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.
- Forgiveness
A resilient person tends to rely more on forgiveness than blame.
—Buzz Beeman - Rootedness
The soul wants to keep us rooted in the ground of our own being, resisting the tendency of other faculties, like the intellect and the ego, to uproot us from who we [truly] are.
—Parker J. Parker - Walking in the Garden
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
—Rumi - 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 - 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 - Survival
It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.
—Charles Darwin - Never Be Hopeless
We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.
—Albert Einstein - 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 - Lifestyle Choice
Resilience … is a lifestyle choice.
—Don Grossnickle, Unbreakable Resilience - 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 - Making Time
I spent my young adult years postponing many of the small things that I knew would make me happy … I was fortunate enough to realize that I would never have the time unless I made the time. And then the rest of my life began.
—Christopher Peterson, Positive Psychologist - Flexible Strength
The bamboo that bends in stronger than the oak that resists.
—Japanese Proverb - That which does not kill us …
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
—Friedrich Nietzsche - Art of Living x ½
A good half of the art of living is resilience.
—Alain de Boston - No two leaves …
In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike.
And no two journeys along the same path are alike.
—Paulo Coelho - Positive thoughts yield ….
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, you’ll start having positive results.
—Willie Nelson - Having a Backbone
Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity – and we can build it. It isn’t about having a backbone. It’s about strengthening the muscles around our backbone.
—Sheryl Sandberg - Resilience Skills
Resilience isn’t a single skill. It’s a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road as well as failures, you should focus on emphasizing the positive.
—Jean Chatzky - Change
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
―Viktor Frankl - Talent and Effort
As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.
—Angela Duckworth
