1
To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.Criss Jami
2
If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it.Criss Jami
3
I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult.Criss Jami
4
It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self.Criss Jami
5
Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.Criss Jami
6
The reality of loving God is loving him like he's a Superhero who actually saved you from stuff rather than a Santa Claus who merely gave you some stuff.Criss Jami
7
It's not at all hard to understand a person it's only hard to listen without bias.Criss Jami
8
To me it seems that too many young women of this time share the same creed. 'Live, laugh, love, be nothing but happy, experience everything, et cetera et cetera.' How monotonous, how useless this becomes. What about the honors of Joan of Arc, Beauvoir, Stowe, Xena, Princess Leia, or women that would truly fight for something other than just their own emotions?Criss Jami
9
You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.Criss Jami
10
Self-righteousness is much like a spiritual egocentricity. It constitutes a secular type of love that thrives under conditionality, one in which is only existent after an individual meets the adopted standards of the condemner; oppositely, unconditional love is a holy love.Criss Jami
11
Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.Criss Jami
12
When you're socially awkward, you're isolated more than usual, and when you're isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages. .Criss Jami
13
Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters.Criss Jami
14
I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation.Criss Jami
15
I will never deny that life isn't fair. It seems as though when a woman leaves a man she is strong and independent, but when a man leaves a woman he is a pig and a jerk.Criss Jami
16
Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.Criss Jami
17
Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.Criss Jami
18
The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal.Criss Jami
19
A young outcast will often feel that there is something wrong with himself, but as he gets older, grows more confident in who he is, he will adapt, he will begin to feel that there is something wrong with everyone else.Criss Jami
20
The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.Criss Jami
21
Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.Criss Jami
22
With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die.Criss Jami
23
The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.Criss Jami
24
Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.Criss Jami
25
When you're the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.Criss Jami
26
Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions.Criss Jami
27
I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.Criss Jami
28
Whenever I think of something but can't think of what it was I was thinking of, I can't stop thinking until I think I'm thinking of it again. I think I think too much.Criss Jami
29
We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer.Criss Jami
30
To better understand God we must first shatter our own idea of God - maybe even day after day. Maybe he's too great to stay compressed in the human mind. Maybe he splits it wide open; this is why pretentious intellectualism so often fails to comprehend the concept of God: it is only accepting of what it can explain while in the process finding higher sources offensive. What we may confidently assert is that faith is the opening that allows God, this unpredictable, unseen power, to travel in and out of the mind without all the pains of confusion. .Criss Jami
31
Question like a child, reason like an adult, and write like a sage.Criss Jami
32
Beyond all sciences, philosophies, theologies, and histories, a child's relentless inquiry is truly all it takes to remind us that we don't know as much as we think we know.Criss Jami
33
A sign of a lover of wisdom is his delight in not running his mouth about things he doesn't know.Criss Jami
34
A writer is one who communicates ideas and emotions people want to communicate but aren't quite sure how, or even if, they should communicate them.Criss Jami
35
Realizing the seriously ruthless, venomous habits and agendas of evil always instills a more fierce passion and longing for a closer God. Men, out of pride, may claim their own authorities over what constitutes good and evil; they may self-proclaim a keen knowledge of subjective morality through religion or science. But that is only if they are acknowledging the work of evil as a cartoon-like, petty little rain cloud in the sky that merely wants to dampen one's spirits. On the contrary, a man could be without a doubt lit with the strength, the peace, and the knowledge of the gods, his gods, but when or if the devils grow weary in unsuccessful attempts to torment him, they begin tormenting his loved ones, or, if not his loved ones, anyone who may attempt to grasp his philosophies. No matter how godly he may become, God is, in the end, his only hope and his only grace for the pressures built around him - it is left up to a higher authority and a more solid peace and a wider love to eclipse not just one's own evils but all evils for goodness to ultimately matter. If all men were gods, each being would dwell in a separate prison cell, hopeless, before finally imploding into nothingness.Criss Jami
36
God judges men from the inside out; men judge men from the outside in. Perhaps to God, an extreme mental patient is doing quite well in going a month without murder, for he fought his chemical imbalance and succeeded; oppositely, perhaps the healthy, able and stable man who has never murdered in his life yet went a lifetime consciously, willingly never loving anyone but himself may then be subject to harsher judgment than the extreme mental patient. It might be so that God will stand for the weak and question the strong.Criss Jami
37
Christianity, like genius, is one of the hardest concepts to forgive. We hear what we want to hear and accept what we want to accept, for the most part, simply because there is nothing more offensive than feeling like you have to re-evaluate your own train of thought and purpose in life. You have to die to an extent in your hunger for faith, for wisdom, and quite frankly, most people aren't ready to die.Criss Jami
38
Absurdity is the ecstasy of intellectualism.Criss Jami
39
I cannot encourage any fabrication even for the sake of making people feel good. If I were to fabricate consciously and knowingly, I would not only be ordaining myself their enemy, but also ordaining myself God's enemy.Criss Jami
40
Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else.Criss Jami
41
There's more to logic than identifying logical fallacies.Criss Jami
42
For wordsmiths and masters of words, without necessarily being harsh with words, the words have a tendency to shoot straight to the hearts of people, and this either deeply touches them or deeply angers them. Like the apostles in all their loving controversies are those who are masters of words while combining this gift with truth.Criss Jami
43
It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.Criss Jami
44
Some concepts are so incredibly risky they take an honest fool to try to articulate them.Criss Jami
45
The theistic philosopher has a tendency to devalue insufficient worldviews, ideologies, and quite often common sense for the greater good, and in such cases, one should not be discouraged when seen as a bad guy. If he stresses over man's perception of a righteous heart, then he has given his heart to man.Criss Jami
46
The best ideas will eat at you for days, maybe even weeks, until something, some incident, some impulse, triggers you to finally express them.Criss Jami
47
With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.Criss Jami
48
It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort...only to find a big bear hug coming his way.Criss Jami
49
In essence I find that the foundation of modern conservatism is driven by a clinging to God in fear of the world, whereas the foundation of modern liberalism is a clinging to the world in fear of God; albeit, the true foundation should be one's clinging to God in fear of God.Criss Jami
50
I only seem negative to the fortunate. That's because I show the less fortunate that they aren't less fortunate after all.Criss Jami
51
If you use a philosophy education well, you can get your foot in the door of any industry you please. Industries are like the blossoms on a tree while philosophy is the trunk - it holds the tree together, but it often goes unnoticed.Criss Jami
52
To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told...and have a sense of humor doing it.Criss Jami
53
One does not have to be a philosopher to be a successful artist, but he does have to be an artist to be a successful philosopher. His nature is to view the world in an unpredictable albeit useful light.Criss Jami
54
It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves.Criss Jami
55
Never hide things from hardcore thinkers. They get more aggravated, more provoked by confusion than the most painful truths.Criss Jami
56
At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you.Criss Jami
57
It's not about going around trying to stir up trouble. As long as you're honest and you articulate what you believe to be true, somebody somewhere will become your enemy whether you like it or not.Criss Jami
58
A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true. .Criss Jami
59
Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind.Criss Jami
60
You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you.Criss Jami
61
Always seek justice, but love only mercy. To love justice and hate mercy is but a doorway to more injustice.Criss Jami
62
I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.Criss Jami
63
Tolerance! The virtue that makes one bite his tongue so that he can tear out his hair.Criss Jami
64
Cleverness isn't always true nor is the truth always clever.Criss Jami
65
Who you are in public is a test of your conviction; who you are in private, integrity.Criss Jami
66
Of course, in our train of thought, we would all like to think we're on the right track, or at least the same railroad company as the right track.Criss Jami
67
Beware: open-mindedness will often say, 'Everything is permissible except a sharp opinion.Criss Jami
68
There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion.Criss Jami
69
Just as some people may conceal their own sinfulness thus seeming better than the norm, others expose their own sinfulness thus seeming worse than the norm.Criss Jami
70
Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness.Criss Jami
71
It is debatable whether blind faith is truly faith at all. Faith is the perceptive gray area where scientific facts meet an individual's experiential truths - the extreme of the former is left feeling in the dark whereas the latter is caught blinded by the light. By proper scientific method, it is intellectually dishonest for me to declare the existence of God with utmost certainty, but to my individual spirit, I would be intellectually dishonest to deny the existence of God even for a second. This leaves the best of both worlds, as the believer is called to be able to give reasons for his faith, a deviation from mere fantasy. .Criss Jami
72
As a writer of philosophy, it's good to ask oneself, 'Will I still believe this a week from now, or months, or even years?Criss Jami
73
It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.Criss Jami
74
Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.Criss Jami
75
When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man's biography regarding God's promised experiences and truth for him - his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences.Criss Jami
76
If it's true what is said, that only the wise discover the wise, then it must also be true that the lone wolf symbolizes either the biggest fool on the planet or the biggest Einstein on the planet.Criss Jami
77
In God's eyes, a man who teaches one truth and nothing else is more righteous than a man who teaches a million truths and one lie.Criss Jami
78
I never feel unsafe except for when the majority is on my side.Criss Jami
79
What further helps to reveal reality is when our personal thinking ceases to take reality for granted.Criss Jami
80
We're very familiar with the idea that some things are so complex they're beyond our comprehension. This not only keeps us solving and experimenting but also distracted. Many things are really so simple we can't see them under our big noses.Criss Jami
81
As followers of Christ, we are to be careful not to remain victims of the many cultural presuppositions of who he is, and what he teaches, insofar as taking for granted our own caricatures of him. Let it boil in both mind and heart the question, 'If Jesus were to appear today, how many of us would actually recognize him and his teachings (or would it simply be a recount of his first visit)?Criss Jami
82
Tension, in the long run, is a more dangerous force than any feud known to man.Criss Jami
83
After awhile you realize that putting your actions where your mouth is makes you less likely to have to put your money where your mouth is.Criss Jami
84
Many people in a rather reckless context claim to 'just tell it like it is'. In actuality, nobody really stresses what one says so much as the motive behind what one says; hence, he is merely blowing hot air and detracting from 'what is'.Criss Jami
85
Pride and power fall when the person falls, but discoveries of truth form legacies that can be built upon for generations.Criss Jami
86
Vivid simplicity is the articulation, the nature of genius. Wisdom is greater than intelligence; intelligence is greater than philosobabble.Criss Jami
87
From time to time I once wondered how one wanders from time to time And think up the paradox line Speak of Epoch's crime Oh I lied, it hasn't happened yet But bet you better believe it's such a habit that I just said that in a past mindsetCriss Jami
88
When a man has a gift in speaking the truth, brute aggression is no longer his security blanket for approval. He, on the contrary, spends most of his energy trying to tone it down because his very nature is already offensive enough.Criss Jami
89
Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears.Criss Jami
90
Love is as simple as the absence of self given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions.Criss Jami
91
A lonely day is God's way of saying that he wants to spend some quality time with you.Criss Jami
92
I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime?Criss Jami
93
The common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now! ' And God responds, 'If you'd listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.Criss Jami
94
God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.Criss Jami
95
The humble sinner will sometimes be interpreted as one of the filthiest in the eyes of man yet immersed in the eyes of God, and this is due to the volition of honesty regarding his own corruption.Criss Jami
96
Every time I create something, whether an idea or a work of art, initially, its supposed completion seems absolutely perfect to me. However the more I think about it, stare it down, the more it marinates in my soul over the hours, days, and weeks, the more flaws I start to find in it; and finally, the more I'm pressed to continue enhancing it. It essentially turns out that whatever thing a flawed and imperfect, human eye once thought was amazing begins to appear quite wretched. This is why, eternally, God cannot be impressed by mere talents or by mortal achievements. To perfect eyes, I imagine that great is not really that great; rather, humility is ultimately a human being's true greatness.Criss Jami
97
Those who live as though God sets the rules are not going by their own rules. That is the self-sacrifice, or selflessness, that peace more often than not requires. Those who insist on going by their own rules cannot make that sacrifice. They are the steady adherents of (global) conflict because they are forever fighting both themselves and others to do whatever they think that they want to do.Criss Jami
98
I sit and ponder my existence: how I'm here, what put me here in these thoughts, these feelings, birthed from a timeless sleep, what it felt like, or rather the lack thereof, to not have been and now to 'be', and suddenly, I realize how absurd I am to exist, the fragility in my understanding of existence; I then wonder why the supernatural, the thought of other beings, of God or of gods, must be distinctly absurd - by which I am no longer sure. 'If I exist and I have made myself absurd to me, then why not they exist while merely believed absurd by me?' Perhaps it is true that in a wandering head, one full of wonders, the natural becomes supernatural and the supernatural becomes preternatural (or rational within the sights of discovery and explanation), just as the return home after a life-long journey feels, for a moment, foreign after the many experiences.Criss Jami
99
My belief is that, morally, God and Satan are vaguely on the same page. According to the common understanding of Satan's origins, holiness must be in his blood: but a corrupted formula. The vital difference is that God is willing to offer grace for our sins; he delights in grace. God is the one and only holy and just punisher of sin, yes, but that is partly so because punishment for the sake of punishment is not something he loves. Whereas Satan, as the accuser, and as it is written, actually seeks God's permission to punish; he, being a seasoned legalist, delights in finding wrongs and will defy his own morality just to expose immorality. This is why both the anti-religious soul and the violently religious soul are, whether consciously or unconsciously, and sadly enough, glorifying their biggest hater: Satan is not only a lawless lover of punishing lawlessness, but also the greatest theologian of us all. He loves wickedness, but only because he loves punishing wickedness. .Criss Jami
100
Great minds think alike because a greater Mind is thinking through them.Criss Jami