Criss Jami

"An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate."

- Criss Jami

"Everyone judges constantly: positively judging one person is the same as negatively judging everyone else; it is to say that that person is superior in some sense."

- Criss Jami

"To be truly positive in the eyes of some, you have to risk appearing negative in the eyes of others."

- Criss Jami

"Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters."

- Criss Jami

"It is not true that everyone is special. It is true that everyone was once special and still possesses the ability to recover it."

- Criss Jami

"If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place."

- Criss Jami

"Intelligence entails a strong mind, but genius entails a heart of a lion in tune with a strong mind."

- Criss Jami

"A young outcast will often feel that there is something wrong with himself, but as he gets older, grows more confident in who he is, he will adapt, he will begin to feel that there is something wrong with everyone else."

- Criss Jami

"To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect."

- Criss Jami

"To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength."

- Criss Jami

"To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little."

- Criss Jami

"With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die."

- Criss Jami

"I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation."

- Criss Jami

"Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane."

- Criss Jami

"It starts off like climbing a tree or solving a puzzle - poetry, if nothing else, is just fun to write. But deeper into each and every piece, you no longer hesitate to call it work. It's passion."

- Criss Jami

"The crazy creatives are the creatives who never go completely mad. They aren't so easily disheartened by the seemingly endless amounts of scrutiny that creative individuals tend to receive because they, like insanity, are the ones who feed off of opposition and negative feedback and manage to continue along with a healthy ambition. It is the crazy that teaches us to use our gifts wisely and own all the attackers."

- Criss Jami

"You can perhaps, in a number of circumstances, tell yourself that you can't have more than you have until you do better than you're doing, but by all means steer clear of its reverse, the creed of defeat, in saying that you can't do better than you're doing until you can have more than you have."

- Criss Jami

"Create with the heart; build with the mind."

- Criss Jami

"Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out."

- Criss Jami

"Create with the heart, build with the mind."

- Criss Jami

"You can receive all the compliments in the world, but that won’t do a thing unless you believe it yourself."

- Criss Jami

"When I look at a person, I see a person – not a rank, not a class, not a title."

- Criss Jami

"Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction."

- Criss Jami

"Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on."

- Criss Jami

"Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help."

- Criss Jami

"The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal."

- Criss Jami

"A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness."

- Criss Jami

"If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences."

- Criss Jami

"As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning."

- Criss Jami

"Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live."

- Criss Jami

"You get hit the hardest when trying to run or hide from a problem. Like the defense on a football field, putting all focus on evading only one defender is asking to be blindsided."

- Criss Jami

"The pressure of adversity is the most powerful sustainer of accountability. It's as though everything you do is multiplied by 50 in order to surpass those with a head-start. I was never capable of slacking when at the threshold of failure."

- Criss Jami

"Seeing the glass as half empty is more positive than seeing it as half full. Through such a lens the only choice is to pour more. That is righteous pessimism."

- Criss Jami

"It is ironic that constructive thinkers are often misunderstood as negative, as they differ from those longing for positivity: constructive thinkers have been conditioned to find positive in negative rather than suffering from the negative in negative. Or as Paul the Apostle wrote, 'I have learned the secret to contentment in any and every circumstance.' He was right. Indeed the Lord is our strength, especially under the commandment to love one another. Otherwise we are nothing and easily thrown about by both our own and other people's mind control in a painful, mental, physical desperation to run from every thought, every thing, and every one not seeming so positive or immediately beneficial to us."

- Criss Jami

"I think that I am too warm to negatively judge individuals, yet I am cold enough to negatively judge humanity."

- Criss Jami