Quote

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Parker J. Palmer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Parker J. Palmer
Telling
Listen
Tell
Must
Work
Life
Vocation
Inspire

More quotes by Parker J. Palmer

Image
I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild animal - tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Teaching like any truly human activity emerges from one's inwardness.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?
Parker J. Palmer
Image
I want to learn how to hold the paradoxical poles of my identity together, to embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is deeply dependent on others dancing with me and that I still have a sense of self when no one wants to dance.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
... the stranger is not a threat but an opportunity to grow in my view of reality, to grow in my own sense of possibility
Parker J. Palmer
Image
It's more important to be in right relationship than it is to be right.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Whoever our students may be, whatever the subject we teach, ultimately we teach who we are.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Opposing what's wrong is a halfway measure at best. A rebel must also have a vision for something better, a strategy for moving toward that vision and a capacity to rally and join with others in achieving it. If the anger that drives rebellion is not transformed into the hope that inspires movement communities, it will do more harm than good.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to fix it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Connection and connectedness are other words for community and communion.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Everybody is on a lifelong journey toward trying to live more deeply. There is nobody who can say, Well, I've got that one checked off my to-do list. We have to be honest with ourselves about where we are on this journey and about the difficulty of living in our own identities and integrity.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
You are much more likely to have a holy experience in a quiet, focused, and communal context than you are when you are being entertained.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Death in various forms is sometimes comforting, while resurrection and new life can be demanding and threatening. If I lived as if resurrection were real, and allowed myself to die for the sake of a new life, what might I be called upon to do?
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality...an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Science requires an engagement with the world, a live encounter between the knower and the known.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
The teachers who have had the most impact on me and on most learners I know are teachers whose selfhoods have been deeply invested in what they are doing.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
I have to say that I have been blessed with significant teachers at every stage of my life.
Parker J. Palmer