Quotes from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“I wasn't mean; I wasn't evil. I was nice. And let me tell you, a hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“And after years of hearing the heart-cry of women, I am convinced beyond a doubt of this: God wants to be loved. He wants to be a priority to someone. How could we have missed this? From cover to cover, from beginning to end, the cry of God's heart is, "Why won't you choose Me?" It is amazing to me how humble, how vulnerable God is on this point. "You will . . . find me," says the Lord, "when you seek me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). In other words, "Look for me, pursue me -- I want you to pursue me." Amazing. As Tozer says, "God waits to be wanted.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“A man needs a much bigger orbit than a woman. He needs a mission, a life purpose, and he needs to know his name. Only then is he fit for a woman, for only then does he have something to invite her into.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs are men who have come alive.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered; I don’t let a man get close to me who hasn’t faced his wound. Think of the posers you know—are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don’t want clichés; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I’ve been talking about.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“You can't fight a battle you don't think exists.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“In the case of our fair maiden, we have overlooked two very crucial aspects to that myth. On the one hand, none of us ever really believed the sorcerer was real. We thought we could have the maiden without a fight. Honestly, most of us guys thought our biggest battle was asking her out. And second, we have not understood the tower and its relationship to her wound; the damsel is in distress. If masculinity has come under assault, femininity has been brutalized. Eve is the crown of creation, remember? She embodies the exquisite beauty and the exotic mystery of God in a way that nothing else in all creation even comes close to. And so she is the special target of the Evil One; he turns his most vicious malice against her. If he can destroy her or keep her captive, he can ruin the story.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“There is something else I am after, out here in the wild. I am searching for an even more elusive prey . . . something that can only be found through the help of wilderness. I am looking for my heart.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Every man carries a wound. I have never met a man without one. No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Eve is a life giver; she is Adam's ally. It is to both of them that the charter for adventure is given. It will take both of them to sustain life. And they will both need to fight together.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“God’s relationship with us and with our world is just that: a relationship. As with every relationship, there’s a certain amount of unpredictability, and the ever-present likelihood that you’ll get hurt. The ultimate risk anyone ever takes is to love, for as C. S. Lewis says, “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.” But God does give it, again and again and again, until he is literally bleeding from it all. God’s willingness to risk is just astounding—far beyond what any of us would do were we in his position.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion . . . and a man no longer believes he is a man.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“We don’t need accountability groups; we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“If you’ve spent any time around horses, you know a stallion can be a major problem. They’re strong, very strong, and they’ve got a mind of their own. Stallions typically don’t like to be bridled, and they can get downright aggressive—especially if there are mares around. A stallion is hard to tame. If you want a safer, quieter animal, there’s an easy solution: castrate him. A gelding is much more compliant. You can lead him around by the nose; he’ll do what he’s told without putting up a fuss. There’s only one problem: Geldings don’t give life. They can’t come through for you the way a stallion can. A stallion is dangerous all right, but if you want the life he offers, you have to have the danger too. They go together.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“He created Adam for adventure, battle and beauty; he created us for a unique place in his story and he is committed to bringing us back to the original design.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“The Big Lie in the church today is that you are nothing more than “a sinner saved by grace.” You are a lot more than that. You are a new creation in Christ. The New Testament calls you a saint, a holy one, a son of God. In the core of your being you are a good man. Yes, there is a war within us, but it is a civil war. The battle is not between us and God; no, there is a traitor within who wars against our true heart fighting alongside the Spirit of God in us: A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death . . . Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells . . . if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus . . . When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. (Rom. 8:2–3, 9–11 The Message) The real you is on the side of God against the false self. Knowing this makes all the difference in the world.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he’s used all his life. The real journey begins when the false self fails.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“All men die; few men ever really live.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. (Ps. 62:11–12)”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. (Josh. 1:6–7, 9)”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“Every man is a warrior inside. But the choice to fight is his own.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“As Robert Bly laments in Iron John, “Some women want a passive man if they want a man at all; the church wants a tamed man—they are called priests; the university wants a domesticated man—they are called tenure-track people; the corporation wants a . . . sanitized, hairless, shallow man.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

“If we would endeavor, like men of courage, to stand in the battle, surely we would feel the favorable assistance of God from Heaven. For he who giveth us occasion to fight, to the end we may get the victory, is ready to succor those that fight manfully, and do trust in his grace. —THOMAS À KEMPIS”
― John Eldredge, quote from Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

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