Parker J. Palmer Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.5, John Wiley & Sons
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“It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“A scholar is committed to building on knowledge that others have gathered, correcting it, confirming it, enlarging it.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“I will always have fears, but I need not be my fears, for I have other places within myself from which to speak and act.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“By surviving passages of doubt and depression on the vocational journey, I have become clear about at least one thing: self-care is never a selfish act -- it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do so not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch.”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (2015). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.34, John Wiley & Sons
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“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.16, John Wiley & Sons
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“I want my inner truth to be the plumb line for the choices I make about my life - about the work that I do and how I do it, about the relationships I enter into and how I conduct them.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.3, John Wiley & Sons
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“Is the life I'm living the life that wants to live in me?”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“The kind of teaching that transforms people does not happen if the student’s inward teacher is ignored… we can speak to the teacher within our students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“The spiritual life is about becoming more at home in your own skin.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out - a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.60, John Wiley & Sons
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“When we generate utopian visions and hope to make them happen soon – when we elect Barack Obama and expect all our problems to be solved, and solved quickly, by his presidency – the outcome is both predictable and tragic. That is not the way to engage social change in a democracy. And it is not the way to help democracy itself survive and thrive. Democracy is a non-stop experiment. Each generation must help sustain it, which means being in it day-by-day for the long haul.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one's self. It is not about the absence of other people -- it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people -- it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“In every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed. My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die. That something was my tough and tenacious soul.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“I want to learn how to hold the paradoxical poles of my identity together, to embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is deeply dependent on others dancing with me and that I still have a sense of self when no one wants to dance.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“The highest form of love is the love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“Humility is the only lens though which great things can be seen--and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the 'integrity that comes from being what you are.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need”
-- Parker J. PalmerSource : Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.36, John Wiley & Sons
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“Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now - in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“Science requires an engagement with the world, a live encounter between the knower and the known.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
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“Why does a literary scholar study the world of "fiction"? To show us that the facts can never be understood except in communion with the imagination.”
-- Parker J. Palmer -
“By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.”
-- Parker J. Palmer
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