100 Quotes About Maturity

Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you. Erich Fromm

That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult..then comes suspicion, hatred, and fear. If children ran the world, it would be a place of eternal bliss and cheer. Adults run the world; and there is war, and enmity, and destruction unending. Adults who take charge of things muck them up, and then produce a new generation of children and say, "The children are the hope of the future." And they are right. Children are the hope of the future. But adults are the damnation of the present, and children become adults as surely as adults become worm food. Adults are the death of hope. Peter David

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations. Unknown

I am convinced that most people do not grow up... We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. Maya Angelou

That’s the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old. Philip Pullman

The promise of a dreamer’s future will always remain greater than their present ability. God will always give them dreams that are further along than their current level of maturity. Wayne Cordeiro

In our worldly perceptions of Jesus, we tend to embrace the kindness of his love ('be encouraged') but not the discipline of his love ('and sin no more'). But with the whole scope of his love, or maturity in Christ, we begin relying on him for guidance where we would prefer him to walk beside us rather than behind us. Criss Jami

There is a greater Christian faith than one which settles for the temporal happiness, and that is the augmentation of faith. The more faithful you become, the harder the obstacles get; but the harder the obstacles get, the tougher your spine grows; and the tougher your spine grows, the less dependent you are on man's approval. I came to know this about Christianity when valuing faith before comfort. Criss Jami

Spiritual Maturity is not how much of the bible you think you know, or how well you can recite prayers, but rather, it is how you act as a person, and use your belief in a God to better your life and the lives of people around you. Andrew Chong

The greater the gap between self perception and reality, the more aggression is unleashed on those who point out the discrepancy. Stefan Molyneux

Whatever can be threatened, whatever can be shaken, whatever you fear cannot stand, is destined to crash. Do not go down with the ship. Let that which is destined to become the past slip away. Believe that the real you is that which beckons from the future. If it is a sadder you, it will be a wiser one. And dawn will follow the darkness sooner or later. Rebirth can never come without death. Robert M. Price

You’ve climbed too many mountains and crossed too many rivers to stop and turn back now. Eleanor Brownn

When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing. You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don’t say society is responsible, don’t say that parents are responsible, don’t say the economic conditions are responsible, don’t throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible. . Osho

I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went. Unknown

How they are all about, these gentlemen In chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced, Like night around their order's star and gem And growing ever darker, stony-faced, And these, their ladies, fragile, wan, but propped High by their bodice, one hand loosely dropped, Small like its collar, on the toy King-Charles:How they surround each one of these who stopped To read and contemplate the objects d'art, Of which some pieces still are theirs, not ours. Whit exquisite decorum they allow us A life of whose dimensions we seem sure And which they cannot grasp. They were alive To bloom, that is be fair; we, to mature, That is to be of darkness and to strive. Rainer Maria Rilke

The study of Scripture I find to be quite like mastering an instrument. No one is so good that they cannot get any better; no one knows so much that they can know no more. A professional can spot an amateur or a lack of practice or experience a mile away. His technicality, his spiritual ear is razor-sharp. He is familiar with the common mistakes, the counter-arguments; and insofar as this, he can clearly distinguish the difference between honest critics of the Faith and mere fools who criticize that which they know nothing. Criss Jami

Not all dreams are possible or realistic. When this happens you have to bade them farewell. This isn't failure, but it's a sign of maturity and learning on your part. All you need to do is rethink what you wanted to do, in the first place, and see what you can change. Then that is called determination and that, will lead to you having success. Anthony T. Hincks

What I've found about it is that there are some folks you can talk to until you're blue in the face--they're never going to get it and they're never going to change. But every once in a while, you'll run into someone who is eager to listen, eager to learn, and willing to try new things. Those are the people we need to reach. We have a responsibility as parents, older people, teachers, people in the neighborhood to recognize that. . Tyler Perry

He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas. T.h. White

Life can be full of despair without intimacy from a youth's family members and they need to understand that values of caring can help an individual to overcome his or her struggle as he or she develops to become an adult. Saaif Alam

The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads and revealed their faces, animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel, and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity. Unknown

Being a reader has brought me much joy, laughter, and rich experience. But reading has also wounded me. The sacrament of reading has plowed me open and sown seeds of empathy that have taken root in deep soil. Over the years, reading has caused me to grow from a shallow, self-absorbed youth to one who seeks out the pain of the world. Reading has burdened me with the welfare of my fellow human, but sometimes the burden proves too heavy for my narrow shoulders. Steve Kendall

[One way] researchers sometimes evaluate people's judgments is to compare those judgments with those of more mature or experienced individuals. This method has its limitations too, because mature or experienced individuals are sometimes so set in their ways that they can't properly evaluate new or unique conditions or adopt new approaches to solving problems. Robert Epstein

In my experiences, the common critic of Christianity, when he thinks of Christianity, imagines a sort of elementary, Sunday School blunder of elements: fiery Hell, an angry God, 'try not to sin', 'be good so that you can go to Heaven', absurd miracles, hyper-fundamentalist tales, religious hypocrites, and Jesus telling people not to judge. There is no horse more dead than such. I maintain that understanding Christianity and the Bible is quite like painting a piece of art. Let a toddler paint a puppy; then let an adult who is a long-time painter paint the very same puppy. They are both paintings of the puppy, but one is far more detailed, rational, realistic, and believable than the other. One is distorted and comical; the other is proportional and lively. One can write off Theology if he so pleases, but he might not be very wise in using the toddler's painting when it comes time to identify the real puppy or when trying to confront actual men of the Faith. . Criss Jami

Well, when you're fourteen years old, you can't afford to mix in a rock fight with your five-year-old brother. You can't do it, even when you're in the right. You just can't explain a thing like that to your folks. All they'll do is point out how much bigger you are, how unfair it is to your little brother. Fred Gipson

I've wanted to win at everything, every day, since I was a kid. And time doesn't change a person, it just helps you get a handle on who you are. Even at age 41, I still hate losing-- I'm just more gracious about it. I'm also aware that setbacks have an upside; they fuel new dreams. Dara Torres

Those who are not true leaders or elders will just affirm people at their own immature level, and of course immature people will love them and elect them for being equally immature. You can fill in the names here with your own political disaster story. But just remember, there is a symbiosis between immature groups and immature leaders, I am afraid, which is why both Plato and Jefferson said democracy was not really the best form of government. It is the safest. A truly wise monarch would probably be the most effective at getting things done. Richard Rohr

Young girls are like helpless children in the hands of amorous men, whatever is said to them is true and whatever manipulation on their bodies seems like love to them, sooner or later, they come back to their senses, but the scars are not dead inasmuch as her spoiler lives. Michael Bassey Johnson

There is this common notion that young conservatives are the few, that most people had liberal worldviews when they were young. If this is true, then it is with great irony that a number of old liberals must never had progressed into conservatives as they grew older. Criss Jami

When a tree is polled, it will sprout new shoots nearer its roots. A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginnings and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree. Hermann Hesse

Compassion makes you strong, caring and creative. It creates a different attitude, a level of maturity and understanding, where you do something which makes you stand out of crowd. Amit Ray

..The happy Warrior.. is he.. whose powers shed round him in the common strife, or mild concerns of ordinary life, a constant influence, a peculiar grace; but who, if he be called upon to face some awful moment to which Heaven has joined great issues, good or bad for human kind, is happy as a lover; and attired with sudden brightness, like a man inspired; and, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law in calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; or if an unexpected call succeed, come when it will, is equal to the need: he who, though thus endued as with a sense and faculty for storm and turbulence, is yet a soul whose master-bias leans to homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, are at his heart; and such fidelity it is his darling passion to approve; more brave for this, that he hath much to love:— . William Wordsworth

A useful education served women best, More thought. To ‘learn how to grow old gracefully is perhaps one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to a woman.’ Yet, when beauty is all that is expected or desired in a woman, she is left with nothing in its absence. It ‘is a most severe trail for those women to be called to lay down beauty, who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources, ’ she argued. . Karen Swallow Prior

I respect traditional people - they have the eyes which see value in the tarnished. This is a gift in itself. Tradition requires a wealth of discipline in order to be adhered to, hence it is rarely found in youth. Criss Jami

Angels are good not simply because they see bad as bad, but also because they see bad as corny. Criss Jami

Never take advice about never taking advice. That is an old vice of men - to dish it out without being able to take it - the blind leading the blind into more blindness. Criss Jami

People say you're born innocent, but it's not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can't wash off.... We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent. Hugo Hamilton

In a matter of weeks, he had learned that without suffering and doubt, there can be no whole human being. Sinclair Lewis

The same teen who can't legally operate a four-wheeler, or [ATV]..in a farm lane workplace environment can operate a jacked-up F-250 pickup on a crowded urban expressway. By denying these [farm work] opportunities to bring value to their own lives and the community around them, we've relegated our young adults to teenage foolishness. Then as a culture we walk around shaking our heads in bewilderment at these young people with retarded maturity. Never in life do people have as much energy as in their teens, and to criminalize leveraging it is certainly one of our nation's greatest resource blunders. . Joel Salatin

Forgiveness is a transformative act because it asks you to be a more empathetic and compassionate person, thereby making you better than the person you were when you were first hurt. Kamand Kojouri

Maturity' really means: being very unsurprised by, and calm around, pain and disappointment. Alain De Botton

I wonder what will happen when you actually enjoy the pains that life gives us sometimes. You'll be above them. Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. Peter De Vries

Grow up, Bailey.""That is precisely what I'm doing, " Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep. Erin Morgenstern

I assumed my first undivided responsibility. Charles Dickens

In our formative years, every person begins creating a self that can keep him or her company through later stages in life. It requires concentrated effort to create self-hood. The task of creating a fully developed human being is an ongoing process, an open-ended assignment. The goal of self-hood is to evade slipping into a state of thoughtlessness, where we fail to take ownership of our thoughts, deeds, and lifestyle. . Kilroy J. Oldster

Judging a person's maturity by the number of years they've lived is misleading. This is because people mature at different rates. Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

It is not the time that a person has lived that determines maturity, but what he does during that time. Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

At what point in your life do you say I have had enough... money, food, clothes, these possessions that we keep killing one another for even power and dominance? One advice, look at your age and declare that my age dictates I start doing this thing, I should stop doing this and that, I should say this and not that... in essence grow your brain to reason. Just like that. Robert Kodingo

Good friends will allow you to be as innocent and free as a child when in private, and as wise and mature as an adult when in public. Criss Jami

When you blame others, what you are really saying is what is inside of you can’t be fixed, so you have no control of your own happiness. Therefore, you have made the conscience choice to give focus and fuel to a bad situation that will take you nowhere and give you nothing, but ignorance and pain. Shannon L. Alder

Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend. Criss Jami

Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners. David W. Earle

I think about the pepper plant, the corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more plants. And I've noticed that while those seeds are living within the fruit or vegetable they can not grow. It is only when those seeds have died, that they can be planted and grow. And, I can relate this same process to the human body. In order to grow and thrive in the spirit, you must die to the flesh. Meaning, You have to rid your mind and body of toxic negative worldly things in order to grow and develop more spiritually. Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Freedom can be a state of mind, a path built independently, and with freedom comes responsibility. Unknown

LINK OUT OF SYNCWhen the mind fails to keep pace with the body's maturity Kamil Ali Kamil Ali

Good to know we're all twelve years old mentally. Keeps things in perspective. Alexander William Gaskarth

I never expected you to understand, but I did expect you to be there. Dominic Riccitello

You can’t just be. You have to become. Dominic Riccitello