We need people, Juliet, to show us our selfishness, to extract the ugliness that reveals itself in our hearts.

have found by experience that an ignorant man who has been an unprofitable hearer has received more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour's close discourse than he did in ten years of public preaching. I know that the public preaching of the gospel is the most excellent means of conversion because we speak to many at once, but it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to an individual sinner.

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.

All societies are addicted to themselves and create deep codependency on them.

Organized religion is an accountability system that holds your feet to the fire long enough to know what the issues really are, who God might just be, and what your own limitations might also be.

So now we move toward the goal, the very purpose of human life, "another intensity…a deeper communion," as Eliot calls it, that which the container is meant to hold, support, and foster.

When we learn to love anyone or anything, It is because they have somehow, if just for a moment, Mirrored us truthfully yet compassionately to ourselves.

At first opposites attract. Then opposites attack.

Maturity is produced through relationships and community.

If you're losing the battle against a persistent bad habit, an addiction, or a temptation, and you're stuck in a repeating cycle of good intention-failure-guilt, you will not get better on your own! You need the help of other people. Some temptations are only overcome with the help of a partner who prays for you, encourages you, and holds you accountable.

The book of Proverbs warns us over and over again about negative associations. Constant exposure to wrong attitudes and wrong values will eventually take its toll in our lives. It is always easier to pull someone down than it is to lift him up. What kind of friends should you have? The kind who bring out the best in you, who lift you up, who encourage you, who make you a better person.

Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up…Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break." Ecclesiastes 4:9 (TEV)