Quotes About Acceptance

The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive.

I don't know that you ever get over this kind of loss. The fact that Chris is gone is a sharp hurt I feel every single day. It's really hard. Some days are better than others, but it's going to be hard every day for the rest of my life.

In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain—which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief.

But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours–because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down– it's not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes. Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God.

We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.

All we can do is to make the best of our friends: love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way of what is bad: but no more think of rejecting them for it than of throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two

imperfection is the rule, not the exception.

He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows

Six days later, the president named a postmaster for New Salem, Illinois, a twenty-four-year-old lawyer who had lost a race for the state legislature. He was a Clay man, but the post was hardly major, and Abraham Lincoln was happy to accept the appointment.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

In our finest hours, though, the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists; to look out rather than to turn inward; to accept rather than to reject.

Life will never be what we want it to be, and the best we can do, in the end, is to endure, seeking love in a fallen world that's destined to disappoint us.

Writing in 1783, George Washington had articulated what we like to think of as the American way on such things: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.

Jackson understood that he was expending precious political capital and untold hours battling for the Eatons' full acceptance into Washington society, but he was doing it less for Margaret than for her husband, for whom he held genuine regard and whose good sense appears to have extended to every aspect of public life except for his own marriage.   THE

One point of this book is to remind us that imperfection is the rule, not the exception.

There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal.

Why?" I asked, "What are you looking for?" There was a short silence. And Toto softly said, "I want to see if people like me.

Bryna is convinced her children are bipolar, and I wasn't going to swoop into a stranger's home for an afternoon and tell them all they were normal.

be patient and curious instead of instantly judgemental.

The word forever had been coming up a lot during my two years among the publicly shamed. Jonah and Justine and people like them were being told, 'No. There is no door. There is no way back in. We don't offer any forgiveness.' But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don't?

I hadn't realized what a collage of mental disorders my whole life has been

There's a societal push for conformity in all ways. There's less tolerance of difference. And so maybe for some people having a label is better. It can confer a sense of hope and direction. (interview with Allen Frances)

Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least to a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

I feel your scorn, and I accept it.