Quotes About Resilience

There are many sick vehicles here, and I cannot leave them. They are not dying, said Mma Makutsi firmly. They will still be here when we come back.

Of course you could not allow yourself to think too much about these issues. One had to get on and to attend to the day-to-day business of living.

Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds.

Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe, the world can be very discouraging. But we cannot sit and think about all the things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong. There was no point in doing that...There was much for which we could be grateful, whatever the sorrows of this world.

Mrs. Moffat had taken her hand, for comfort, and they had sat there in silence for a while. Sometimes it seemed as if the world itself was broken, that there was something wrong with all of us, something broken in such a way that it might not be put together again; but the holding of hands, human hand in human hand, could help, could make the world seem less broken.

It is very difficult sometimes to keep upright.

We think that we can fix our lives by taking some simple step, but it's not like that. Most problems need lots of sticking plasters. They need coaxing and massaging and looking at from all sorts of different angles.

A dog sees no point in dwelling on things that have happened; the important thing is that they are not happening now. In that respect, they have something to teach us: we so often feel that then is now, and this leads us to prolong the suffering of yesterday into the suffering of today. Dogs do not do that. With

The world was not perfect -- it never had been and never would be; it was full of pitfalls and problems, of fear, of regrets, and of bitter tears. Here and there, though, there were tiny points of light, hard to see at times, but there nonetheless, like the welcoming lights of home in the darkness. The flames that made these lights were hard to ignite, but occasionally, very occasionally, we found that we had in our hands the match that could be struck to start one of these fires. p. 197

You're not angry, Mma?" She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few—and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that—along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains.

Alexander McCall Smith

He felt weary. Life was a battle against wear; the wear of machinery and the wear of the soul. Oil. Grease. Wear.

YES, THOUGHT Mma Ramotswe, the world can be very discouraging. But we cannot sit and think about all the things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong. There was no point in doing that because it only made things worse. There was much for which we could be grateful, whatever the sorrows of this world. Besides, dwelling on the trials and tribulations of life was time-consuming, and ordinary duties still have to be performed; livings have to be earned

Elle avait ainsi gardé cette éventualité à l'esprit, enfouie parmi ces autres fragments d'espoir avec lesquels nous traversons la vie, sans y penser beaucoup, mais résolus à ne pas les laisser tout à fait s'évanouir.

the world was a vale of tears—it always had been.

He looked up from his stew. "Mma Ramotswe," he said, "you can do anything. Nothing is too hard for a person like you—nothing. You are very good at doing everything, Mma, and anything you do, Mma

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a jolly good cry And always remember, the longer you live, the sooner you jolly well die.

Tea, thought Mma Ramotswe—no matter what was happening, no matter how difficult things became, there was always the tea break—that still moment, that unchangeable ritual, that survived everything, made normal the abnormal, renewed one's ability to cope with whatever the world laid before one. Tea.

We cannot let wicked people spoil our lives for us, can we?

There were countless injustices and difficulties in this world, but small points of light too, where the darkness was held back.

Life's goalposts, and hurdles too, are never in the right place, she told herself; and they have the unfortunate habit of shifting within seconds. One sees them, and then suddenly they are no longer there, where they should be, but somewhere altogether elsewhere.

So much had occurred, and so many of the things that had happened were bad. And yet there had been good things—acts of kindness, acts of loyalty and generosity of spirit; why did we forget these and remember only the bad?

It was far better to accept what had happened and make the best of it. It was also the case, he reflected, that Mma Ramotswe usually got her way. She was so nice about it, so disinclined to be insistent or pushy, but she usually got him to do what she wanted—and he was happy enough about that when all was said and done.

Things start badly—very badly—and then they change for the better and those who have nothing, or who are unhappy, or who live in fear, suddenly find that these things that were bad for them have gone." "It's like rain," said Mma Potokwane, who had not said much but had clearly been affected by the story. "The rains come and they wash everything away. The dryness, the thirst, the dust on your skin—these are washed away, Mma, all washed away.