#idol

The temptation is to make an idol of our own experience, to assume our pain is more singular than it is. Experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself: we mean nothing unless and until our hard-won meanings are internalized and catalyzed within the lives of others. There is something I am meant to see, something for which my own situation and suffering are the lens, but the cost of such seeing—I am just beginning to realize—may very well be any final clarity or perspective on my own life, my own faith. That would not be a bad fate, to burn up like the booster engine that falls away from the throttling rocket, lighting a little dark as I go. ↗

— Christian Wiman

#idolizing #meaning #experience

In the past, I had my idols but today I enjoy learning from all the soccer I watch. ↗

— Andres Iniesta

#had #i #idols #in the past #learning

My idol was Marilyn Monroe, who was a size 16, I think, and curvy in all the right places. I will never be stick thin. I remember a shoot where I had to get into these tiny hot pants, and I thought, 'God, I wish I hadn't eaten.' ↗

— Katherine Jenkins

#eaten #get #god #had #hadn

Any time you're mentioned in the same breath as Tony Esposito, for whatever reason, it's a great honor. He's one of my idols. He's one of the greatest of all time. ↗

— Curtis Joseph

#breath #great #greatest #honor #idols

I'm definitely doing better. I never realized that I would get the support that I've gotten from everybody - from my fans, to people that I've idolized my whole life. So it's overwhelming, it's amazing and I believe that everything happens for a reason so I'm in a really good place right now. ↗

— Pia Toscano

#believe #better #definitely #doing #everybody

When I first found out that I was an Idol finalist, I cried tears of happiness. I was just so happy, and my family was there and the fact that got to see that moment and share that moment with me was just everything to me. ↗

— Pia Toscano

#everything #fact #family #finalist #first

When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God's. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#forgiveness

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#believed #could #curious #handling #how

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#government #idolatry #organisation

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#god #idols #worship #age