Parker J. Palmer

Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student.

— Parker J. Palmer

The power for authentic leadership is found not in external arrangements, but in the human heart.

— Parker J. Palmer

If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other…

— 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…

— Parker J. Palmer

“Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us…

— Parker J. Palmer

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human…

— Parker J. Palmer

When you are with young people, it is almost inconceivable that things wouldn't arise that you'd have to respond to, such as…

— Parker J. Palmer

You don't become a good teacher by applying techniques; you don't become a good teacher by using the latest hot methodologies that…

— Parker J. Palmer

We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands…

— Parker J. Palmer

Although there are some enormously gifted lecturers and preachers who do create community with oratory, I like to do anything I can…

— Parker J. Palmer

In classical understanding, education is the attempt to "lead out" from within the self a core of wisdom that has the power…

— Parker J. Palmer

Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects…

— 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…

— Parker J. Palmer

I understand that there are forms of entertainment that can make people weep or jazz them up so they feel like they…

— Parker J. Palmer

I believe that movements start when individuals who feel very isolated and very alone in the midst of an alien culture, come…

— Parker J. Palmer

Leadership is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is…

— Parker J. Palmer

The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force…

— Parker J. Palmer

Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance, and one of teaching's great rewards is the daily chance it gives…

— Parker J. Palmer

Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken,…

— Parker J. Palmer

“We are cursed with the blessing of consciousness and choice, a two-edged sword that both divides us and can help us become…

— Parker J. Palmer

I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that…

— Parker J. Palmer

“A politician who brings personal integrity into leadership helps us reclaim the popular trust that distinguishes true democracy from its cheap imitations.”

— Parker J. Palmer

The teachers who have had the most impact on me and on most learners I know are teachers whose "selfhoods" have been…

— Parker J. Palmer

Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily…

— Parker J. Palmer

Everybody is on a lifelong journey toward trying to live more deeply. There is nobody who can say, "Well, I've got that…

— Parker J. Palmer

Death in various forms is sometimes comforting, while resurrection and new life can be demanding and threatening. If I lived as if…

— 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…

— Parker J. Palmer

When there is a gap between what's on the outside and what's on the inside, that's when people retreat into their foxholes…

— Parker J. Palmer

“But before we come to that center, full of light, we must travel in the dark. Darkness is not the whole of…

— Parker J. Palmer

How easily we get trapped in that which is not essential - in looking good, winning at competition, gathering power and wealth…

— Parker J. Palmer

It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we…

— Parker J. Palmer

Storytelling has always been at the heart of being human because it serves some of our most basic needs: passing along our…

— Parker J. Palmer

We think it's about little techniques and tricks, but techniques only take you so far. We need teachers who care about kids,…

— Parker J. Palmer

We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul that avoid the unconscious violence we do when we…

— 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…

— Parker J. Palmer

I think the church needs to be much more countercultural than that and invite people into slowing down, into a "Be-still-and-know-that-I-am-God" mindset.

— Parker J. Palmer

Here, I think, is another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people…

— Parker J. Palmer

There's often a distressing disconnect between the good words we speak and the way we live our lives. In personal relations and…

— Parker J. Palmer

The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild…

— Parker J. Palmer

In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard…

— Parker J. Palmer