Bill Hybels Quotes

…in every locality we should look beyond our noses; and at least say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree.

Sport allows people to come together, but politics divides people.

We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.

Maybe if I didn't say anything about what happened, we could get back to the way we were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree never to bring it up again.

It doesn't do you any service to demonize any group of people. It's much better to try and understand from the inside.

You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking.

Maybe the '50s and '60s were more awkward because everyone knew there were things under the surface, but no one talked about them.

We must live in groups; other people are like nutrients for us, and are absolutely essential for our survival.

Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

The best defense for any group of people is what we do to defend other people.

Watch how your mind judges. Judgment comes, in part, out of your own fear. You judge other people because you're not comfortable in your own being. By judging, you find out where you stand in relation to other people. The judging mind is very divisive. It separates. Separation closes your heart. If you close your heart to someone, you are perpetuating your suffering and theirs. Shifting out of judgment means learning to appreciate your predicament and their predicament with an open heart instead of judging. Then you can allow yourself and others to just be, without separation.

I can't bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification...It's these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.

...but I guess it's better for people to shut up rather than rather than say something nasty. -ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTER Chapter 1 page 22

Compromise is not popular. It's not at all popular among young people who these days call themselves "activists." They think compromises are dishonest, opportunistic, humiliating. Not in my vocabulary.

Silence is what causes most of humanity's problems

You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.

Sometimes people confuse silence as wisdom when in fact it is compromise.

Why do you think people cheat?," I asked. "Because they're bored? Because they can? Because they're selfish and think they're entitled to anything they want? Because they don't think they'll get caught?

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.

Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. It is both a failure of understanding and an unwillingness to be understood. To lie is to recoil from relationship.

Anytime you get a group of people, they're going to have different ideas and they're going to want to approach situations in different ways.

I am trying to be kind instead of right.

I think when there's so much information to be eaten up, and so many ways to do it, people cling to groups. I think we, as monkeys, want to live in smaller groups.