Brian Layman > Brian's Quotes

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”
― Stephen Colbert

“My heart is pure as the driven slush.”
― Tallulah Bankhead

“Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart.”
― Jim Henson

“We teach what we need to learn.”
― Roy M. Oswald, Personality Type and Religious Leadership

“What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies.”
― Tom Miller, The Philosopher's War

“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“In short, a spiritual teacher needs to inject conflict into a disciple’s life. Without conflict, we remain at levels of immaturity and don’t grow spiritually. The conflict is likely asking us the question, “When are you going to grow up?” Jesus was consistently challenging his disciples by confronting them with their levels of immaturity. Within congregational life, there needs to be a kind of psychological contract between pastor and people that “sometimes I’m going to make you quite uncomfortable in my sermons and in my personal conversations with you.” We should not accept spiritual messages that just always make us feel good about ourselves—a feel-good gospel. That is going to keep us stuck at immature levels of self-insight. In order for congregations to grow, both numerically and spiritually, we will need to experience conflict at all levels of congregational life.”
― Roy M Oswald, The Emotional Intelligence of Jesus: Relational Smarts for Religious Leaders

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh