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Richard Rohr Quotes

Richard Rohr is an American Franciscan friar ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. He is a known inspirational speaker and has published numerous recorded talks and books, including The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation , Yes, And...: Daily Meditations, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.

✵ 20. March 1943
Richard Rohr photo
Richard Rohr: 43 quotes20 likes

Famous Richard Rohr Quotes

“So much is happening on earth that cannot be fixed or explained, but it can be felt and suffered. I think a Christian is one who, along with Jesus, agrees to feel, to suffer the pain of the world.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 129

“The most common one-liner in the Bible is, "Do not be afraid." Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity but to change the mind of humanity about God. It is “simple and beautiful;” as Einstein said great truth would always have to be.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self

“Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Transformation is often more about UNLEARNING than learning.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward

Richard Rohr Quotes about God

“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

“every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined—by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence”

Richard Rohr

“The ego hates losing – even to God.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.”

Richard Rohr

Source: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 127

Richard Rohr Quotes about people

“Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“… religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the 12 Steps

“In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it's difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life, which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Richard Rohr Quotes

“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”

Richard Rohr

“I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.”

Richard Rohr

Variant: Do not get rid of your hurts until you have learned all that they have to teach you.
Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation

“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!”

Richard Rohr

Source: Radical Grace: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr

“Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“When you get your,'Who am I?', question right, all of your,'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“there is no path to peace, but peace itself is the path.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

“The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“The big truth for men is that often we have to leave home in the first half of life before we can return home at a later stage and find our soul there.”

Richard Rohr

“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation

“I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self

“We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That’s not primal freedom. That’s a secondary or even tertiary freedom. The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances. That’s what great religion offers us. That’s what real prayer offers us. That’s why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective. Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 93

“The world, the system, moves forward out of fear. That’s why they have to threaten us to play the game. We’re threatened with loss of job, money, reputation, or prestige. It’s all based on fear.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 85-86

“Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 82

“Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. It just increases our “stuckness” in the old world. As does a lot of poor psychotherapy. Cheap religion teaches us how to live successfully in a sick system.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 132

“Power should be entrusted only to those who do not seek it.”

Richard Rohr

"Politics and Spirituality conference, Washington D.C. 2006"

“The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo—even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.”

Richard Rohr

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (2011)

“God does not love you because you are good, God loves you because God is good.”

Richard Rohr

"Politics and Spirituality conference, Washington D.C. 2006"

“What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It’s we who are.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 110

“Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest, humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren’t focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy, glib answers. That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile.”

Richard Rohr

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 33

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