We offer the following quotations as potential sources of inspiration and food-for-thought. If you have a quote on some aspect of resilience that you would like to share with others, please let us know via our Contact Us form.
- Positive thoughts yield ….
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, you’ll start having positive results.
—Willie Nelson - Resilience and Adversity
Resilience is overcoming adversity, whilst also potentially changing, or even dramatically transforming, (aspects of) that adversity.
—Angie Hart - Turning Misfortunes
There are few misfortunes in the world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill.
—Nelson Mandela - Rain Dance
Life is not about waiting for the rain to stop. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.
—Deborah Fishman, Life is in the Transitions - Lifestyle Choice
Resilience … is a lifestyle choice.
—Don Grossnickle, Unbreakable Resilience - Joy in the Spirit of Creating
In a lot of ways, art is a demonstration of resilience. Art in the spirit of making, in the spirit of creating — it’s like the closest thing to joy. They always say laughter is the best medicine. Well, so is joy.
—Nehemiah Dixon III, Phillips Collection - Impact of Hardship
Hardship often prepares ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
—C.S. Lewis - Walking in the Garden
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
—Rumi - Founts of Hope
What gives me hope? Young people, the resilience of nature, and the human brain.
—Jane Goodall, ‘The Beat’ Interview (December 2022) - Finding the Way Back Home
If the light is in your heart, you will find your way home.
—Rumi - Our protectors …
Trees are, and always have been, dear to us. We see in them our protectors. We sense in them the continuity of life. And we find in their steadfastness, our own steadfastness … Trees hold us fast in their embrace.
—Jill Neimark, The Hugging Tree - I hate the word ‘resilient’
I hate the word ‘resilient’ because … it takes away from the effort and energy and choices someone makes to overcome an obstacle.
—Daniella Anderson, Broken Places - Returning to First Principles
It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to the first principles of hope and enjoyment.
—Bram Stoker, Dracula - Inventing hope …
Hope is invented every day.
—James Baldwin - The Heart is your Center …
The heart is your center. It’s as central to your soul as your nose is to your face. Yet even though “it’s as plain as the nose on your face” this most obvious thing is often the easiest to ignore.
—Peter Kreeft - Wisdom’s Root
Wisdom has its root in Goodness.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson - Forest Canopy
To really feel a forest canopy one must use different senses, and often the most useful one is the sense of imagination.
—Joan Maloof - Forgiveness
A resilient person tends to rely more on forgiveness than blame.
—Buzz Beeman - Courage, Serenity, Insight
Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.
—The Serenity Prayer (attribution uncertain) - Dare to fail …
Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.
—Robert F. Kennedy
