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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
Ability
Freedom
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More quotes by Joan D. Chittister

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Temptations are part of life, part of growing up. We grapple with them often - in some instances for our lifetime - before we come to realize that it is not so much the victory as it is the struggle that is holy.
Joan D. Chittister
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Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside.
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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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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We have learned that the things we amassed to prove to ourselves how valuable, how important, how successful we were, didn't prove it at all. In fact, they have very little to do with it. It's what's inside of us, not what's outside of us that counts.
Joan D. Chittister
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Only ideas keep ideas flowing. When we close our minds to what is new, simply because we decide not to bother with it, we close our minds to our responsibility to ourselves - and to others - to keep on growing.
Joan D. Chittister
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I celebrate myself, the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self — our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, That's good.
Joan D. Chittister
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Precisely because of the greatness of God, we don't have to be great at all. Just in awe.
Joan D. Chittister
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Everything we do seeds the future. No action is an empty one.
Joan D. Chittister
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The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually we become what we say we are - followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God
Joan D. Chittister
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Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others.
Joan D. Chittister
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Learning to celebrate joy is one of the great practices of the spiritual life.
Joan D. Chittister
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Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary. This is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday.
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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It's possible to have too much in life. Too many clothes jade our appreciation of new ones too much money can out us out of touch with life too much free time and dull the edge of the soul. We need sometimes to come very near the bone so tha we can taste the marrow of life, rather than its superfluities.
Joan D. Chittister
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Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.
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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In our dreams lies our unfinished work for the world.
Joan D. Chittister
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To be contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God.
Joan D. Chittister
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To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God.
Joan D. Chittister