Criss Jami

“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.”

“What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around.”

“The power of hope! Even a lack of ambition can, for a time, pay off as a necessary facet, as long as hope outweighs it.”

“Learning isn't acquiring knowledge so much as it is trimming information that has already been acquired.”

“Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.”

“You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.”

“What is hard work? It takes strength, energy, and stress to truly care about others enough to place oneself last, but it is easy to wrap oneself up and selfishly scramble on the heads of others.”

“I think that I am too warm to negatively judge individuals, yet I am cold enough to negatively judge humanity.”

“Simply minding one's own business is more offensive than being intrusive. Without ever saying a word one can make a person feel less-than.”

“It's not at all hard to understand a person; it's only hard to listen without bias.”

“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.”

“The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you.”

“One of the greatest gifts from God is the eternal perspective. It is a level of fearlessness, a level of understanding where one can experience even emotional harmony with God.”

“The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.”

“How is it that some celebrities, whom the average person would believe to have all the popularity a human being could want, still admit to feeling lonely? It is quite naive to assume that popularity is the remedy for loneliness. Loneliness does not necessarily equal physical solitude, it is the inability to be oneself and rightfully represented as oneself.”

“The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.”

“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.”

“God tests, but he does not tempt.”

“When you're truly awesome, you know that it's actually a burden and wish day after day to be relieved of such a curse. Think of about 95% of the superheroes.”

“God's relationship with man does not work in a way in which man stumbles and then God has to drop what he is doing in order to lift him up; rather, man stumbles so that God can lift him up. Hence it is utterly impossible to truly diminish his glory.”

“I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.”

“Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.”

“Drunken men give some of the best pep talks.”

“What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.”

“I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation.”

“Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.”

“When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.”

“Disasters work like alarm clocks to the world, hence God allows them. They are shouting, 'Wake up! Love! Pray!”

“Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.”

“I would rather have strong enemies than a world of passive individualists. In a world of passive individualists nothing seems worth anything simply because nobody stands for anything. That world has no convictions, no victories, no unions, no heroism, no absolutes, no heartbeat. That world has rigor mortis.”

“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.”

“I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you understand God's reason for it, and are then able to make the best of everything that you are handed. The darkness is only frightening after constant sunshine.”

“The logic behind patriotism is a mystery. At least a man who believes that his own family or clan is superior to all others is familiar with more than 0.000003% of the people involved.”

“I like solitude. It is when you truly hear and speak your natural, unadulterated mind, and out comes your most stupid self as well as your most intelligent self. It is when you realize who you are and the extents of the good and the evils which you are capable of.”

“In a general sense, I admit to valuing the worldviews of men under the age of 40 and women over the age of 30.”

“Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations - they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.”

“A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.”

“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.”

“To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.”

“The devil's happy when the critics run you off.”

“A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.”

“If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it.”

“There's nothing more contagious than the laughter of young children; it doesn't even have to matter what they're laughing about.”

“A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.”

“As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.”

“When a man is penalized for honesty he learns to lie.”

“There is a master way with words which is not learned but is instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper...”