Here are some of my favorite quotes and positive affirmations, referenced where applicable:
1. Life is not about being given the best of circumstances, but doing your best with the circumstances given.
2. Looking imperfect is natural, and looking natural is perfect.
3. “As you wish” ~ Wesley, Princess Bride
4. Live as if you died 20 years ago, and your fears along with it ~ Malcolm X
5. The best revenge is success in your life and in the Hereafter
6. Pain is inevitable, suffering is not.
7.”It always seems impossible until it’s done” ~ Nelson Mandela
8. Every gift is a challenge, and every challenge has its gift ~Susan Pease Gadoua, http://tinyurl.com/6slln9u
9. “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time” ~ Andre Gide
10. “Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass” ~ Mary Kay Blakely
11. “He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything” ~ Arabic proverb
12. “Only those who can avoid love can avoid grief. The point is to learn from grief and remain vulnerable to love” ~ John Brantner
13. “Anger is a great force. If you can control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world” ~ William Shenstone
14. “Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience” ~ Victoria Holt
15. “The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy” ~ Jim Rohn
16. “Feelings are much like waves, we can’t stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf” ~ Jonatan Martensson
17. “We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey” ~ Kenji Miyazawa
18. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear” ~ Ambrose Redmoon
19. “Adversity does not build character. Adversity reveals character” ~ Sandra Dahl, widow of Joseph Dahl, captain of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.
20. “Every one of us alone has the power to direct the course of our lives by choosing what actions we will or won’t take. While sometimes it’s easier to believe you don’t have a choice, the reality is that you always have a choice to behave differently” ~ Francine Ward
21. “The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it” ~ Napoleon
22. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
23. “One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead” ~ Oscar Wilde
24. I accept reality today and don’t let myself dwell on “if only” ~ Ch. 24, by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
25. When I feel stressed, I will slow down and ask for help when I need it. I will not make any decisions I don’t have to make today ~ Ch. 23, by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
26. “What people think of you is none of your business” ~ Anonymous
27. I will not take personally the reactions others may have to my divorce ~ Ch. 25, by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
28. “Love means exposing yourself to the pain of being hurt, deeply hurt, by someone you trust” ~ Renita Weems, Ch. 26, by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
29. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love” ~ Washington Irving, Ch. 27 Ch. 26, by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
30. “Anger always comes from frustrated expectations” ~ Elliott Larson, Ch 28 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
31. “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them– every day begin the task anew” ~ Saint Francis de Sales, Ch.29 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
32. “I’ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, not on our circumstances” ~ Martha Washington
33. I will focus on seeing things in a more positive light today, Ch. 30 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
34. “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way” ~ E. L. Doctorow
35. I keep my eyes on the path directly ahead of me and I know that the way will be made clear to me as I go ~ Ch. 31 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
36. “It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head” ~ Sally Kempton
37. I will focus on having only constructive thoughts about my marriage and myself ~ Ch. 32 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
38. “The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one” ~ Joan Baez, Ch. 34 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
39. I accept the feelings of ambivalence with each choice presented to me, and I move through the process even so ~ Ch. 35 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
40. “You can tell how important something is today by measuring its potential future impact on your life” ~ Brian Tracy, Ch. 37 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
41. “The quieter you become, the more you can hear” ~ Baba Ram Dass
42. I will give myself the gift of quiet solitude so that I can hear, see, listen and feel better, Ch. 38 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
43. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” ~ Henry David Thoreau
44. “Weep not that the world changes– did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep” ~ William Cullen Bryant, Ch. 40 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
45. “The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself” ~ George Bernard Shaw
46. I choose only supportive people to be in my life today ~ Ch. 41 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
47. I can handle all that I am being asked to handle right now ~ Ch. 42. by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
48. “It’s always darkest before the dawn” ~ Proverb, Ch. 43 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
49. “There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity” ~ General Douglas MacArthur
50. I enjoy my sense of security, knowing that real security is an illusion ~ Ch. 44 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
51. In the midst of my divorce, I will plant the seeds of new thoughts, feelings, and habits in preparation of my new life ~ Ch. 45 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
52. “Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
53. I cannot force my heart to feel whole again. I will wait for resolution patiently ~ Ch. 46 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
54. “But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Ch. 47 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
55. “The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference” ~ Mal Pancoast
56. I am closer every day to the freedom that indifference brings ~ Ch. 48 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
57. “In a world filled with hate, we must dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe” ~ Michael Jackson
58. “The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine” ~ Mike Murdock, Ch. 51 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
59. “The chief cause of problems is solutions” ~ Eric Sevareid, Ch. 52 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
60. I accept that there is no solution without a new set of problems. Therefore, I choose wisely today, accepting the bad with the good ~ Ch. 52 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
61. “Too often the pain from our past and our fears of the future keep us stuck and unable to see our lives as a whole” ~ Debbie Ford
62. “I often tell people that they will know they have let go when they no longer identify themselves by their divorce” ~Ch. 53 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
63. “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got” ~ W. L. Bateman
64. I will try a new behavior today in an attempt to get different results ~ Ch. 54 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
65. “Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts. It’s what you do with what you have left” ~ William Cowper
66. “Faith does not rely on knowing anything with certainty. It requires only the courage to accept that whatever happens is for the highest good” ~ Dan Millman, Ch. 56 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
67. “There is no coming to consciousness without pain” ~ Carl Jung, Ch. 57 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
68. “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned” ~ The Buddha, Ch. 58 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
69. “Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still” ~ Chinese Proverb
70. As with many changes in life, sometimes you do have to go backwards in order to move forward ~ Ch. 59 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
71. “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” ~ E. M. Forster
72. “Although it sometimes can help to make sense of what occurred, understanding why something happened doesn’t change the fact that it did happen. Acceptance, therefore, can’t be based on waiting for a satisfactory explanation or on your understanding of the events that have taken place” ~ Ch. 60 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
73. “Forgiveness allows you to be at peace with the person you chose to be with by repairing any damage from when you were mistreated. It is how grief resolves itself and turns from the past to the future” ~ Fred Luskin, Ch. 61 by S. Gadoua, Stronger Day By Day
74. ”There is no perfect love, Lily”, August tells her in The Secret Life of Bees. And it continues with further quotes:
“some things don’t matter much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart–now, that matters. The whole problem with people is…they know what matters, but they don’t choose it…The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”
“I hadn’t been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called ‘bee yard etiquette’. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
“After you get stung, you can’t get unstung no matter how much you whine about it.”
“All my life I’ve thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself.”
“The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.”
“I have noticed that if you look carefully at people’s eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.”
“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard.”
“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”
“You gotta imagine what’s never been.”
“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”
“At forty-two, I had never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem–my chronic inability to astonish myself. I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they’re being kind. I didn’t fall. I dove.”
“The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed…The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning.
As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing.
I also needed to hear other women’s stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman’s story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven’t seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd
“Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.”
“You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.”
“When it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you’re not afraid.”
“I know you’ve run away – everybody gets the urge to do that some time – but sooner or later you’ll want to go home.”
“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it’s social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.”
“You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside”
“What’s wrong with living in a dream world? You have to wake up.”
“Nothing is fair in this world. You might as well get that straight right now”
“So few people know what they’re capable of.”
“It takes a bee 10,000,000 trips to collect enough nectar to make 1 pound of honey.”
“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”
“Regrets don’t help anything.”
“You know what? You think too much. It would do you a world of good to stop thinking and just go with your feelings once in a blue moon.”
… more to be added, insha’Allah. What are your favorite quotes or positive affirmations?
9 Comments
Hmm… Nice big collection.
I’m sharing my favorite ones.
All humans are dead except those who have knowledge;
and all those who have knowledge are asleep,
except those who do good deeds;
and those who do good deeds are deceived ,
except those who are sincere;
and those who are sincere are always in a state of worry. – al-Shafi`i
“Truly in the heart there is a void that can not be removed except with the company of Allah. And in it there is a sadness that can not be removed except with the happiness of knowing Allah and being true to Him. And in it there is an emptiness that can not be filled except with love for Him and by turning to Him and always remembering Him. And if a person were given all of the world and what is in it, it would not fill this emptiness.”
-Ibn Qayyim al Jawziyya
“Turn to Him. Raise your hands and ask Him. And when the tears begin to fall, don’t stop them. Let them fall for His sake and know for a fact that He would never do except that which is best for you, and He is the All-Knowing. Know that out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls and that the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
“Oh son of Adam, you are only three days; as for yesterday it is gone never to return. As for tomorrow there is no guarantee for its arrival. All you have then is today, so work!” Hassan Albasri
I don’t care if you go to Hajj every year, or done so many good deeds, if you’re still disrespectful to your parents, you just earned yourself a ticket to hellfire.
( Nouman Ali Khan )
If you see that your heart is becoming hard and your body is becoming weak and your provision is decreasing, know that you are involved in that which doesn’t concern you.
(Malik ibn Dinar)
If you’re not doing da’wah; da’wah is being done to you. (If you’re not calling towards Allah, you’re being called towards something else).
(Hamza Andreas Tzortzis)
Habib bin al-Jalib said: I asked Abdullah bin Mubarak “What’s the best thing a human being can be gifted with?” He replied “A deep understanding.”
I said “If not that?” He replied “Good manners.”
I said “If not that?” He replied “A caring brother.”
I said “If not that?” He replied “Long silence.”
I said “If not that?” He replied “An early death.”
[Siyaar Alaam Nubalaa]
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A lot of very cool quotes here, Pink, several I have heard before and like very much! And I had never seen anyone else cite this quote (it’s also one of my favs)–“Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass” ~ Mary Kay Blakely
And here are a few of my favs that may (or may not) resonate–
“Only the best in us talks about the worst in us, because the worst in us lies about itself and its own existence.” – David Schnarch
“Until you make peace with who you are, you’ll never be content with what you have.” – Doris Mortman
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” – Helen Keller
“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what he gets by it, but what he becomes by it.” – John Ruskin
“All rational beings have an interest in acquiring courage, since without it they can achieve what they really want only by luck, and only in the absence of adversity.” — Roger Scruton, “An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy,” pg. 136.
“All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.” – James Thurber
“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” – Eric Hoffer
“Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.” – Franklin P. Jones
“To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I.’” – Ayn Rand
“There is no choice of more importance in life than the choosing of a beloved.” – Sarah Ruhl, “Eurydice”
“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, “Economics, Peace and Laughter” (1971), p. 50.
“People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.” ― Anthony de Mello
“Thinking is what a great many people think they are doing when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William James
“One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.” — Mary B. W. Tabor
“People are not only ready to profit by your wisdom, power, and greatness, but they are also eager to take advantage of your ignorance, weakness, and inability.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan
“There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.” – Alan Paton, “The Challenge of Fear,” in Saturday Review, September 9, 1967, pg. 46
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” – George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman”
“The only true voyage would be not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes.” – Marcel Proust
“The one thing in the world of value is the active soul—the soul free, sovereign, active. This every person is entitled to; this every person contains within him, although in almost all people, it is obstructed and as yet unborn.” – Emerson
“I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.”—William James
“The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.” ― Thomas Merton, “The Seven Storey Mountain”
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.” ― Thomas Merton
“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.” – Robert Fulghum
What a wealth of great quotes! I have my own personal collection of quotes that I like, and I can see some favs among these here that you have posted. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You have a very nice blog here, and looking forward to reading more from you.
Thank you so very much!
I greatly appreciate it and look forward to following yours too! 
Pink – awesome quotes! You inspired me to create my own quotes page – we need some of these down there.
Do come and share – all the best with the exam notes/prep btw, insha’Allah it will go well for you.
Jazakullah khairun for your super duas! They really workin’ I think as I zipped through a few chapters this past weekend. I did my Loss History Graph too and realized I’ve been WAY too hard on myself considering all the crap I’ve been through since like I was born, alhumdulillah. Makes me realize I need to be more merciful to myself. Subhan’Allah. I’m so glad you have a quotes page! When I get my life back, I hope to read your blog and that you don’t close it down just when I finally get a break in April!
Most definitely, someone I immensely respect always says, ”If you can’t have mercy on yourself, you will never have mercy on the world”. It applies well here,
May Allah swt make it easy for you – take it easy, and all the best with your exams iA. My quotes page will be there beyond April – no rest for the wicked!
Salaam
Haha… jazakullah khairun for the kind reminder! I thought I had read on your blog that you were closing it as of April? Good to know I can collect some good reading material until then! iA