Inspirational Quotes by Rick Warren

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.”

“The Bible tells us to "speak the truth in love" because we can't have community without candor. Solomon said, "An honest answer is a sign of true friendship." Sometimes this means caring enough to lovingly confront one who is sinning or is being tempted to sin.”

“Being a priest is not easy in Rwanda now; people see my collar and scream, ‘Where was God when my family was being killed?! Where was Jesus when my child was being raped?! Why did God abandon Rwanda?!’” “I’ve heard people say that, too, Father.” “God didn’t abandon our country, Immaculée. He was here the entire time, feeling the pain of every victim. He is still here—He is with the wounded, the lost, and the grieving. Yes, it’s ugly in Rwanda, but God’s beauty is still alive here. And you will find it in love.”

“The problem is that there is a gaping hole in our gospel. We have preached a gospel that leaves us believing that we can be reconciled to God but not reconciled to our Christian brothers and sisters who don’t look like us—brothers and sisters with whom we are, in fact, one blood.”

“Biblical reconciliation is the removal of tension between parties and the restoration of loving relationship.”

“That’s an accurate statement about Stevens’s early work,”

“What the audience heard was like nothing they had ever encountered.”

“He decidido entregar mis esfuerzos de guía a Dios y llegar a ser un discípulo de Jesús y del liderazgo de servicio que Él enseñó.”

“THIS IS A BOOK about the good life—not the good life touted in Budweiser commercials or on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or MTV Cribs, but the good life that you and I want to live when we reflect about what really matters.”

“Habiendo tenido un «ataque de corazón» en cuanto a los principios de un liderazgo de servicio, he tratado de llevar este mensaje a otros líderes y practicarlo en todas mis actividades.”

“For most of us, life is messy and confusing, filled with paradoxes. We wake up in the night, worrying about our jobs, our kids, or the best laid plans, which suddenly unravel due to the pressures of living in our high-tech, fast-moving world. One day we seem to have things under control; the next day we get steamrollered by events. If you haven’t experienced this, please write me; you would be the first person I know to have life all together.”

“«Gracia es la moneda corriente en toda verdadera relación».”

“As I watched Emily, I thought, Of course. This is what we all need—a manual for how things work when our own cognitive abilities leave us bewildered and our coping skills have reached their limit. All of us are like Max at times. We can’t figure out what’s happening to our world, why we’re feeling tense and frustrated. So we throw our own kind of tantrum: We gossip or assert our superiority; we get drunk or have an affair; we go on a credit-card shopping spree; we irritate the boss until he’s obliged to fire us. We thrash around in the face of a world that we can’t understand and can’t manage. The many ways people “act out” prove what a challenge life is. Our difficulty in understanding how the world works and how we fit into it has been aggravated, I believe, by the false expectations our culture breeds. We are like people trying to go up the down escalator. We huff and puff and go nowhere. The problem is, the culture is pushing one way, and we haven’t figured out it’s the wrong direction. When we ask the basic questions about our purpose and meaning, we receive false answers. Our attempts to live by these misleading answers inevitably leave us angry and terrified. What we need is to seek the true picture of how the world really works and what we need to live well.”

“So traumatic is the idea of jumping out of a window [of a burning building] that it is easier to pretend the fire will never reach us. It is the same with death: we know it is approaching, but we act as if it is never going to come. The vast majority of us, especially here in the west, construct our lives based on the denial of death.”

“Una vez que se ha fijado la visión puede establecer las metas para responder a la pregunta: «¿En qué quiero que se concentre la gente ahora?»”

“Captain Miller lay close by where he had been hit, his back slumped against the bridge’s wall. Ryan, in anguish, was alone with his rescuer in the final moments before Miller died. Ryan watched as the captain struggled in his last moments, shot clean through one lung. The captain wouldn’t take another breath, except to grunt, “James. Earn this … earn it.” Were these dying words a final order or charge? Private Ryan has always taken it that way. These memories rivet the aged James Ryan, who now finds himself staring at the grave marker and mumbling to his dead commander. He tells Captain Miller that his family is with him. He confesses that he wasn’t sure how he would feel about coming to the cemetery today. He wants Captain Miller to know that every day of his life he’s thought of their conversation at the bridge, of Miller’s dying words. Ryan has tried to live a good life, and he hopes he has. At least in the captain’s eyes, he hopes he’s “earned it,” that his life has been worthy of the sacrifice Captain Miller and the other men made of giving their lives for his. As Ryan mutters these thoughts, he cannot help wondering how any life, however well lived, could be worthy of his friends’ sacrifice. The old man stands up, but he doesn’t feel released. The question remains unanswered. His wife comes to his side again. He looks at her and pleads, “Tell me I’ve led a good life.” Confused by his request, she responds with a question: “What?” He has to know the answer. He tries to articulate it again: “Tell me I’m a good man.” The request flusters her, but his earnestness makes her think better of putting it off. With great dignity, she says, “You are.”

“There is the story of the English vicar who was asked whether he expected to go to heaven, and what he thought he would find there. "Well, I suppose I believe in eternal bliss, if it comes to that," he replied, "but I wish you wouldn't bring up such depressing subjects.”

“Para los seguidores de Jesús, el liderazgo de servicio no es una opción; es un mandato.”

“On a bleak winter day, Dostoyevsky and his fellow prisoners were marched through the snow in front of the firing squad. As a military official shouted out the death sentences, a priest led each man to a platform, giving him an opportunity to kiss the cross the priest carried. Three of the prisoners were then marched forward and tied to a stake. Dostoyevsky looked on, realizing he would be next in line. He watched the soldiers pull the men’s caps down over their eyes. He felt revulsion in his stomach as the firing squad lifted their rifles, adjusted their aim, and stood ready to pull the triggers. Out of suffering and defeat often comes victory. Frozen in suspense, Dostoyevsky waited for what seemed like a lifetime. Then he heard the drums start up again. But they were beating retreat! He watched, stunned, as the firing squad lowered their rifles and the soldiers removed the prisoners’ caps from their eyes. Their lives—and his—would be spared.2 Immediately after this incident, Dostoyevsky wrote a letter to his brother about the change the experience had worked in him: “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift. … Now, in changing my life, I am reborn in a new form. Brother! I swear that I will not lose hope and will keep my soul and heart pure. I will be reborn for the better. That’s all my hope, all my consolation!”

“La misma energía que podría utilizarse para resolver el problema se disipa negando el problema, ocultando el problema y evitando el problema.”