Quotes About Growth

every day a woman should do something that scared her.

They say experience is the best teacher, but I'll be damned if I know what it teaches you.

In the parlance of today, our family was dysfunctional (is any family not?) I would never become an angel, or even a saint. Instead I would grow up wild, marry young, and settle down. We'd have two boys, forming our own dysfunctional family. We'd do the best we could. Then we'd divorce, and I'd feel kindly nervous myself. I'd remarry. I'd try like crazy. (We all do, don't we? We try like crazy.) My new husband and I would form our new, blended dysfunctional family.

Through doubt we can learn more than through naive trust

The point of our lives in this world isn't comfort, but training and preparation for eternity. Scripture tells us that even Jesus 'learned obedience through suffering14—and if that was true for him, why wouldn't it be even more true for us?

just about every human being can reflect on his or her past and say, 'I learned from that hardship. I didn't think I would at the time, but I'm a bigger and better person for having endured it and persevered.

Only by facing my sin could God use it to change me for the better. The Bible warns that God's discipline isn't pleasant, but in the end the changes God produces in our character are worth it.

You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sin, you know, and cry tears doing it that are genuine as any.

But the ruinous thing about growing up is that we stop creating mysteries where none exist, and worse, we usually try to deconstruct and deny the genuine mysteries that remain. We argue against God, against true romance, against loyalty and self-sacrifice.

My weary old ground was broken and watered, and what sprang up was a generalized longing.

You know how it is—you grow up with a story all your life, it can transmute into something you neither question nor particularly value. It's why we have such bad luck learning from mistakes.

People fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also.

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also.

See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell; The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy; Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy; Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt; Dakota by Kathleen Norris; and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

I feel like a child. But I learn a little something every day. It's like a whole new way of living. It's a willingness to give up control. To make a commitment and have faith it'll work out.

I always try to turn the spotlight on the other person. Truly confident people often do this. They know they grow more by listening than talking.

What ages you faster, suffering or experience?

The only knowledge that is worthwhile, writes Northrop Frye. is the knowledge that leafs to wisdom, for knowledge without wisdom is a body without life.

Ease and luxury, such as our affluence brings us today, do not make for maturity; hardship and struggle do

You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them - no matter how old or impressive they may be - as if they are children. For most of us never really grow up or mature all that much - we simply grow taller. O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.

Our land has grown a magnificent liberty tree and its fruit is the richest ideal of the human soul. But, we cannot go on forever merely eating the fruit of the liberty tree or it will die. We must begin to plant some seeds.

A combination of many stupidities can end up being a worthy man if he learns from his stupidities.