Quotes from Rachel Naomi Remen

Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways.

The secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.

Being safe is about being seen and heard and allowed to be who you are and to speak your truth.

There should be a word that means beginning/end because nothing begins without something dying.

Being alive is being aware, being able to be touched and moved and changed, being able to respond rather than to react, being able to see and hear.

I don't think there's such a thing as a bad emotion. The only bad emotion is a stuck emotion.

Silence is a place of great power and healing.

When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves.

Sooner or later we will come to the edge of all that we can control and find life, waiting there for us.

Deep inside, our integrity sings to us whether we are listening or not. It is a note that only we can hear. Eventually, when life makes us ready to listen, it will help us to find our way home.

The worst thing that happens in life is not death. The worst thing would be to miss it. . . . I think the great danger in life is not showing up.

I have no idea about what death is, but because I have been in association with it so intimately, I have a much greater sense of the value of life and of what life can be.

Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world.

From a good teacher you may learn the secret of listening. You will never learn the secret of life. You will have to listen for yourself

Those who bless and serve life find a place of belonging and strength, a refuge.

I think ideas only lead to change for intellectual people; and not even them. What really leads to change is experience. Life itself is the teacher.

People have the natural capacity to affirm and embrace life in the most difficult of circumstances.

We may need to let go of our beliefs and ideas about life in order to have life.

Cancer changes your whole life.

People are waking up in their homes - without conferences. They're waking up because life is waking them up, not because of some conference called "Body and Soul."

Big messages come in small packages. All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.

Our purpose in life is to grow in wisdom and in love.

Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life.

When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.