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" The desire of God's heart is immeasurably larger than our imaginations can conjure. "
Greg Boyle
Larger
Than
Desire
Related Quotes:
" You can't reason with gang violence: you can't talk to it, sit it at the table, and negotiate with it. "
Greg Boyle
Gang
Table
Reason
" God can get tiny if we're not careful. "
Greg Boyle
Tiny
Careful
Get
" Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one. "
Greg Boyle
Same
Life
Me
" The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.' "
Greg Boyle
Will
Failure
Spirit
" People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense. "
Greg Boyle
People
Tough
Smart
" You are exactly what God had in mind when he made you. "
Greg Boyle
God
Exactly
Made
" The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives. "
Greg Boyle
World
Wrong
Out
" Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming. "
Greg Boyle
Doing
Want
Worth
" Relapse happens, especially when you're dealing with folks who are frankly the least likely to succeed based on their own pasts and difficulties. We can work with the most likely to succeed. I'm not interested in that. "
Greg Boyle
Own
You
Succeed
" Delegations from all over the world visit Homeboy Industries and scratch their heads as we tell them of our difficulty in placing our people in jobs after their time with us. Americans' seeming refusal to believe in a person's ability to redeem himself strikes these folks as foreign indeed. "
Greg Boyle
Believe
Person
People
" I think not everything that works helps, and not everything that helps works. "
Greg Boyle
Helps
Works
Think
" No kid is seeking anything when he joins a gang; he's always fleeing something. He's not being pulled; he's being pushed by the circumstances in which he finds himself. "
Greg Boyle
Always
He
Kid
" The employer is not going to choose the gang member who's just been released from prison: they're going to choose the person with the skills. "
Greg Boyle
Choose
Skills
Person
" The highest hallmark of a civilized society is not the rapidity by which it exacts vengeance, but its ability to hold victim and victimizer in its compassionate heart. "
Greg Boyle
Vengeance
Society
Hold
" I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago. "
Greg Boyle
Up
Years
Kinda
" We don't need a specialized gang unit. We need patrol officers who specialize in knowing their community. "
Greg Boyle
Need
Who
Knowing
" I would hope that government officials have a healthy respect for the complexity of the gang problem. They should never lose sight of the fact that there are human beings involved. There is no single solution. "
Greg Boyle
Lose
Hope
Government
" I want to be prophetic and take stands and stand with those on the margins, and I want to laugh as much as I can. "
Greg Boyle
Take
I Can
Laugh
" So complex are all the ingredients that cause gang membership that it seems virtually impossible to isolate one solution that can address them all and thereby manufacture a hope for the future upon which these kids can rely. "
Greg Boyle
Gang
Hope
Future
" Abject poverty, political instability, torture, and other abuses push thousands across our border. There is not a deterrent imaginable that equals the conditions that force their migration. "
Greg Boyle
Political
Torture
Push
" At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light. "
Greg Boyle
Vigilant
Light
Best
" In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma. "
Greg Boyle
Gangs
Dilemma
Gang
" People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem. "
Greg Boyle
Problem
People
Gang
" The powers, conditions, and desires that propel Mexicans and Central Americans into this country are so fundamental, so vast, that no action, legislative or other-wise, can discourage this flight. "
Greg Boyle
Action
Flight
Vast
" Young people can change and grow. Every parent knows that. "
Greg Boyle
Parent
People
Young
" You don't really get Jesus saying very often there'll be pie in the sky when you die. He's really talking about now and today, and it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to delight in what's right in front of you. "
Greg Boyle
Pie
Sky
Die
" When the vastness of God meets the restriction of our own humanity, words can't hold it. The best we can do is find the moments that rhyme with this expansive heart of God. "
Greg Boyle
Moments
Find
Best
" What do we know to be true about gang violence? We know we will fail if we fixate on the symptoms and not address what undergirds it. "
Greg Boyle
Know
True
Gang
" The idea that any law enforcement agency or person would ever know these gang members better than Homeboy Industries is impossible. "
Greg Boyle
Law
Know
Impossible
" As a society, we come up lacking in many of the marks of compassion and wisdom by which we measure ourselves as civilized. "
Greg Boyle
Measure
Wisdom
Society