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.
- Inventing hope …
Hope is invented every day.
—James Baldwin - 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 - Walking in the Garden
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
—Rumi - Survival
It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.
—Charles Darwin - Art of Living x ½
A good half of the art of living is resilience.
—Alain de Boston - Courage to Suffer
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
—Viktor Frankl - Freedom to Choose
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
—Viktor Frankl - 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 - 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 - Impact of Hardship
Hardship often prepares ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
—C.S. Lewis - Root Structure
Make your root structure around real people.
—Arthur Brooks, Strength to Strength - 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 - Finding the Way Back Home
If the light is in your heart, you will find your way home.
—Rumi - Within Our Grasp
Resilience is not something that”s just a matter of grit and determination, and it’s not a matter of writing a prescription. It’s hard work! But the answer – the promised land – is within our grasp.
—Jack Shonkoff MD, Resilience (KPJR Films) - Resilience, Humanity, and Strength
To be rendered powerless does not destroy your humanity. Your resilience is your humanity. The only people who lose their humanity are those who believe they have the right to render another human being powerless. They are the weak. To yield and not break, that is incredible strength.
—Hannah Gadsby - Change Orientation
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
—Rumi - Success
Success isn’t about conquering something. It’s being happy with who you are.
—Britney Spears - Flexibility Like Bamboo
The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.
—Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper - Yours in Abundance
May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.
—Jude 1:2 - Flexible Strength
The bamboo that bends in stronger than the oak that resists.
—Japanese Proverb
