Real Joy Quotes

We take it for granted that life is hard and feel lucky to have whatever happiness we get. We do not look upon happiness as a birthright, nor do we expect it to be more than peace or contentment. Real joy, the state in which the Yequana spend much of their lives, is exceedingly rare among us. ~ Jean Liedloff

The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real joy of living. ~ Walter Rauschenbusch

This is an important lesson to remember when you're having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won't feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can't feel real joy unless you've felt heartache. You can't have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can't know what it's like to feel holy until you know what it's like to feel really fucking evil. And you can't be birthed again until you've died. ~ Kelly Cutrone

Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony. ~ C.S. Lewis

The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready. ~ Steve Martin

I think there's a real joy in going to see movies when you discover them yourself. ~ Jeff Bridges

Real joy comes when we get the right desire met - the desire for God himself, for a life led by the Spirit, fulfilling not our material desires but our deepest need, which is to be in a close relationship with our Creator. That is the source of true blessing. The only source. ~ Michael W. Smith

I hadn't made that movie before and when I ever met the real Joy Mangano, which happened because De Niro insisted we meet her and her father, that's what she felt like to us. She impressed us with her quiet, serene authority with herself ~ David O. Russell

It's a pleasure playing your big hit records and it's a real joy to see the audience. ~ Martin Fry

We find real joy when we keep the Savior the focus of the season. ~ Thomas S. Monson

What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day. ~ Francois Fenelon

No man who really is a man ever cared for the easy task. There is no enjoyment in the game that is easily won. It is that in which you have to strain every muscle and sinew to achieve victory that provides real joy. ~ Eric Liddell

The studio is really fun because I don't make it into the studio unless I've got something I really like. I love working with different musicians in the studio; that's a real joy, working with someone for the first time. ~ Bob Seger

Real joy, the kind that permeates your life and brings contentment to your soul comes from service. So no, happiness is not the word. Purpose. Contentment. Joy. To find those things, don't seek happiness. Search instead for those who need your gift and give it away. ~ Mia Sheridan

There is no real joy that does not involve self-denial and self-discipline ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

Because he had been sleepwalking, Clark realized, moving half-asleep through the motions of his life for a while now, years; not specifically unhappy, but when had he last found real joy in his work? When was the last time he'd been truly moved by anything? When had he last felt awe or inspiration? He wished he could somehow go ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Without that forgiveness, that peace, no heart is ever happy. There is always an inner struggle. Pain. Only when God has been invited in-to manage one's life, to direct one's thinking, to be in control-can one ever get away from all the conflicts inside. We have to stop struggling against His will before we can find real joy. ~ Janette Oke

When real music comes to me - the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses understanding - that has nothing to do with me, cause I'm just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium ... those moments are what I live for. ~ John Lennon

Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real. ~ Mason Cooley

Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness. ~ Sri Chinmoy

It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life. ~ Albert Brooks

When people come in the door and they have something, discovering and exploring the character is a real joy. ~ John Ridley

The real joy in life comes from giving. It comes from service. It comes from doing things for other people. That is what is so powerful about this. Nothing will make you happier than giving. ~ Marc Benioff

Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as a diamond; it made him weary behond comprehension. But it also made him free. ~ John L. Parker Jr.

To be a Christian is not a pious pose. It is not a long list of restrictions. Christianity flings open the windows to the real joy of living. Those who have been truly converted to Jesus Christ know the meaning of abundant living. ~ Billy Graham

And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn't have to anymore. ~ Anne Lamott

You must be made miserable before you can know true Christian joy. Indeed the real trouble with the miserable Christian is that he has never been truly made miserable because of conviction of sin. He has by-passed the essential preliminary to joy, he has been assuming something that he has no right to assume. ~ David Lloyd-Jones

You have an idea what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, it's joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones.

Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.

Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on. Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.

It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Every real thing is a joy, if only you have eyes and ears to relish it, a nose and tongue to taste it. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

You can be healed of depression if every day you begin the first thing in the morning to consider how you will bring a real joy to someone else. ~ Alfred Adler

We need to make some dramatic, concrete moves to escape the materialism that seeps into our minds via diabolically clever and incessant advertising. We have been brainwashed to believe that bigger houses, more prosperous businesses, and more sophisticated gadgets are the way to joy and fulfillment. As a result, we are caught in an absurd, materialistic spiral. The more we make, the more we think we need in order to live decently and respectably. Somehow we have to break this cycle because it makes us sin against our needy brothers and sisters and, therefore, against our Lord. And it also destroys us. Sharing with others is the way to real joy. ~ Ronald J. Sider

At the end of the day, all you really have is your own sense of your artistic ability and I've always stuck with that my whole life. I guess there is always a bit of relief that I have and real joy of being able to engage other people who are talented, equally or better than you, and you can work with them. ~ Sharlto Copley

So it is. Once a book is fathomed, once it is known, and its meaning is fixed or established, it is dead. A book only lives while it has power to move us, and move us differently; so long as we find it different every time we read it. Owing to the flood of shallow books which really are exhausted in one reading, the modern mind tends to think every book is the same, finished in one reading. But it is not so. And gradually the modern mind will realize it again. The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again, and always finding it different, coming upon another meaning, another level of meaning. It is, as usual, a question of values: we are so overwhelmed with quantities of books that we hardly realize any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books. Because if a certain book can call you to read it six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. ~ D.H. Lawrence

You have to take that risk, though, Grace. What good is living if you have no real joy? ~ J.A. Huss

The happy ending is hardly important, though we may be glad it's there. The real joy is knowing that if you felt the trouble in the story, your kingdom isn't dead. ~ Lynda Barry

Real music is not for wealth, not for honours or even the joys of the mind ... but as a path for realisation and salvation. ~ Ali Akbar Khan

What brings a real and lasting joy is our relationships with God, and our love for His other children He has put in our lives. It's people; friends and family that fulfil us. All else, fame, popularity, beauty, is so fleeting. ~ Lindsey Stirling

A country can get more real joy out of just hollering for their freedom than they can if they get it. ~ Will Rogers

Your real joy must be in your job or occupation, where you spend most of your time and you should work in what you love or like the most. ~ Ingrid Holm-Garibay

The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit (i.e. in the name of 'evangelical liberty'). We claim liberty from all legal compulsion, from self-martyrdom and mortification, and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism; we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer, in meditation and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behavior and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world, and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life. As soon as a Christian recognizes that he has failed in his service, that his readiness has become feeble, and that he has sinned against another's life and become guilty of another's guilt, that all his joy in God has vanished and that his capacity for prayer has quite gone, it is high time for him to launch an assault upon the flesh, and prepare for better service by fasting and prayer (Luke 2:37; 4:2: Mark 9:29; 1 Cor. 7:5). ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This is what I want everyone to experience at the end of my concert ...
everyone has this sense of rejoicing.
I don't want them to be blown away by what I do,
I want them to have this sense of real, real joy
from the depths of their being.
Because I think when you take them to that place,
then you open up a place where grace can come in. ~ Bobby McFerrin

Yeah, we were looking for a way to represent adulthood and the passing into adulthood. And I think, for me personally and a lot of the folks that I work with, childhood is kind of a sacred, special kind of point in time that has a real joy and purity to it. And we sort of long on a daily basis to reach back and kind of grab onto that in some way. ~ Pete Docter

Real joy and happiness come from living in such a way that our Heavenly Father will be pleased with us ... One cannot break God's commandments and be happy. We should remember the scripture, "Wickedness never was happiness" ~ W. Eugene Hansen

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not 'die to itself' that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of 'adjustment' or 'mental cruelty.' It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would 'do anything' for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into his presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only 'natural.' It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But 'by the cross, joy entered the whole world.' Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken 'until death parts,' but until death unites us completely. ~ Alexander Schmemann

It is probably the only memory of real joy I have in the madness of my past. ~ Souad

Real joy is not found in having the best of everything but in trusting that God is making the best of everything. ~ Ann Voskamp

Ironically, brothers and sisters, the natural man who is so very selfish in so many ordinary ways is strangely unselfish in that he reaches for too few of the things that bring real joy. He settles for a mess of pottage instead of eternal joy. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

If you Need to convince others that you're happy, then you have Not found real Joy.
If you Need to impress others with material objects, then you do Not understand true Wealth.
If you Need to correct others, then you have Not looked in the mirror.
If you Need to put others down, you have Not connected to your Higher Self.
Know Yourself. Be Honest with Yourself. Don't be a teacher or judge, be an ... Example. ~ Eric Allen

But it happens, and I am thankful enough for that, for those fleeting, wakeful moments of beauty and truth. They are the real joy of being human, brief matches that flare in the dark. ~ Roger Housden

Be your best self and do not imitate anyone else. Find your strengths. They are your talents. They will make you smile and cause you to real joy on the inside.
Don't listen to those who ridicule the choices you make or the dreams you share. Let no one despise your youth. As Og Mandino explained in The Greatest Salesman in the World, "Experience is overrated, usually by old men who nod wisely and speak stupidly." Create your own experiences. And know that you are creating memories for a lifetime.
Life is not about finding yourself; it is about creating yourself.
You have to take chances to make your dreams reality. Face your fears head-on and move rapidly. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Make lots of them! Your odds for success will increase with the number of decisions you make.
Have patience with your dreams and the expectations you have for others. Be impatient with yourself daily. Live as if this is your last day. Say "I love you" to all those who matter. Know that everyone matters.
You must play full-out right now. Sit up, hold your head high. Breathe deeply. Lift your chest up. Stand up straight and with confidence. Dust yourself off. Stop being a party pooper in your own life. Smile. A bigger noticeable smile. Start acting happy. Yes, you act first. I promise the feeling of happiness will soon follow. ~ Robert Smith

BOB DIAMOND: "Being from earth as you are and using as little of your brain as you do, your life has pretty much been devoted to dealing with fear.
DAN MILLER: "It has?"
BOB DIAMOND: "Everybody on earth deals with fear. That's what little brains do."
BOB DIAMOND: "Did you ever have friends whose stomach hurt?"
DAN MILLER: "Every one of them."
BOB DIAMOND: "It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life."
(From the movie 'Defending Your Life') ~ Alex Pattakos

The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties. ~ Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann

Intellectual discussion, after all, is the real joy of the winter of life, when other pleasures have flown, as it were. ~ John Barth

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one's self of the real joy of living. ~ David O. McKay

I didn't suffer for Jesus in prison. No! I was with Jesus and I experienced his very real presence, joy, and peace every day. It's not those in prison for the sake of the gospel who suffer. The person who suffers is he who never experiences God's intimate presence. ~ Brother Yun

Quietude

As music is not in the notes, but in the silence between the notes, the real joy of life is not in the activities, but in the quiet between the activities. ~ Amar Ochani

I enjoy sports. I get a real joy from playing sports but I don't look for those movies. Oliver Stone wanted to know if I would do Any Given Sunday and it just didn't appeal to me. ~ Kevin Costner

There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it. ~ Robert Henri

Take the fact that you were created to love. Your heart can find real joy only through love - through loving and being loved. ~ Thomas Goodwin

I'll teach you how to decipher all the confused faces by closing your eyes & how to cringe when someone says the words 'your generation'. I will teach you how not to demonise your enemies & how to make yourself unappetising when the hordes turn up to eat you. I'll teach you how to yell with your mouth closed & how to steal happiness & how the only real joy is singing yourself hoarse & nude girls & how never to eat in an empty restaurant & how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain & how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated. I'll teach you how to know what's missing. ~ Steve Toltz

The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrow and double our joys. ~ B.C. Forbes

I didn't really enjoy modeling in Bombay. I floated through it in the hopes that I would get my ticket to the next big thing. There was no real joy that I got out of it, to be really honest. ~ Freida Pinto

Without spirit there is no true joy. There is no real joy without spirit. ~ Alan Maiccon

There seems to be something in our human nature that draws us away from a life-giving relationship with Jesus because it feels more comfortable to focus on what to do and not do. That tendency robs us of real joy and peace. ~ Chris Hodges

I prefer to learn everything through music. If you want divinity, the music in every human being and their love for music is pretty much it. It's the big indication of their spirituality and their ability to love and make love, or feel pain or joy, and really manifest it, really be real. ~ Jeff Buckley

He was thinking of the book, and what Dahlia had said about sleepwalking, and a strange thought came to him: had Arthur seen that Clark was sleepwalking? Would this be in the letters to V.? Because he had been sleepwalking, Clark realized, moving half-asleep through the motions of his life for a while now, years; not specifically unhappy, but when had he last found real joy in his work? When was the last time he'd truly been moved by anything? When had he last felt awe or inspiration? He wished he could somehow go back and find the iPhone people whom he'd jostled on the sidewalk earlier, apologize to them--I'm sorry, I've realized that I'm just as minimally present in this world as your are, I had no right to judge--and also he wanted of every 360° report and apologize to them too, because it's an awful thing to appear in someone else's report, he saw that now, it's an awful thing to be a target. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Friendship is the holiest of gifts;
God can bestow nothing more sacred upon us!
It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain.
Everyone can have a friend,
Who himself knows how to be a friend. ~ Christoph August Tiedge

The real joy of writing lies in the opportunity of being able to sacrifice a whole chapter for a single sentence, a complete sentence for a single word... ~ Jean Baudrillard

Do I get up some days and feel competitive? Sure. Do I get up some days and feel afraid? Of course. But ... I have real moments of joy now, and I know it will continue. ~ Rene Russo

But the real joy he feels doesn't come in the guise of Bruce the billionaire playboy. It comes as Batman - when he does what he was meant to do. When he follows his purpose. ~ Paul Asay

I only really watch sport. That's where you see real joy. I don't like watching much else on TV, because it's generally either twisted or sad. ~ Roger Milla

Guerrilla wars, and even more so terrorist assaults, are conducted only by forces with insufficient strength to carry out a real war. ~ Conrad Black

Are the Gods real or is Ike Karton just crazy? And the answer is: Yes. ~ Mark Leyner

For real men serve their country with random acts of kindness, not vicious acts of violence. And real soldiers have one duty, and one duty only; they have a duty to mutiny! ~ Joss Sheldon

I got so used to saying good-bye that when he disappeared for real I didn't notice. ~ Kate Pullinger

I'm the bathroom master
I'm a real bowl blaster
Don't mess with me
'Cause I can mess it up faster
With just one flush
I can make a toilet gush
When my sister cleans it up
I just turn her to mush! ~ R.U. Slime

Heroes. I'll never see them that way again. I've seen who real heroes are. And they don't wear cleats on game day. ~ Sean Parnell

I'm kind of a tech geek. With the camera work, I chose to shoot super 16, which has a real tactile feel. I feel it's as authentic as possible; I love the way the grain feels. ~ Ryan Coogler

I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened my hope, bore my spirit, triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy,
a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium; judgment would warn passion ~ Charlotte Bronte

No matter how you imagine something to be, it's not what you imagine it to be. Any thought you have isn't real or a big deal. ~ Art Hochberg

Thy love is singular when all thy delight is in Jesus Christ and in no other thing finds joy and comfort. ~ Richard Rolle

Today you are lifted higher. Understand that you can go further and be better than you ever thought possible. Start by saying yes to all good things. Doors will open for you filled with unlimited opportunities. ~ Amaka Imani Nkosazana

I place us where we are a happy couple who are madly in love, and we are kissing the way people kiss on their wedding day. With joy and relief and love. Without guilt. Without Shame. ~ A.S. King

Plant in tears, harvest with joy. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There was no real need for her to tell them that yet again, but that was all right with her. She wasn't worried that they were going to think she didn't trust them to get it right, but she couldn't tell them what she really wanted to. Couldn't tell them how much each and every one of them meant to her, especially now, when they were the only Cadre family she had left. When she was the one who had decided for them that they were going to throw themselves into the furnace.
When so many of them were about to die.
No, she couldn't tell them that ... but they heard it anyway. She knew they did, and that was enough.
"We go in three minutes," she said quietly. "God bless. ~ David Weber

Our culture encourages us to plan every moment and fill our schedules with one activity and obligation after the next, with no time to just be. But the human body and mind require downtime to rejuvenate. I have found my greatest moments of joy and peace just sitting in silence, and then I take that joy and peace with me out into the world. ~ Holly Mosier

There is more joy to be found in owning less than can ever be found in organizing more. ~ Joshua Becker

Without anyone to talk to, a person is not quite real. Sounds are very important - we are like bats tapping at each other with sounds, making sure there is someone there, groping along. Sounds. Syllables. The beat of music. It is all a curious flowing, which you can hear only when you are silent yourself. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

You have to do what is real and what is right and what is good and what you believe in. It doesn't mean it's always going to work. It doesn't. But when it does, it is truthful and forever. ~ Mitch Leigh

So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing
a spontaneous handstand
isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The hyperreal is the abolition of the real not by violent destruction, but by its assumption, elevation to the strength of the model. Anticipation, deterrence, preventive transfiguration, etc.: the model acts as a sphere of absorption of the real. ~ Jean Baudrillard

It is surprising to see how often the worst people in the world - rapists interviewed in prison, say - see themselves as the real victims. They are wrong to see themselves as innocents, but we are wrong as well to see them as different creatures from the rest of us. If you want to think about evil, real evil, a better way to proceed is this: Don't think about what other people have done to you; think instead about your own actions that hurt others, that made others want you to apologize and make amends. Don't think about other nations' atrocities toward your country and its allies; think instead about the actions of your country that other people rage against. Your ~ Paul Bloom

I want my fiction to feel real most of the time, so it makes sense to pay attention to life and to how people work. ~ Nick Earls

The only contry in the world where there's a majority of women in parliament is Rwanda. Rwanda. That's when women get power, real power - if the men are either dead or in prison. ~ A. L. Kennedy

The filaments that connect the qualities and dynamics "inside" prisons to those on the "outside" remind those of us on the outside (or, as one former prisoner said to me, "in the outer prison") that, in spite of real differences, in a profound sense "the prisons are us." Even the most brutal among the imprisoned, as James Gilligan argues in his book Violence (where he draws on years of experience as a prison psychologist in a maximum security facility for violent offenders) are people who are confined there often because of their experience of brutality and terror in home and family, these latter embedded often in the structures of violence that are social, political, and economic in nature. ~ Mark Lewis Taylor

There are many people who have no idea what they should be living for, or the meaning of their lives, nor have they any guide to tell right from wrong. God looks down at people in that kind of spiritual fog, that spiritual stupidity, and he doesn't say, "You idiots." When we look at people who have brought trouble into their lives by their own foolishness, we say things like "Serves them right" or we mock them on social media: "What kind of imbecile says something like this?" When we see people of the other political party defeated, we just gloat. This is all a way of detaching ourselves from them. We distance ourselves from them partly out of pride and partly because we don't want their unhappiness to be ours. God doesn't do that. Real compassion, the voluntary attachment of our heart to others, means the sadness of their condition makes us sad; it affects us. That is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the character of compassion. (121) ~ Timothy J. Keller

Working with Katie Cassidy is amazing ... That woman is so prepared and so professional and talented, it's such a joy to show up with her to work with her everyday. ~ Katrina Law

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition. ~ Adam Smith