Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

You cannot make a sinner into a saint by killing him. He who does not live as a saint here will never live as a saint hereafter.

I can’t very well be teaching one way and living my life another way. What I do in life must be consistent with the things I say. And the same goes for you.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

Christians are not limited to any church.

At 155, I will be the same animal, an even better animal.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Being a kid’s not easy. You’re transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you’re out in the world.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

Selling out is doing something you don’t really want to do for money. That’s what selling out is.

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

India has to be transformed into a developed nation, a prosperous nation and a healthy nation, with a value system.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

Jesus didn’t die for us so we could pretend to be something we’re not.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

Why lie? I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say the opposite of what I think, like some others do.

So there’s nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who’s cool hates – and then making it cool.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

When I speak at my local church, which I try to do 35 to 40 times a year, I try in every lesson to take the Old Testament text or New Testament text and apply them to what is happening to me or how that applies to the audience that I’m teaching in a modern, fast-changing, technological world. I use headlines, interfaith and that sort of thing.

Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

If you consider the definition of authenticity, it’s saying something and actually doing it. I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.

Many people look at me and think they know me but they don’t at all. This is the real me. I am a humble person, a feeling person. A person who cares about others, who wants to help others.

Old is authentic. Old is genuine. Old is valuable.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

I don’t think souls or bodies can be changed by incantation. Or anything else by the way.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.