Christopher Pokorny > Christopher's Quotes

“The more we come to depend on the images offered to us by those who try to distract us, entertain us, use us for their purposes, and make us conform to the demands of a consumer society, the easier it is for us to lose our identity.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen

“everyone shares the handicap of mortality. Our individual physical, emotional, and spiritual failures are but symptoms of this disease.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen

“It seems indeed that the Church today is one of the few institutions in the world willing to defend human rights regardless of who the oppressor is.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.” —Theodore Roosevelt”
― Anonymous, A Warning

“If the courage of young men and women in battle truly does depend on the nature and quality of our civic society, we should be very worried… The clarity of purpose so central to bonding men in combat cannot emerge purely from the military itself. And in our current climate, after a decade and a half of multiple wars on multiple continents, the hope for such clarity is rotting away.”
― Harold Koenig, Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains

“How do you motivate men and women to fight and die for a cause many of them don’t believe in, and whose purpose they can’t articulate? What happens to the bonds between men and women in combat, and to the bonds between soldiers and the citizenry for whom they fight, when we fail as a nation to treat our wars as a collective responsibility, rather than the special mission of a self-selected few?”
― Harold Koenig, Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains

“When a mission is conducted with honor, the emotional casualties from war (particularly inner conflicts) are far less common. Developing character and moral values is endorsed by virtually all religious traditions that have endured over time.”
― Harold Koenig, Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains

“If religious involvement is an important source of spiritual readiness, then spiritual readiness should likewise affect human flourishing in ways that increase warrior readiness to preserve the peace and win wars.”
― Harold Koenig, Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains

“Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, emphasized prior to our entry into World War II, “[the] determining factor in war is something invisible and intangible, something wholly spiritual.”
― Harold Koenig, Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains