Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire
Author: ppadmin
Joseph Campbell
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. — Joseph Campbell
Mohandas Gandhi
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. . . . Disobedience to be civil implies discipline, thought, care, attention. . . . Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. . . . Nonviolent action without the cooperation of the heart and the head cannot produce the intended result. — Mohandas Gandhi
James Baldwin
Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck—but, most of all, endurance. — James Baldwin
Ken Sehested
Chances are good that you can generate the desire for a more comprehensive social or theological analysis from the ground of concrete involvement. Chances are slim that you can generate concrete involvement simply from a comprehensive analysis. In fact, analysis devoid of conviction often becomes a substitute for conviction. — Ken Sehested
Scott Bader-Saye
When our moral lives are shaped by fear, and safety is worshiped as the highest good, we are tempted to make health and security the primary justification for right action. We thus lead timid lives, fearing the risks of bold gestures.
Instead of being courageous, we are content to be safe. Instead of being hopeful, we make virtues of cynicism and irony which in turn keep us a safe distance from risky commitments. We are more likely to tell our children to “be careful” than to “be good.” The extravagant vision that would change the world gets traded in for the passive maxim “do no harm.” Our moral lives atrophy on this new diet of self-protection.
Read more ›Jim Strathdee
We are simply asked to make gentle our bruised world. To be compassionate of all, including oneself. Then in the time left over to repeat the ancient tale and go the way of God's foolish ones. . . . — Jim Strathdee
Michael Hawn
I spent time with Gloria Gaither at Fuller Seminary in February this year. I was not sure what to expect of this matriarch of Southern Gospel music, but we really hit it off. You will love the quote she had for the Fuller students who were all into "Praise and Worship": "Folks, if all you want is climax without commitment, then you are in the world's oldest profession." — Michael Hawn
R.R. Reno
Most of us want to be safe. We want to find a cocoon, a spiritually, psychologically, economically, and physically gated community in which to live without danger and disturbance. The care-free life, a life a-cedia, is our cultural ideal. — R.R. Reno
Kenneth R. Himes, OFM
When used in the moral sense, the person seized by acedia is the affect-less individual, the one incapable of investment or commitment, a person who cannot get deeply involved in any cause or relationship. . . . Sloth as moral apathy is what hinders a person from pursuing that which is good. It is a refusal to seek the good because it is difficult and demanding. — Kenneth R. Himes, OFM