Quotes About Change

No one who meets Jesus ever stays the same.

What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God—we change in the very act of rebellion—and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?

Health and life, I would say, in the full and final sense of those words, are not what we die out of, but what we die into

Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God's kingdom.

Does prayer change God or change me?

We whine about things we have little control over; we lament what we believe ought to be changed.

Change came from below, as it usually does, rather than being imposed from above.

We must continually ask ourselves: Is our first aim to change our government or to see lives in and out of government changed for Christ?

Be careful," warned Nietzsche, "lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon.

Western powers have learned a related and painful lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan: change imposed by force rarely produces the desired results. Likewise, a faith that matters grows best from the ground up, working its way through society gradually, without coercion.

What counts is the way a person reacts in the face of suffering. That is the real test of the person: What is our personal attitude to life and its changes and chances?

Breaking the cycle of ungrace means taking the initiative.

Alcoholics Anonymous discovered long ago that the path toward cure involves more than a quick-fix solution based on increased knowledge. In fact, it involves a change that seems more theological than educational. Somehow the "victim" of addictive behavior must regain an underlying sense of human dignity and choice, a profound reawakening that usually requires much time, attention, and love.

Unfortunately, most of my secular friends would agree with Bill Gates, who considers religion a waste of time: "There's a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning," he told an interviewer. They view the church not as a change agent that can affect all of society but as a place where like-minded people go to feel better about themselves.

Según el rabino Kushner, Dios se siente tan frustrado, incluso tan indignado con la injusticia de este planeta como cualquier otro, pero carece del poder necesario para cambiar las cosas. Millones de lectores han encontrado consuelo en la descripción que hace Kushner de un Dios que parece compasivo, aunque sea débil.

King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading toward freedom. Nonviolence, he believed, 'will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another.

Según Abraham Heschel, la sociedad antigua apreciaba tres cosas por encima de todo: la sabiduría, la salud y el poder. (¿Ha cambiado algo desde entonces?) Los profetas hebreos atacaban esos tres valores, porque cualquiera de ellos podía convertirse en ídolo.

Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.

Like other intellectuals, he welcomed the mindless drudgery as a refreshing change of pace.

Old English, the heart and soul of the old regime at Oxford, ceased to be a required course only as of 2002.

Fortune's wheel takes you very high and then throws you very low, and there is nothing you can do but face the turn of it with courage.

One never gets the same summer twice.

Another husband, another new house, another new country, but I never belong anywhere and I never own anything in my own right.

Her sadness had given her a serenity which had not been there before. It was as if she had learned a hard lesson: that chances in life would not fall into her lap like ripe cherries.