Sharon Brous > Quotes

“Hope is not naive, and hope is not an opiate. Hope may be the single greatest act of defiance against a politics of pessimism and against a culture of despair.”
― Sharon Brous

“Sometimes the holiest work is not to pray them into the light, but instead to join them in the dark.”
― Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

“You show up for the celebration, and you show up for the funeral. Err on the side of presence.”
― Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

“Life is precarious, but you are alive.”
― Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

“do what you need to do today, in case today is your last.” If we believe we live at the edge of death, he’s saying, we’ll bring a different kind of purpose to every encounter. We won’t squander precious time, waiting.”
― Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

“How can we understand a mourner’s prayer that lavishly praises God while completely sidestepping grief, love, and loss? I tried to explain to Jonah how this prayer had taken”
― Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

“The call to awaken to the image of God, to the dignity of every person, has been the driving force of my religious life, the very heart of my faith…. What would it mean to build a society in which every person is treated as an image of the Divine? How would this affect our relationships with our neighbors, our coworkers, the stranger lying beneath the stained blankets and trash outside Starbucks?”
― Sharon Brous