A. J. Jacobs Quotes

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.

Compassion is the ultimate expression of your highest self

It's always nice to look in the mirror at the end of the day and see that you helped somebody's life... even if only a little bit.

Sometimes you have to take the focus off of you and put it on someone else and it's funny what you can accomplish and how much strength you really have.

He who doesn't consider himself is seldom considerate of others.

I think was overly empathetic for a while in my life.

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself.

I'm not sure why working at a homeless shelter made sense to me, except that I needed to immerse myself in some sort of larger real-life situation to get me out of the cage of my mind, in some ways.

Just the service aspect of running a nonprofit is so gratifying because it takes the attention off yourself. I'm not an acting monk or anything. I'm not, like, the most well-adjusted actor. But it's really designed to focus on yourself, or it can be. So it's good to have something else to focus on that reminds you that it's not always about you.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody's life.

I've certainly had a lot of experiences in my life where I was much too self-centered.

If I want to be a better person for whoever is in my life, I have to learn.

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

Testifying has helped me understand that one individual's behavior and actions make a difference. That my actions are important to people other than myself.

I pray for humility, honestly, because it's very easy to be caught up in this world.

What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Love knows how to form itself. God will do his work if we do ours. Our job is to prepare ourselves for love. When we do, love finds us every time.

I'll admit that I'm self-centered - all of us are - but I can also be external and giving and listening and empathetic and all that sort of stuff.

Getting past my early 20s, I feel a bit more maturity and responsibility about that stuff. You get a good feeling from doing something good. You see a kid and you make his day, you realise the power of it. Whereas before, I was like, 'That's cool, whatever.' But now, that's what I'm most appreciative of.

Prayer is the hard-work business of Christianity, and it nets amazing results.

I may not say it all the time or I may not pray as much as I need to, but I am not forgetting where I came from and how I got to be where I am today.

Shall I give you yet another reason why you should pray? I have preached my very heart out. I could not say any more than I have said. Will not your prayers accomplish that which my preaching fails to do? Is it not likely that the Church has been putting forth its preaching hand but not its praying hand? Oh dear friends! Let us agonize in prayer.

I seldom made an errand to God for another but I got something for myself.