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.
- 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 - Founts of Hope
What gives me hope? Young people, the resilience of nature, and the human brain.
—Jane Goodall, ‘The Beat’ Interview (December 2022) - Trees Preach
Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
—Hermann Hesse - 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 - Encountering Hardships
We all encounter hardships. Some we see coming – others take us by surprise. It can be as tragic as the sudden death of a child, as heartbreaking as a relationship that unravels, or as disappointing as a dream that goes unfulfilled. The question is: When these things happen, what do we do next?
—Sheryl Sandberg - Flexible Strength
The bamboo that bends in stronger than the oak that resists.
—Japanese Proverb - 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 - Curiosity vs. Judgment
When meeting someone new, especially someone who looks “different,” try leading with curiosity, instead of judgment.
—Buzz Beeman - Rock Bottom
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
—J.K. Rowling - 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 - 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 - That which does not kill us …
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
—Friedrich Nietzsche - Meaning & Purpose
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
—Viktor Frankl - Forests & Families
Forests are just like human families.
—Suzanne Simard, The Networked Beauty of Forests (TEDEd, 11/2013) - 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 - Determining Your Life Story
It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.
—Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf - Change
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
―Viktor Frankl - 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 - 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
