#sufficiency

You cannot want more for people than they want for themselves. ↗

— Johnnie Dent Jr.

#independence #self-sufficiency #goal-setting

The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#simplicity #art

If you are apostles at all, you are apostles, not of men, nor by man. Your sufficiency is of God. ↗

— Joseph Barber Lightfoot

#god #man #men #nor #sufficiency

Certainly it is true that we need to maintain independence in certain areas of life. We must not be passive but active agents in this strenuous, challenging world. At the same time, we must not make a fetish out of our self-sufficiency. It is normal and wise for us to rely at moments upon the insights, the courage, and the consolation which our human brothers can give us , knowing full well that they in turn sill rely upon our gifts and strength on other critical occasions. Let us not be too proud to admit weakness at moments and to absorb strength from others in our day of need. The ruthless repression of our common human problems and fears can only make us hard or ill; the sharing of these problems with our human comrades alone can save us from the sin of pride, the idolatry of self-sufficiency. ↗

— Joshua Loth Liebman

#self-sufficiency #courage

For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose. ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#independence #individuality #retire #self #self-assurance

In yourself right now is all the place you've got. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#empowerment #independence #individuality #self-assurance #self-awareness

I should understand the land, not as a commodity, an inert fact to be taken for granted, but as an ultimate value, enduring and alive, useful and beautiful and mysterious and formidable and comforting, beneficent and terribly demanding, worthy of the best of man's attention and care... [My father] insisted that I learn to do the hand labor that the land required, knowing--and saying again and again--that the ability to do such work is the source of a confidence and an independence of character that can come no other way, not by money, not by education. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#land #self-sufficiency #beauty

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#man #need #sufficiency #world

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#ideal #interdependence #man #much #ought

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort. ↗

— Larry Crabb

#christ #comfort #repentance #self #sufficiency