Mari > Mari's Quotes

“The older I get, the more I realize that what other people think about me has little to do with who I am. … We can’t change other people, and we can’t force them to see us the way we would like to be seen.”
― Mari Serebrov, Mama Namibia

“It takes courage to live in the midst of hate. And it requires strength to keep that hatred from eating your soul.”
― Mari Serebrov, Mama Namibia

“Looking backward should never divert our path to one of hatred and bitterness, for those steps lead nowhere but to destruction. To live in hatred is to miss the point of living.”
― Mari Serebrov, Mama Namibia

“Racism defends our greed, frees us from self-control and makes others responsible for our failings. It is an attempt to silence the guilt so we can look in the mirror.”
― Mari Serebrov

“Pain and evil confront us as a surd. Suffering, our own and that of others, is an experience through which we have to live, not a theoretical problem that we can explain away. If there is an explanation, it is on a level deeper than words. Suffering cannot be “justified”; but it can be used, accepted—and, through this acceptance, transfigured. “The paradox of suffering and evil”, says Nicolas Berdyaev, “is resolved in the experience of compassion and love.”31”
― Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way

“Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there.”
― Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way

“there is no greater force within creation than the free will of beings endowed with self-consciousness and spiritual intellect; and so the misuse of this free will can have altogether terrifying consequences.”
― Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way

“We do not have any genuine knowledge of those whom we hate.”
― Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way

“If I'm going to spend a lifetime writing my story, I want it to mean something.”
― Mari Serebrov

“An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.”
― Agatha Christie