Quotes About Resilience

Having hope," writes Daniel Goleman in his study of emotional intelligence, "means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks." Hope is "more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right"; it is "believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.

Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.

As he had done so many times before, Lincoln withstood the storm of defeat by replacing anguish over an unchangeable past with hope in an uncharted future.

We do not have to become heroes overnight," Eleanor once wrote. "Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed," Abigail Adams wrote to her son John Quincy Adams in the midst of the American Revolution, suggesting that "the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.

from John Hay's diary) "The President never appeared to better advantage in the world," Hay proudly noted in his diary. "Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.

Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him—the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.

[Skin is] the first line of defense for the body. … Our building skins should be more similar to human skin.

I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.

Humor is imperative, more important than food. You have a choice when someone dies. You can lie down or get back into life. Do something for someone else.

They say you only have so many breaths in your lifetime, and I think disappointments might be the same.

What he didn't know was that he always would and that in all those important moments that were yet to come to pass in his life, there would be a searing wound. Over time the wound would grow smaller, but it would never disappear.

Okay. I could her deb wailing-in my head. This is the Lowcountry, Steve. That's how life goes around here.

Larson would kick my butt! This is good.

Fortitude is a value missing in our society today. There is a reality about sticking things out for a better day to dawn that is not cliché, but honest-to-God good advice that we should all weigh and consider

at my age, if I were sexually harassed, I'd send the guy flowers

We're simply going to do what we always do. Clean it up. Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and figure it out. Come on now.

Everyone was happy. That may seem to be an overly simplistic way to state the very complicated facts, but it was the truth. That happiness was so hard won. I had scars to prove it. We all did.

have meant anything to anyone except me. So what?

When folks around you do crazy things, it's the devil trying to distract you from your purpose.

she could squeeze the balls off a buffalo nickel.

That's right. Old Beelzebub himself. That's how the devil works. He ain't no fool with a red suit and a tail. No, he works on your mind. When you let your mind dwell on trouble, you can't be doing what you needs to be doing. Then he wins, you see? He can't win unless you let him because he ain't got no power on his own.

Dorothea Benton Frank

Dorothea Benton Frank