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.
- 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
- Change Orientation
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
—Rumi - 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 - All Our Wisdom
All our wisdom is stored in the trees.
—Santosh Kalwar - 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 - Resilience and Humanity
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 - 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) - Success
Success isn’t about conquering something. It’s being happy with who you are.
—Britney Spears - 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 - Positive thoughts yield ….
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, you’ll start having positive results.
—Willie Nelson - Change
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
―Viktor Frankl - Mighty trees will fall …
Mighty trees will fall, their trunks becoming fertile ground for new growth and life yet unseen. So it would be with our elders and all of the generations to come after them.
—Barbara Becker, Heartwood - 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 - Walking in the Garden
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
—Rumi - 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 - Rightly Ordered Soul
If the soul is rightly ordered, it can handle anything.
—Bishop Robert Barron, How to Lose Your Soul (And How to Save It) - Root Structure
Make your root structure around real people.
—Arthur Brooks, Strength to Strength - Trim your sails!
She stood in the storm and, when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.
—Elizabeth Edwards, Attorney and Author - Broken places
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
—Ernest Hemingway - The Inner Core
The “soul” is that still point at the heart of every person, that deepest center, that point of encounter with the transcendent yet incarnate mystery of God. When the soul is healthy, it is in a living relationship with God; it is firmly rooted in the soil of meaning and is the deepest center of the person.
—Bishop Robert Barron, Lenten Gospel Reflection (3/24/2020)
