Eugene H. Peterson Quotes

Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be

Nobody forced me to look any way. I just exaggerated what was already there.

I believe in something, even if it's just me.

No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But what then ... what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I'm not really sure who I am, what my identity is. The idea scares me some.

We are each of us responsible for the evil we may have prevented.

...we're told by TV and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change--and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. they become messes and tend to remain messes.

It makes sense that no one else can cause you pain. That's your job.

Your honor, throughout this process I've asked the government and the court to hold me and only me accountable for my actions.

I speak not of men's creeds—they rest between Man and his Maker.

Taking responsibility for your own life is not a Left wing idea

I used to come from the village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in what is false, while we don't mind how hard the truth is for the neighbors outside our walls. I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.

What we suffer, what we endure, what we muff, what we kill, what we miss, what we are guilty of, is done by us, as individuals, in private.

You can't really change somebody completely, deep inside your nature. But I think what I did was admit to myself what kind of a person I was, and sort of get into the idea that that's who I was. And I think preserving that part of myself really helps me make movies.

Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn't have to live down someone else's.

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life--or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else's life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window--is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.

I realized that even in a world of proliferating media venues, online and in print, and on TV and on countless cable channels, the idea that I could be considered an expert on chronic knee pain was I think troubling for society, but very exciting for me.

Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.

My dad's death reminds me of earthquakes - things that shake your foundation.

The development of faith in the Lord is an individual matter. Repentance is also an individual matter. Only as an individual can one be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. Each of us is born individually; likewise, each of us is "born again" individually. Salvation is an individual matter.

There's bad apples in whatever way you want to group people - doesn't matter if it's religious, political or social. The big mistake is generalizing.

An individual chooses and makes himself.

When you're dealing with your life, my God, you gotta tell the truth.

Each man of us is living his own personal work of art, and cannot evade artistic responsibility for his product.

Ultimately, it's not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people's expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.