Parker J. Palmer Quotes

Quotes about:

• The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild animal - tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Animal, Waiting, Soul

  112 Copy quote

• Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Integrity, Self, Joy

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.16, John Wiley & Sons

  169 Copy quote

• Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Mean, Perfection, Doe

  Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.5, John Wiley & Sons

  164 Copy quote

• The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Faith, Pain, Loss

  159 Copy quote

• Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need

  Parker J. Palmer

  Journey, Needs, World

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.36, John Wiley & Sons

  168 Copy quote

• One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Pain, Trying, Misery

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.63, John Wiley & Sons

  94 Copy quote

• We are here not only to transform the world but also to be transformed.

  Parker J. Palmer

  World, Transformed

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.97, John Wiley & Sons

  92 Copy quote

• Community is a place where the connections felt in our hearts make themselves known in the bonds between people, and where the tuggings and pullings of those bonds keep opening our hearts.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Heart, People, Community

  144 Copy quote

• Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Selfish, Self Esteem, Self Confidence

  Parker J. Palmer (2015). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.34, John Wiley & Sons

  91 Copy quote

• Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions…..Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live-but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Real, Heart, Who I Am

  Parker J. Palmer (2015). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.13, John Wiley & Sons

  157 Copy quote

• Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge-and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Running, Educational, Teaching

  Parker J. Palmer, Megan Scribner (2007). “The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal”, p.102, John Wiley & Sons

  142 Copy quote

• The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out - a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Unconditional Love, Force Fields, Self

  Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.60, John Wiley & Sons

  109 Copy quote

• Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.3, John Wiley & Sons

  68 Copy quote

• Leadership is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are part of a community, then leadership is everyone's vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Thinking, Self, Ecosystems

  105 Copy quote

• I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Mean, Light, Darkness

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.70, John Wiley & Sons

  109 Copy quote

• Let’s not forget that American democracy started with ‘We the People’ agreeing to work hard to create ‘a more perfect union.’ We’ve lost the idea that politics begins at home with what happens in families, in neighborhoods, in classrooms, in congregations. We called this democracy into being – and if we want to call this democracy back to its highest values, it’s got to be the us doing that calling. That’s not going to happen if ‘We the People’ don’t know how to talk to one another with civility and hold our differences in a creative, life-giving way.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Hard Work, Home, Ideas

  101 Copy quote

• Storytelling has always been at the heart of being human because it serves some of our most basic needs: passing along our traditions, confessing failings, healing wounds, engendering hope, strengthening our sense of community.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Healing, Heart, Community

  Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.122, John Wiley & Sons

  17 Copy quote

• The power for authentic leadership is found not in external arrangements, but in the human heart.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Heart, Found, Humans

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.76, John Wiley & Sons

  9 Copy quote

• At its deepest level, I think teaching is about bringing people into communion with each other, with yourself as the teacher, and with the subject you are teaching.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Teaching, Thinking

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

  48 Copy quote

• Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one's self. It is not about the absence of other people -- it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people -- it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Mean, Reality, Self

  11 Copy quote

• For me, teaching is about weaving a web of connectedness between myself, my students, the subject I'm teaching, and the larger world.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teaching, World, Weaving

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

  11 Copy quote

• The ancient human question 'Who am I?' leads inevitably to the equally important question 'Whose am I?' - for there is no self outside of relationship.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Self, Important, Ancient

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.17, John Wiley & Sons

  19 Copy quote

• If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Safety, Culture

  Parker J. Palmer (2017). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.48, John Wiley & Sons

  43 Copy quote

• Community cannot take root in a divided life. Long before community assumes external shape and form, it must be present as seed in the undivided self: only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others. Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Integrity, Self, Roots

  Parker J. Palmer (2012). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.92, John Wiley & Sons

  33 Copy quote

• Community doesn't just create abundance - community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Community, World, Might

  Parker J. Palmer (1999). “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, p.108, John Wiley & Sons

  62 Copy quote

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