Famous Quotes & Sayings

Pico Iyer

[The Dalai Lama ] says Western traditions can teach Tibetans a lot about social action, and he thinks some Christians are very good at that.

Phillips Brooks

No man dares to condemn the Christian faith today, because the Christian faith has not been tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine, an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain; not until they get the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through the lives of men; not until then does Christianity enter upon its true trial and become ready to show what it can do.

Phillips Brooks

No man ever yet thought whether he was preaching well without weakening his sermon.

Phillips Brooks

Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.

Phillips Brooks

Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, "Christ is risen," but "I shall rise."

Phillips Brooks

The essence of that by which Jesus overcame the world was not suffering, but obedience. Yes, men may puzzle themselves and their hearers over the question where the power of the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus lay; but the soul of the Christian always knows that it lay in the obedience of Christ. He was determined at every sacrifice to do His Father's will. Let us remember that; and the power of Christ's sacrifice may enter into us, and some little share of the redemption of the world may come through us, as the great work came through Him.

Philip Yancey

Christians fail to communicate to others because we ignore basic principles in relationship. When we make condescending judgments or proclaim lofty words that don't translate into action, or simply speak without first listening, we fail to love - and thus deter a thirsty world from Living Water. The good news about God's grace goes unheard.

Philip Yancey

Often, it seems, we're [Christians] perceived more as guilt dispensers than as grace dispensers.

Philip Yancey

... the issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree. We Christians are called to use the "weapons of grace," which means treating even our opponents with love and respect.

Philip Yancey

The Quakers have a saying: "An enemy is one whose story we have not heard." To communicate to post-Christians, I must first listen to their stories for clues to how they view the world and how they view people like me.

Philip Yancey

The Christian knows to serve the weak not because they deserve it but because God extended his love to us when we deserved the opposite. Christ came down from heaven, and whenever his disciples entertained dreams of prestige and power he reminded them that the greatest is the one who serves. The ladder of power reaches up, the ladder of grace reaches down.

Philip Yancey

What a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.

Philip Yancey

Christians are not perfect, by any means, but they can be people made fully alive.

Philip Yancey

The self-sacrificing, servant aspect of the Christian life has many parallels to parenthood.

Philip Yancey

We should be asking: How do we respond to a post-Christian society?

Philip Yancey

I ask God most often that we would be an unbroken line of Christians until Christ shall return.

Philip Yancey

Christian faith is... basically about love and being loved and reconciliation. These things are so important, they're foundational and they can transform individuals, families.

Philip Yancey

Christians have an important role to play in contending that no human life is "devoid of value." We can do so through courageous protest, as happened in Germany, as well, as in compassionate care for the most vulnerable members of society, as Mother Teresa did. In both approaches theology - what one believes about God and human life - matters. The world desperately needs that good news.

Philip Yancey

Individuals and societies are not helpless victims of heredity. We have the power to change - not by looking "down" to nature but "up" to God, who consistently calls us forward to become the people we were designed to be. A confused world urgently needs a model of what that looks like. If Christians fail to provide that model, who will?

Philip Yancey

The Christian sees the world as a transitional home badly in need of rehab, and we are active agents in that project.

Philip Yancey

Jesus represents a point of common ground an esteemed rabbi to the Jew, a god to the Hindu, an enlightened one to the Buddhist, a great prophet to the Muslim. Even to the New Age guru, Jesus is the pinnacle of God-consciousness. At the same time, Jesus is the divider. None but Christians see Him as a member of the Godhead on an exclusive mission to repair the broken world.

Philip Yancey

The shift in American society from admiring Christians to fearing and criticizing them provides an opportunity for self-reflection. How have we been presenting the message we believe in? Might there be a more grace-filled way?

Philip Yancey

I have found that lived out, the hardest place to be a Christian is to be in a nice prosperous country with a lot of entertainment options because there's so many distractions.

Philip Yancey

Whoever desires to remain faithful to Jesus must communicate faith as he did, not by compelling assent but by presenting it as a true answer to basic thirst. 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.

Pope Francis

Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and others.

Pope Benedict XVI

We ask the Blessed Virgin for the gift of conversion for all Christians, so that they may announce and give a faithful and coherent witness to the perennial evangelical message, which indicates to humanity the path to an authentic peace.

Terry Eagleton

Christian faith, as I understand it, is not primarily a matter of signing on for the proposition that there exists a Supreme Being, but the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness, pain, and bewilderment, who nevertheless remains faithful to the promise of a transformative love.

Randall Terry

It's the Law of God that gave the stability to Christian civilization.

Josh McDowell

Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort have created a biblically sound course that will not only motivate Christians; it will equip them to fulfill the Great Commission.

Josh McDowell

I thought Christians were walking idiots.

Leland Ryken

In Puritan thinking, the Christian life was a heroic venture, requiring a full quota of energy.

Lars von Trier

I would say that I am a poor Christian; I'm not a believer. It was this idea very early in my life that life on Earth, nature or man could not be a creation of a merciful God.

Linda Ronstadt

This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know.