Jim Wallis Quotes

Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place?

We don't want to put a band-aid on our problems that we keep talking about in society; we want to get down to the nitty gritty and do some surgery.

You just look at the world, and you see things unraveling, and you say, 'I wonder what we ought to do?' Things are seldom crystal clear.

The chief cause of problems is solutions.

The best way to address a problem is at its initial stages.

If you're around the system any length of time, it becomes obvious you have to attack the problem at its root and get to 7- and 8-year old kids.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Every problem we have in this country we created and we can fix it.

We fix symptoms but almost never deal with the underlying cause. We put out fires but we don’t prevent them.

No given measure and no given set of measures will work a perfect cure for any serious evil.

Small issues are really just large ones that haven't been accorded the requisite attention.

The work of woman is not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for the violation of the moral law, but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it.

The fundamental belief of CoreCause is to focus on a preventative rather than recovery stand point. Most of the worlds crises are the effects of a 'core cause' that if addressed would solve the problem entirely.

The answer is always at the site of the problem.

Every evil in the bud is easily crushed: as it grows older, it becomes stronger.

It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol.

Help people with problems, your problems disappear.

I feel like we are in a community of people who sign up for these values who try to maintain them and wherever they are not yet respected, to stand up for people's rights to enjoy them, as well. And this is worth every effort.

I'm not calling for a boycott on voting. But I think it should be very clear that just voting is not going to solve our problems.

Real assistance is to help people to help themselves. We can't do everything for everybody, but there is room for all who try to make it.

I was getting mad at the system or the politicians or the government, and then I realized someone should talk about this stuff, and I have a big, multinational global-youth platform of kids who are going to change the world. So I was like, "I should be doing that. I should be showing this to people. That's my job." And since that time, I've been very happy.

When people wear our Bolivian knits and see who knitted them, they are excited because they know they are supporting this women's cause in Bolivia. And it shows you that we are all connected. It's not a machine making your clothes in a black hole somewhere. There is a human being behind it, and a community there.

You do not reform a world by ignoring it.

We are caught in a trap, a cycle, in which we keep trying to solve the world's problems at every level - except the level at which the problems exist.

You can't solve a problem until you address the problem.