs dearly to learn.
Joan D. Chittister
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A life of value is not a series of great things well done it is a series of small things consciously done.
Joan D. Chittister
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There is a built-in danger in old age which, if we give in to it, makes aging one of the most difficult periods of life, rather than one of the most satisfying - which it should be. Tye danger of old age is that we may start acting old.
Joan D. Chittister
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Hope grows in us, despite our moments of darkness, regardless of our regular bouts of depression.
Joan D. Chittister
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If anything diminishes a person, it is the cancer of constant complaining.
Joan D. Chittister
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June is the time for being in the world in new ways, for throwing off the cold and dark spots of life.
Joan D. Chittister
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Goodness is a process of becoming, not of being. What we do over and over again is what we become in the end.
Joan D. Chittister
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The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us. The harvest of youth is achievement the harvest of middle-age is perspective the harvest of age is wisdom the harvest of life is serenity.
Joan D. Chittister
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Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people and new ideas, we are imprisoned inside ourselves.
Joan D. Chittister
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Life is a thing of many stages and moving parts. What we do with ease at one time of life we can hardly manage at another. What we could not fathom doing when we were young, we find great joy in when we are old. Like the seasons through which we move, life itself is a never-ending series of harvests, a different fruit for every time.
Joan D. Chittister
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We each should have 2 pockets: in 1 the message, 'I am dust & ashes' in the other, 'For me the universe was made.'
Joan D. Chittister