Quotes On Call
Wisdom from trusted sages and unexpected places
“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”
George Bernard Shaw
"Remember the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm, and look forward to the future with confidence..." Pope John Paul II
“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." George Harrison
"You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." Gandhi
"The place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need." Fredrick Buechner
“I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you. Something worth living for—maybe even worth dying for. Something that energizes you, enthuses you, and enables you to keep moving ahead. I can’t tell you what it might be – that’s for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking, and support you in the search.” Sr. Ita Ford, M.M., murdered in El Salvador in 1980, Maryknoll Book of Prayer
“We're on a mission from God.” The Blues Brothers (1980)
“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Isaiah 43:1-3
“You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? …You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself.” Garden State (2004)
“Don't you think that idea is a little half-baked?”
“Oh no, Dad, it's completely baked.” The Graduate (1967)
“Ben, what are you doing?”
“Well, I would say that I'm just drifting. Here in the pool.”
“Why?”
“Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here.” The Graduate (1967)
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” Muhammad Ali
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” Maya Angelou
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I started to appreciate the life of wine, that it's a living thing, that it connects you more to life. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing. I like to think about how the sun was shining that summer and what the weather was like. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I love how wine continues to evolve, how if I open a bottle the wine will taste different than if I had uncorked it on any other day, or at any other moment. A bottle of wine is like life itself - it grows up, evolves and gains complexity.” Sideways (2004)
God: Stop underachieving. Stop squandering the potential I gave you. Have some pride. Joan of Arcadia
God: You don't know how many burdens the boy is already carrying. And I'd like you to consider the possibility that it is you who should take on some of his burdens, not vice versa.
Joan: Adam has burdens?
God: Sometimes they look a lot like gifts. Joan of Arcadia
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
“Faith is like a glass of water. When you're young, the glass is small, and it's easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn't fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.” Dogma (1999)
“I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor, insignificant preamble to somethin' else.” Dazed and Confused (1993)
“I shut my eyes in order to see.” Paul Gauguin
“I just want to be inspired.” Jerry Maguire (1996)
“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 1:26-27; 30-31
“I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.” The Matrix (1999)
“I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.” The Matrix (1999)
“That's enough singing for now, lads... looks like there's dirty work afoot.” Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
“All that spirits desire, spirits attain.” Kahlil Gibran
“For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all.” Kahlil Gibran
“In the Judaism of Jesus’ time (and especially in later rabbinic times) it was customary for prospective disciples to seek out a distinguished teacher and be received by him. In the Gospels, however, this process is reversed, with Jesus actively seeking out his followers. The call of the first disciples in Mark 1:16-20 serves as a model. While walking by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus encounters two sets of brothers – Simon (Peter) and Andrew, and James and John – working at their trade as fishermen. There is no indication that these men have ever met Jesus or know anything about him. Nevertheless, when Jesus says, ‘Follow me,’ they leave behind their family and business, and immediately become his disciples. By way of indirection, the narrative suggests that Jesus’ person and call are so persuasive and attractive that the four fishermen leave everything to follow him.”
Daniel Harrington, S.J., The Church According to the New Testament
“To what is every Christian called by God? All divine vocations, however they may be thought of, are summonses, vocations, to complement the descent of the eternal God into flesh. They are always vocations to earthly ordinariness and death, vocations to believe in the light shining in the darkness , to actualize love that seems to go unrewarded and unrequited, to enter into solidarity with the poor and the ‘shortchanged’ – the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ who are anything but the elite, and seem rather to belong to some sort of hideous, mass-produced humanity. Only through the performance of this task as a mission to ‘those below’ does the Christian really accomplish his or her radical surrender to God’s incomprehensibility as a beatifying surrender through faith, hope and love.” Karl Rahner, The Practice of the Faith
