Quote

People are reluctant to talk about old age and death because they are afraid of emotion, and they willingly avoid the things they feel most emotional about, though these are the very things they most need to talk about.

Paul Tournier

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Paul Tournier
Age: 88 †
Born: 1898
Born: May 12
Died: 1986
Died: October 7
Physician
Physician Writer
Genève
Things
Talk
People
Though
Age
Willingly
Death
Reluctant
Need
Avoid
Feel
Afraid
Feels
Emotional
Needs
Emotion

More quotes by Paul Tournier

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If there had been no fear of failure, neither would there be any joy in success.
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It is quite clear that between love and understanding there is a very close link...He who loves understands, and he who understands loves. One who feels understood feels loved, and one who feels loved feels sure of being understood.
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We are always looking for a grand program of action full of great ideas, when the thing is to begin by obeying the little ideas.
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In order to really understand, we need to listen, not reply. We need to listen long and attentively. In order to help anybody to open his heart we have to give him time, asking only a few questions, as carefully as possible in order to help him better explain his experience.
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Sickness may be the solemn occasion of God's intervention in a person's life.
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The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.
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Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.
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The worst thing is not being wrong, but being sure one is not wrong.
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Christian faith does not involve repressing one's anxiety in order to appear strong. On the contrary, it means recognizing one's weakness, accepting the inward truth about oneself, confessing one's anxiety, and still to believe, that is to say that the Christian puts his trust not in his own strength, but in the grace of God.
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The price that has to be paid for finding truly personal life is a very high one. It is a price in terms of the acceptance of responsibility. And the awareness of responsibility inevitably leads either to despair or to confession and grace.
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Our task is to live our personal communion with Christ with such intensity as to make it contagious.
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We do not posses God. We find him periodically.
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Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
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Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn't need if you had stayed single.
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That is what marriage really means helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.
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The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, is the discovery of oneself through contact with other people, and its condition is self-commitment in the dialogue.
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Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.
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Life can become once more a grand adventure if we will surrender it to god. He brings one adventure to an end, only to open another to us. With him we must be ready for anything.
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Most illnesses do not, as is generally thought, come like a bolt out of the blue. The ground is prepared for years through faulty diet, intemperance, overwork, and moral conflicts, slowly eroding the subject's vitality.
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...the highest sign of friendship is that of giving another the privilege of sharing your inner thought.
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