Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes

I think giving up people is a difficult thing.

Sometimes freedom demands a measure of sacrifice.

The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex.

If I don't have anything to sacrifice, I don't have anything to gain. From the Bible I have learned if you want something good, you must sacrifice.

The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality.

You have to do bad things in order to become a hero. You have to make sacrifices.

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.

Renunciation - that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

I've done everything I wanted to do, even if I have had to pay a very high price - which has been the case most of the time.

Progress comes at a price. You have to be willing to make tough calls and take the hits.

To follow Jesus means putting him first, and stripping ourselves of all the things that oppress our hearts.

The greatest of all crosses is self. If we die in part every day, we shall have but little to do on the last. These little daily deaths will destroy the power of the final dying.

The glory of God always comes at the sacrifice of self.

But in good time you'll see that sometimes what matters isn't what one gives but what one gives up.

The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.

Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream-the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother. Renunciation is not asceticism. Are all beggars Christ? Poverty is not a synonym for holiness; often the reverse.

Renunciation is in our blood.

Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.

Nothing of spiritual significance comes without sacrifice. Your spirituality will always be measured by the size of your sacrifice.

So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the 'sacrifice unto the Lord... of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,' (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving 'away all [our] sins' in order to 'know God' (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.

O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection.

There is nothing so high as renunciation of self.

All God's plans have the mark of the cross on them, and all His plans have death to self in them.

Imagine that you had discovered gold or oil on a certain property, and no one else knew about it. Can you see yourself being sad and feeling deprived for having to gather all your resources and sacrifice them in order to buy that property? Hardly. Now you know what it is like to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.

The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus, you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life.