Basil Pennington Quotes

#1. Benedict and Bernard and the other true monastic peacemakers of history have been effective because they have acted from a deep source of peace within themselves, dating a context for peace. This is the contribution a Christian man or woman of peace can make.

M. Basil Pennington

#2. Using predictive models from engineering and public health, designers will plan safer, healthier cities that could allow us to survive natural disasters, pandemics, and even a radiation calamity that drives us underground.

Annalee Newitz

#3. The quality of your life comes from the constant direction of your focus. Period.

Richard Galloway

#4. We are summoned not only to intimacy but to take possession of our very oneness with the Son of God in the inner life of the Trinity in the communication of the very Love of Father and Son, the Most Holy Spirit. This is what centering prayer is about.

M. Basil Pennington

#5. Even a wasted life stands as an important example and therefore can never be useless.

Mark Wallace

#6. Monks realize well that when the consciousness of one person is raised, the whole of humanity is raised; when the quality of life of one improves, all improve. Or, to put it in another, more biblical, way, the increased health and vitality of any one cell vitalizes the whole Body of Christ. 38

M. Basil Pennington

#7. Love, my ass. The international language is food.

Rachel Vincent

#8. Chin up! We're just trying to make you an Uncle, what's the harm in that?

Rachel Van Dyken

#9. Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.

Richard Ebeling

#10. If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.

Primo Levi

#11. We ought not to READ the scriptures, but listen to them, for our Beloved is present and speaks to us through them. (vs. it being like a love letter sent to us from afar).

M. Basil Pennington

#12. False self is an identity based on what you have, what you do, and what others think about you. In stark contrast to this is the true self in Christ, which is who we are before God and in God - Christ living in us, as Paul put it to the churches in Galatia

Basil Pennington

#13. Is this a Kurdish thing?'
'What?'
'Being deliberately contradictory?

Ian McDonald

#14. Hoping something will happen soon, so she can sit down & watch it with a fresh bowl of popcorn.

Brian Andreas

#15. Organizational structures of today demand too much from a few, and not much at all from everyone else.

Gary Hamel

#16. The pilgrims continue to come. Only God knows what each one of us brings, and with what kind of heart. We come mystically to this cave. We know the mess we bring and the often distracted heart that brings it. But this is all we have
all we are. One stretches out his arms to receive.

M. Basil Pennington