We each should have 2 pockets: in 1 the message, 'I am dust & ashes;' in the other, 'For me the universe… — Joan D. Chittister Ashes Copy Share Image
If anything diminishes a person, it is the cancer of constant complaining. — Joan D. Chittister Cancer Copy Share Image
But we are here to depart from this world as finished as we can possibly become. — Joan D. Chittister Aging Copy Share Image
The purpose of leadership is not to make the present bearable. The purpose of leadership is to make the future possible. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others. — Joan D. Chittister Commitment Copy Share Image
An authentic spirituality does not cater to culture; it calls culture to accountability. — Joan D. Chittister Accountability Copy Share Image
To be contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic… — Joan D. Chittister Consciousness Copy Share Image
We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows… — Joan D. Chittister Eden Copy Share Image
It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
The vision of a culture lies in what becomes its major institutions, in what it remembers as its most impacting events, in… — Joan D. Chittister Culture Copy Share Image
I have to be honest with you, it never occurred to me, as years went by, that my country would look like… — Joan D. Chittister Being honest 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 Community Copy Share Image
Imagination begins when it' s raining too hard to go out and play and you become really absorbed in something you would… — Joan D. Chittister Art 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… — Joan D. Chittister Life Copy Share Image
A bifurcation of loyalties that requires religious to put canon law above civil law and moral law puts us in a situation… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Try saying this silently to everyone and everything you see for thirty days and see what happens to your own soul: I… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thouhtfully, live life profouncly, live life well. Never neglect and never… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Don't worry about wearing the sign; be the sign. You don't have to wear a sandwich board saying, "I am religious and… — Joan D. Chittister Being the best Copy Share Image
A seeker searched for years to know the secret of achievement and success in human life. One night in a dream a… — Joan D. Chittister Achievement Copy Share Image
Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
“Where will Christian feminists go for spiritual nourishment if the church itself fails to reflect the feminism of Jesus? If tradition becomes… — Joan D. Chittister Feminism Copy Share Image
Peace comes from living a measured life. Peace comes from attending to every part of my world in a sacramental way. My… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
The God who made us dust knows we're dust. We don't have to feel like perpetual failures because we aren't more than… — Joan D. Chittister Authenticity Copy Share Image
Humor and laughter are not necessarily the same thing. Humor permits us to see into life from a fresh and gracious perspective.… — Joan D. Chittister Bears Copy Share Image
A life of value is not a series of great things well done; it is a series of small things consciously done. — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
“God's will for us is what's left over when we have done everything we can possibly do to get out of doing… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
Life is not meant to be a burden. Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a blessing to be… — Joan D. Chittister Blessing Copy Share Image
Temptations are part of life, part of growing up. We grapple with them often - in some instances for our lifetime -… — Joan D. Chittister Art of life Copy Share Image
Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people… — Joan D. Chittister Hospitality Copy Share Image
Life always comes out of death. The present rises from the ashes of the past. The future is always possible for those… — Joan D. Chittister Ashes Copy Share Image
There is a built-in danger in old age which, if we give in to it, makes aging one of the most difficult… — Joan D. Chittister Acting Copy Share Image
To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away… — Joan D. Chittister Beauty 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… — Joan D. Chittister Authenticity Copy Share Image
Oppressors do not get to be oppressors in a single sweep. They manage it because little by little, we make them that.… — 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… — Joan D. Chittister Age Copy Share Image
“Feminists are asking women and men not to buy into patriarchal systems that destroy them both. Feminism comes to bring both men… — Joan D. Chittister Feminism Copy Share Image
Memory is not about what went on in the past, it is about what is going on inside us right this moment.… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
In community we work out our connectedness to God, to one another and to ourselves...In human relationships I learn that theory is… — Joan D. Chittister Community Copy Share Image
The kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the… — Joan D. Chittister Authority Copy Share Image
Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary. This is the time we… — Joan D. Chittister Copy Share Image
