Home > Author > Gregory Boyle

Gregory Boyle QUOTES

Gregory Boyle QUOTES

1 " Compassion isn't just about feeling the pain of others; it's about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. 'Be compassionate as God is compassionate,' means the dismantling of barriers that exclude. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

2 " Success and failure, ultimately, have little to do with living the gospel. Jesus just stood with the outcasts until they were welcomed or until he was crucified — whichever came first. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

3 " Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakeable goodness. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

4 " Kinship– not serving the other, but being one with the other. Jesus was not “a man for others”; he was one with them. There is a world of difference in that. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

5 " The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. "

― Gregory Boyle , Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

6 " Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

7 " If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

8 " There is no force in the world better able to alter anything from its course than love. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

9 " No daylight to separate us.

Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

10 " You actually abolish slavery by accompanying the slave. We don't strategize our way out of slavery, we solidarize, if you will, our way toward its demise. We stand in solidarity with the slave, and by doing so, we diminish slavery's ability to stand. "

― Gregory Boyle

11 " With That Moon Language Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.” Of course you do not do this out loud; Otherwise, Someone would call the cops. Still though, think about this, This great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one Who lives with a full moon in each eye That is always saying With that sweet moon Language What every other eye in this world Is dying to Hear. "

― Gregory Boyle

12 " Jesus was not a man for others. He was one with others. There is a world of difference in that. Jesus didn't seek the rights of lepers. He touched the leper even before he got around to curing him. He didn't champion the cause of the outcast. He was the outcast. He didn't fight for improved conditions for the prisoner. He simply said, 'I was in prison.'

The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place—with the outcast and those relegated to the margins. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

13 " Sometimes, it only seems that the hurt wins. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

14 " If you read Scripture scholar Marcus Borg and go to the index in search of 'sinner,' it'll say, 'see outcast.' This was a social grouping of people who felt wholly unacceptable. The world had deemed them disgraceful and shameful, and this toxic shame, as I have mentioned before, was brought inside and given a home in the outcast.

Jesus' strategy is a simple one: He eats with them. Precisely to those paralyzed in this toxic shame, Jesus says, 'I will eat with you.' He goes where love has not yet arrived, and he 'gets his grub on.' Eating with outcasts rendered them acceptable. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

15 " If our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

16 " Compassion isn't just about feeling the pain of others; it's about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. 'Be compassionate as God is compassionate,' means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.

In Scripture, Jesus is in a house so packed that no one can come through the door anymore. So the people open the roof and lower this paralytic down through it, so Jesus can heal him. The focus of the story is, understandably, the healing of the paralytic. But there is something more significant than that happening here. They're ripping the roof off the place, and those outside are being let in. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

17 " What if we ceased to pledge our allegiance to the bottom line and stood, instead, with those who line the bottom? "

― Gregory Boyle , Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

18 " But I know, with all the certainty of my being, that Jesus has no interest in my doing this. To just say, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I'm your biggest fan," causes him to stare at his watch, tap his feet, and order a double Glenlivet on the rocks with a twist. Fandom is of no interest to Jesus. What matters to him is the authentic following of a disciple. We all settle for saying, "Jesus," but Jesus wants us to be in the world who he is. "

― Gregory Boyle , Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

19 " The poet Rumi writes, 'Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging gold to all who ask. Live at the empty heart of paradox. I’ll dance there with you—cheek to cheek. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

20 " You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear. "

― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion