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Donald Miller

Donald Miller Quotes

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Famous Donald Miller Quotes

“It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn't make us good people; it only makes us subdued. Just think about the Congress and Senate and even the president. The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else. It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenSoulHardFatherPresidentSinGeniusBalanceCongressCaughtChecksGood PeopleSenateFounding
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Movie Edition: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“I think the best thing a person can do is to read through the Gospels in the Bible and really look at Jesus, because if a person does this, they will realize that the Jesus they learned about in Sunday school or the Jesus they hear jokes about or the skinny, Gandhi Jesus that exists in their imaginations isn't anything like the real Jesus at all.”

IfsThinkingLooksPersonsDoeRealSchoolJesusCan DoRealizingImaginationJokesBest ThingsSundaySkinnySunday School
Book:Searching for God Knows What
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“I heard once that real love doesn't ask what is in it for me; it just gives unconditionally. It just tries to take the weight out of somebody else's pack, lessen his load, and if it gets reciprocated, that's great, but that isn't what you did it for.”

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Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's attention.”

IfsMenShouldLongTwoEyeEarthGivenNatureAttentionMountainRedStandingWeakPraiseSilentStrangerBreathingAdmirationShoreSunriseFenceThunderMountain Man
Book:Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
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“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way. I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.”

IfsMenWaySometimesEyeUsedNightWatchesSawsHappenedMinutesTheaterJazzHis EyesResolveFifteenOne NightJazz MusicSaxophonePortland
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Movie Edition: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.”

IfsNeedsTryingI CanRealHappensWould BeFallFalling In LoveConvinceYour FavoritePancakesFavorite FoodsGod Is Real
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit.”

IfsMenTryingMindBelieveHeartHardChristianEvilI BelieveReligiousHabitDevilTricksWasting TimeEngaging
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body.”

PeopleIfsWorldWayLongDoeSoulBodySocialWaterLosesAbilityForgetAlivePersonalityBehaviorNormalLong TimeSurfaceDeep Inside
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“Sometimes when I watch my dog, I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories. Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just IS a dog. All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make both her and me happy. It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“It comforts me to think that if we are created beings, the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it. It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality, and so it would seem to us, looking out from within our reality that it would contradict reason. But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater than reality, or it would not be reasonable.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It's a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn't want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.”

PeopleIfsWorldWantMeanDifferentFactsWould BeGuyHairClothesFatsFancyThat GuyDifferent Guys
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims instead of grateful participants.”

IfsWantReasonCharacterStoriesFacesMovingLife IsResponsibilityFailingConflictVictimGratefulBreatheAcknowledgeRemarkableInherentThousand YearsBrillianceUnwillingParticipantsAcknowledgment
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status. It's written in the fabric of our DNA that life used to be beautiful and now it isn't, and if only this and only that, it would be beautiful again.”

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Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“And I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn't diplomatic, and yet I felt like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can't explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. I never felt like that about some of the Christians on the radio. I always thought if I met those people they would yell at me. But it wasn't like that with Jesus.”

PeopleIfsI CanChristianFoundJesusFeltRealizingMetsRadioLike MeDisturbingStraightforwardDiplomatic
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Movie Edition: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there.”

IfsCountrySeemsGuyHouseWatchesNewsTragedyConnectedAirplaneBikeThat GuyKansasDriveway
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“Right, but you know, what would any of us lose by losing our possessions. Maybe we would gain something, like relationships, like the beauty of good friends, intimacy, you know what I mean, man? Like we wouldn't be losing anything if we lost our stuff, we'd be gaining everything.”

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Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is 'Do not fear.' It's in there over two hundred times. That means a couple of things, if you think about it. It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn't let fear boss us around. Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated. And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.”

IfsThinkingMeanTwoImportantPurposeFightingEmotionCoupleSafeHundredBoringGuidesI RealizedTricksSubtleBossCommandmentsSubconsciousSuggestionsMondayHumiliatedDo Not FearManipulativeBoring Life
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness. He changes out of character with the passion of his love.”

IfsTryingDoeCharacterPassionVoiceKindnessAmountEarsSatanConvinceLoserHis LoveBridesVoice Of God
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.”

IfsBelieveBeliefResponsibilityTroubleCostSelfishBeastSubtleCarrieDiscipleship
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“I think if you like somebody you have to tell them. It might be embarrassing to say it, but you will never regret stepping up. I know from personal experience, however, that you should not keep telling a girl that you like her after she tells you she isn't into it. You should not keep riding your bike by her house either.”

IfsThinkingKnowsShouldMightGirlHouseRegretAdmirationRidingBikeEmbarrassingPersonal ExperiencesLike HerNever RegretRiding Your Bike
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“When I walked into the Christian section of a bookstore, the message was clear: Faith is something you do alone. Rick does not have much tolerance for people living alone. He's like Bill Clinton in that he feels everyone's pain. If Rick thinks somebody is lonely, he can't sleep at night. He wants us all to live with each other and play nice so he can get some rest. Tortured soul.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWantFeelsDoeSoulPlayChristianPainNightCommunitySleepClearNiceMessagesLonelyBillsClintonToleranceSectionsWant UBookstoresCan't SleepLiving AloneTortured Souls
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another.”

IfsFirstsKindMayPersonsRealEndsCharacterStoriesLife IsNiceHappenedComfortTransformationBraveReal LifeVersionsEvolveCowardTransformedJerkProtagonists
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“And there is something profoundly humbling about knowing God. I’m not talking about the trinket God or the genie-in-a-lamp God. I mean the God who invented the tree in my front yard, the beauty of my sweetheart, the taste of a blueberry, the violence of a river at flood. There are a lot of religious trends that would have us controlling God, telling us that if we do this that and the other, God will jump through our hoops like a monkey. But this other God, this real God, is awesome and strong, all-encompassing and passionate, and for reasons I will never understand, he wants to father us.”

IfsWantMeanRealReasonFatherStrongReligiousTalkingKnowingViolenceTreeFrontsTasteRiversPassionateGods WillTrendsFloodYardsMonkeysLampsKnowing GodNot TalkingHumblingSweetheartGeniesBlueberriesTrinketsMy Sweetheart
Author:Donald Miller
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