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Paul Tournier

Paul Tournier Books

Physician

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“I have treated many artists. There are among them many neurotics, so many that one finally comes to believe that one cannot be an artist without being neurotic. Again I found in them that inner conflict which is characteristic of modern man: the conflict between a right intuition (namely, that their vocation has fundamental importance for the destiny of humanity) and a false idea (namely, that art is superfluous luxury).”

ArtSanity
Book:The Whole Person in a Broken World
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“Now, we shall be able to judge the extent of the spiritual undernourishment if we look at all these movements from another angle: not as errors but rather as attempts to find healing. I use this comparison: For a long time medical men combated fever as if it itself constituted the illness. Medicine today inclines rather to respect it, not only as a symptom of the disease but of the struggle of the organism against the disease. True, it is this struggle which makes it ill, and yet this very struggle is also the proof of its vitality and is the necessary way to healing.”

HealingSanity
Book:The Whole Person in a Broken World
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“Disgusted by the abuses to which it led, humanity repressed Christianity by which it had so long been dominated. Repressed, but not eliminated. Herein lies, I believe, the essence of the tragedy of modern times. The modern man lives as if Christianity were a negligible hypothesis with no relation to the concrete realities of the world and society. And yet at the bottom of his heart this man remains impregnated with Christianity, so that he lives in a state of perpetual ambivalence with regard to it.”

Religion
Book:The Whole Person in a Broken World
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“God's favorites, especially God's favorites, are not immune from the bewildering times when God seems silent. Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either. Faith demands uncertainty, confusion. The Bible includes many proofs of God's concern - some quite spectacular - but no guarantess. A guarantee would, after all, preclude faith.”

SeemsFaithOpportunityReligiousDoubtDemandConcernSilentProofConfusionUncertaintyGuaranteesSpectacularImmuneProof Of God
Author:Paul Tournier
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“In order to make a success of old age, one must begin it earlier, and not try to postpone it as long as possible. In the middle of life we must stop to think, to organize our existence with an eye to a still distant future, instead of allowing ourselves to be entirely sucked into the professional and social whirl. It is then that it is important to give place little by little to less external activities, less technical and more cultural, which will survive the moment of retirement.”

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Book:Learn to Grow Old
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“Christian faith does not involve repressing one's anxiety in order to appear strong. On the contrary, it means recognizing one's weakness, accepting the inward truth about oneself, confessing one's anxiety, and still to believe, that is to say that the Christian puts his trust not in his own strength, but in the grace of God.”

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Book:Learn to Grow Old
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“Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.”

LifeMeanDoeRunningRomanceSufferingChangeAcceptingStruggleAcceptanceAdversityComplexesInjusticeContraryPsychologicalSelf AcceptanceRunning AwayPhysiciansResignationHandicapsHeredityAccepting LifeAcceptance And Change
Book:The Meaning of Persons
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“We are nearly always longing for an easy religion, easy to understand and easy to follow; a religion with no mystery, no insoluble problems,no snags; a religion that would allow us to escape from our miserable human condition; a religion in which contact with God spares us all strife, all uncertainty,all suffering and all doubt; in short, a religion without a cross”

HumansProblemSufferingEasyDoubtMysteryConditionsCrossesLongingContactMiserableUncertaintyHuman ConditionSparesStrife
Book:Reflections: a personal guide for life's most crucial questions
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“The experience of being in between-between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. It is like the time when a trapeze artist lets go the bars and hangs in midair, ready to catch another support: it is a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, or extraordinary aliveness.”

HomeArtistSupportDoubtDangerReadyLetting GoExpectationsExtraordinaryBarsUncertaintyExcitementDestinationAdulthoodAdolescenceTrapezeTrapeze Artists
Author:Paul Tournier
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“What happens then is like what happens when we separate a jigsaw puzzle into its fuve hundred pieces: The over-all picture disappears. This is the state of modern medicine: It has lost the sense of the unity of man. Such is the price it has paid for its scientific progress. It has sacrificed art to science.”

MenArtStatesHappensLostPiecesProgressModernHundredPaidMedicineUnityDisappearMedicalPuzzlesJigsawScientific ProgressModern MedicineJigsaw Puzzles
Book:The Healing of Persons
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“God leads us step by step, from event to event. Only afterward, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us.”

WayLooksImportantWholeMomentsFeelingsLightCertainStepsKnowingOur LivesProgressEventsSurveysImportant MomentsMoments In Our Lives
Book:Reflections: a personal guide for life's most crucial questions
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