Quotes About Resilience

A number of neurotic ancestors, combined with with persistent, unresolved terrors of childhood, had deprived me of the comfortable gift of natural courage.

I found it not inappropriate that the years of frustration and grief and loss, of work and conflict and painful resurrection, should have led me through their dark and devious ways to this new beginning.

And as I went up to him and took his hands, I felt that I had made no mistakes; and although I knew that, in a sense which could never be true of him, I was linked with the past that I had yielded up, inextricably and for ever, I found it not inappropriate that the years of frustration and grief and loss, of work and conflict and painful resurrection, should have led me through their dark and devious ways to this new beginning.

The fact that, within ten years, I lost one world, and after a time rose again, as it were, from spiritual death to find another, seems to me one of the strongest arguments against suicide that life can provide. There may not be - I believe that there is not - resurrection after death, but nothing could prove more conclusively than my own brief but eventful history the fact that resurrection is possible within our limited span of earthly time.

You see, when everything else is gone, there's always work. I don't think anyone ever realises how much work can mean until the other things are gone.

Ik besefte nog niet (...) dat alleen een proces van volledige aanpassing, het uitwissen van smaak, talent en zelfs herinneringen, het leven draaglijk maakte voor iemand die oog in oog stond met de allerergste aspecten van een oorlog.

Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.

A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.

If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it's not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.

When tough times come, it is particularly important to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.

Once upon a time, the Reindeer took a running leap and jumped over the Northern Lights. But he jumped too low, and the long fur of his beautiful flowing tail got singed by the rainbow fires of the aurora. To this day the reindeer has no tail to speak of. But he is too busy pulling the Important Sleigh to notice what is lost. And he certainly doesn't complain. What's your excuse?

Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss. We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends. It is laughter.

Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine!

Hope is the last thing that dies. Maybe because hope is one of those dratted things that is truly, honestly, genuinely immortal.

A great ancient poet was blind. A great classical composer was deaf. Many of us are dumb. What have we to show for it?

Back in Russia we were dirt-poor. Here in the West we are still poor but have risen above the dirt to tower alongside stalks of grass!

You can lose your freedom, your health, your honor, everything you love and care about. And yet, if you still have your purpose, you have lost nothing

Fear is a cold bastard. The only way to overcome it is to act—to take the first step and just move forward.

I rise back up to the surface with a kind of solemn quiet peace that comes when you know it's all over.

We spend the next half an hour doing horrible things with our bodies. We line up and climb the first level of the scaffolding, holding on for dear life, and then we stand there on a three-foot narrow strip that is the ledge that hugs the wall, many of us shaking from a combination of terror and the abuse of previously unused muscle groups.

I do not accept this.

But you have abandoned us, and we don't know what to do with ourselves after we are broken.

As you learn to fight, you learn to defend yourself from physical harm. You acquire a powerful self-preserving skill set, and a specific attitude. This attitude carries across to other aspects of your life. So that you can defend yourself from other less tangible but far more dangerous things that can break you—not just your body, but your spirit. Things such as deception, corruption, disparagement, coercion, false accusation and persecution. Subtle evil things that undermine you.

and suddenly it was all 'Lord of the Flies' meets the Battle for Helm's Deep.