John Shelby Spong Quotes
The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world.
Quotes to Explore
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My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by 21, just like all the girls in this room.'
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If you are a girl dressing up in the morning thinking about the whole world having a point of view on what you are wearing, it takes the pleasure out of getting dressed.
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In terms of my involvement in 'don't ask, don't tell' and marriage equality and anti-bullying and social emotional learning in schools - these are all things that arise out of my relationship with the world and with my fans.
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I have been fighting climate change for two decades, and people often ask me how I remain hopeful in the face of extreme weather and grim forecasts. The answer is simple: I see countless solutions spreading across the nation and across the world. But we need more investment.
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So many songs are just a wink to the audience, but people take them seriously. 'My Humps?' C'mon!
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I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school, and our life the classrooms.
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I think it would be funny for people to read in obituaries of me that my major contribution to the arts was the popularization of the phrases 'neutral facial expression' and 'screaming in agony.'
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If you've been in a film that's seen by millions and millions and millions of people, you're more likely to be recognized for that than for your theater performances, which were seen by considerably less people. Why would I get upset by that?
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It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.
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It makes me happy to think that this world of art-as-investment is a minuscule fraction of the art world overall. Most people who create, trade and own art do it for a much simpler reason. They just like it.
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What could a smartphone do for me that would make people go out and buy another one?
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I wanted to inspire people not to work under a bamboo ceiling. Whatever you are - yellow, black, white, brown - you don't have to allow your skin to define who you are or how you operate your business. There's not one face to anything.
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It's not the people in the South who create racial problems - it's the people who are governing.
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I think probably the only thing that is around in these songs is that I was really lonely when I wrote a lot of them. But it was really by my own choosing because I was devoting myself to songwriting and dancing and I wasn't really going out and seeing people.
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My house was a guest house of many Jaina saints, Hindu monks, Sufi mystics, because my grandfather was interested in all of these people.
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The reality is the world is a really, really big place, and there's a lot of people running around with a lot on their mind. And you really have to figure out how to build a company that can put on a message that can actually reach people and have an impact globally.
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When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don't exist because you've crushed anyone's desire to do the right thing with all these incentives.
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When you are away from the game and busy with other areas, you realize that the world does not revolve around baseball.
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Somebody said to me this morning, 'To what do you attribute your longevity?' I don't know. I mean, I couldn't have planned my life out better. By all accounts I should be dead! The abuse I put my body through: the drugs, the alcohol, the lifestyle I've lived the last 30 years!
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Education is a cause very close to me. What matters is encouraging my fans to focus on their education, because only an educated generation can ensure a better future. Even when I was on tour, I did my homework and studied.
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Regardless of your support, you need to make work.
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I'm not a big punk fan, but I love a good, solid screamer.
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I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.
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The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world.
