"Ideals are like stars," Carl Schurz wrote. "You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like seafarers on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny." Ideals… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
For centuries the church has confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is 'icon,' 'star,' 'hero,' ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
A hard heart makes for hard judgments; a compassionate heart understands the humanity of the one we presume to judge. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
To be enlightened is to know that heaven is not "coming." Heaven is here. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
We don't change as we get older - we just get to be more of what we've always been. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
We may well be the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Today we live in a world that judges its achievements by speed and busyness. Â… We are so busy making things happen that we… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
My limitations make space for the gifts of other people. Without the grace of our limitations we would be isolated, dry, and insufferable creatures… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Humility is authenticity. It comes from the Latin word humus, meaning "earth." As the church has taught, we're made of dust, and unto dust… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Prophets are so dangerous because they cry in season and out of season, politely and impolitely, loud and long. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
“We don't change as we get older - we just get to be ore of what we've always been.” — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
“What happens to the spiritual life of a young girl who is made to understand, consciously or subconsciously, that she has no place in… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Old age tells us that we ourselves have failed often, have never really done anything completely right, have never truly been perfect - anad… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
