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35 Sensational Paul Tournier Quotes

Paul Tournier was a Swiss physician and author best known for his pastoral counseling. With a global audience, Tournier made a significant impact on spiritual and psychosocial care. Tournier is known as being one of the most famous Christian physicians in the 20th century. Here is a look at some of the most notable Paul Tournier quotes ever recorded.

“Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle.”

“At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.”

“Christian faith does not involve repressing one’s anxiety in order to appear strong.”

“Everything that is worthwhile in life is scary. Choosing a school, choosing a career, getting married, having kids – all those things are scary. If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.”

“I am convinced that nine out of every ten persons seeing a psychiatrist do not need one. They need someone who will love them with God’s love…and they will get well.”

“If there had been no fear of failure, neither would there be any joy in success.”

“In order to really understand, we need to listen, not reply. We need to listen long and attentively.”

“It is quite clear that between love and understanding there is a very close link…He who loves understands, and he who understands loves.”

“Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.”

“Life can become once more a grand adventure if we will surrender it to god. He brings one adventure to an end, only to open another to us. With him we must be ready for anything.”

“Listen to all the conversations of our world, between nations as well as between individuals. They are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.”

“Many ordinary illnesses are nothing but the expression of a serious dissatisfaction with life.”

“Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn’t need if you had stayed single.”

“Most illnesses do not, as is generally thought, come like a bolt out of the blue. The ground is prepared for years through faulty diet, intemperance, overwork, and moral conflicts, slowly eroding the subject’s vitality.”

“No one can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person.”

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.”

“Our task is to live our personal communion with Christ with such intensity as to make it contagious.”

“Recounting of a life story, a mind thinking aloud leads one inevitably to the consideration of problems which are no longer psychological but spiritual.”

“Sickness may be the solemn occasion of God’s intervention in a person’s life.”

“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.”

“That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.”

“The adventurous life is not one exempt from fear, but on the contrary, one that is lived in full knowledge of fears of all kinds, one in which we go forward in spite of our fears.”

“The experience of being in between-between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith.”

“The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. F”

“The price that has to be paid for finding truly personal life is a very high one. It is a price in terms of the acceptance of responsibility.”

“The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, is the discovery of oneself through contact with other people, and its condition is self-commitment in the dialogue.”

“The really important thing in life is not the avoidance of mistakes, but the obedience of faith.”

“The worst thing is not being wrong, but being sure one is not wrong.”

“There are two things we cannot do alone. One is to be married and the other is to be a Christian.”

“To be right is dangerous, it has ever been the source of all intolerance.”

“We are always looking for a grand program of action full of great ideas, when the thing is to begin by obeying the little ideas.”

“We do not posses God. We find him periodically.”

“Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.”

“Woe to the man who tries to remain objective and to maintain a wide perspective: every one will label him as an enemy.”

“Your manner of life now is already determining your life in those years of old age and retirement, without your realizing it even, and perhaps without your giving enough thought to it.”

Communication is key in everything we do.

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