Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joan D. Chittister
Others
Decide
Ideas
Minds
Mind
Close
Growth
Simply
Growing
Responsibility
Flowing
Keep
Bother

More quotes by Joan D. Chittister

Image
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
Image
Compassion for the other comes out of our ability to accept ourselves. Until we realize both our own weaknesses and our own privileges, we can never tolerate lack of status and depth of weakness in the other.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
Memory is not about what went on in the past, it is about what is going on inside us right this moment. … It is made up of the stuff of life in the process of becoming the grist of the soul.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
Life is not meant to be a burden. Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a blessing to be celebrated.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
To insist on living until we die may be one of life's greatest virtues.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. It is community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I begin to understand as never before that holiness is made of dailiness, of living life as it comes to me, not as I insist it be.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows that she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
Try saying this silently to everyone and everything you see for thirty days and see what happens to your own soul: I wish you happiness now and whatever will bring happiness to you in the future.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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
Image
Fear is not the opposite of courage. Fear is the catalyst of courage.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others.
Joan D. Chittister
Image
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