An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON ACCEPTANCE
Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.
Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881, Swiss philosopher, poet, critic)
You can't make the Duchess of Windsor into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The facts of life are very stubborn things.
Cleveland Amory (1887-1950, American animal rights activist)
Interest in the lives of others, the high evaluation of these lives, what are they but the overflow of the interest a man finds in himself, the value he attributes to his own being?
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941 American writer)
Each of us has a day... when he has to accept, finally, the fact that he is a man.
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987, French playwright)
Our entire life... consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987, French playwright)
Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt.
Berthold Auerbach
Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.
Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.
Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.
Honore De Balzac (1799-1850, French novelist)
To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
Simone De Beauvoir (1908-1986, French novelist, essayist)
God asks no man whether he will accept life. This is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887, American preacher, orator, writer)
You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887, American preacher, orator, writer)
There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.
Ugo Betti
Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Through the world we safely go.
William Blake (1757-1827, British poet, painter)
You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself.
William Boetcker
Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.
Boethius
He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate can look fortune in the face.
Boethius
To do all that one is able to do is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do is to be a god.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, French general, emperor)
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.
Nathaniel Branden (1930- Canadian-born American psychologist, author, expert on self-esteem) Author's website: www.nathanielbranden.net
About all you can do in life is being who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.
Rita Mae Brown (1944-, American writer)
If you hold yourself dear, protect yourself well.
Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)
We must like what we have when we don't have what we like.
Comte De Bussy-Rabutin
People are lucky and unlucky... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794, French writer, journalist, playwright)
One must not hope to be more than one can be.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794, French writer, journalist, playwright)
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin (1814-1880, American author, clergyman)
Make a virtue of necessity.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400, British poet)
Acceptance is the truest kinship with humanity.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
The English know how to make the best of things. Their so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
Marcus T. Cicero (c. 106-43 BC, Roman orator, politician)
The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
I hope to work, support my children and die quietly without pain.
Sean Connery (1930-, Scottish-born American actor)
There is no quality of human nature so nearly royal as the ability to yield gracefully.
Charles Conrad
Never deny a diagnosis, but do deny the negative verdict that may go with it.
Norman Cousins (1915-1990, American editor, humanitarian, author)
It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but my own.
Noel Coward (1899-1973, British writer)
No traveler ever reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.
William Cowper (1731-1800, British poet)
Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.
Frank Crane (American actor)
Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
Samuel McChord Crothers
Your problem is you're... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.
Ram Dass (1931-, American spiritual author, lecturer)
One of the signs of maturity is a healthy respect for reality -- a respect that manifests itself in the level of one's aspirations and in the accuracy of one's assessment of the difficulties which separate the facts of today from the bright hopes of tomorrow.
Robert H. Davies
The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed.
Clarence Day (1874-1935, American essayist)
If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881, Russian novelist)
Man is a pliant animal, a being who gets accustomed to anything.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881, Russian novelist)
The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
Maureen Dowd
How I relate to my inner self influences my relationships with all others. My satisfaction with myself and my satisfaction with other people are directly proportional.
Sue Atchley Ebaugh
One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
If you can't fight, and you can't flee, flow.
Robert Eliot
Accept the place the divine providence has found for you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894, American author, wit, poet)
Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.
Epictetus (50-138, Phrygian philosopher)
Happiness is a function of accepting what is.
Werner Erhard (American entrepreneur, scientologist)
Ride the horse in the direction that it's going.
Werner Erhard (American entrepreneur, scientologist)
Let a man accept his destiny. No pity and no tears.
Euripides (BC 480-406, Greek tragic poet)
Anxiety is that range of distress which attends willing what cannot be willed.
Leslie H. Farber
Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball, and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity.... Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board, and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.
William Feather (1888-19, American writer, businessman)
George Foreman. A miracle. A mystery to myself. Who am I? The mirror says back. The George you was always meant to be.'' Wasn't always like that. Used to look in the mirror and cried a river.
George Foreman (1949-, American boxer)
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
Brendan Francis
Ah, when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason to go with the drift of things to yield with a grace to reason and bow and accept at the end of a love or a season.
Robert Frost (1875-1963, American poet)
Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.
Robert Frost (1875-1963, American poet)
The best thing we can do is to make wherever we're lost look as much like home as we can.
Christopher Fry (1907-, British playwright)
I will not meddle with that which I cannot mend.
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661, British clergyman, author)
The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.
Will Garcia
Man has to live with the body and soul which have fallen to him by chance.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset (1883-1955, Spanish essayist, philosopher)
One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.
Andre Gide (1869-1951, French author)
The mind which renounces, once and forever, a futile hope, has its compensations in ever-growing calm.
George Robert Gissing (1857-1903, British novelist, critic, essayist)
The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.
Maurice Godelier (1934-, French anthropologist)
A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
I am what I am, so take me as I am!
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens.
Arthur Gordon
If you are wise, live as you can; if you cannot, live as you would.
Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658, Spanish philosopher, writer)
All the discontented people I know are trying to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do.
David Grayson (1870-1946, American journalist and writer)
Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great humilities -- of not trying to conform to some dramatized version of ourselves.
David Grayson (1870-1946, American journalist and writer)
Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.
Graham Greene (1904-1991, British novelist)
You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life.
Alex Hailey
Acceptance makes any event put on a new face.
Henry S. Haskins
Almost any event will put on a new face when received with cheerful acceptance.
Henry S. Haskins
Every man must at last accept himself for his portion, and learn to do his work with the tools and talents with which he has been endowed.
Charles A. Hawley
Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830, British essayist)
Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830, British essayist)
It doesn't matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn't matter what we do.
Charly Heavenrich
Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984, American playwright)
What has always made a hell on earth has been that man has tried to make it his heaven.
Friedrich Holderlin
The secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894, American author, wit, poet)
When I decided to go into politics I weighed the costs. I would get criticism. But I went ahead. So when virulent criticism came I wasn't surprised. I was better able to handle it.
Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964, American President (31st))
For this is wisdom: to live, to take what fate, or the Gods, may give.
Laurence Hope
Better to accept whatever happens.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
What it is forbidden to be put right becomes lighter by acceptance.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is.
Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767-1835, German statesman, philologist)
To find the good life you must become yourself.
Dr. Bill Jackson
Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
It's OK if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.
Billy Joel (1949-, American musician, piano man, singer, songwriter)
The greatest and most important problems in life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
Carl Jung (1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist)
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Carl Jung (1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist)
We cannot change anything unless we accept it.
Carl Jung (1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist)
The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.
Okakura Kakuzo
If you bear the cross unwillingly, you make it a burden, and load yourself more heavily; but you must bear it.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
If you cast away one cross, you will certainly find another, and perhaps a heavier.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
There is no man in this world without some manner of tribulation or anguish, though he be king or pope.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
What thou art, that thou art.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort.
Elizabeth T. King
Healthy personalities accept themselves not in any self-idolizing way, but in the sense that they see themselves as persons who are worth giving to another and worthy to receive from another.
William Klassen
Ours must be the first age whose great goal, on a nonmaterial plane, is not fulfillment but adjustment.
Louis Kronenberger
Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
To establish our position in the world, we will do anything to appear as if we established it.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is.
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988, American Western author)
A man shares his days with hunger, thirst, and cold, with the good times and the bad, and the first part of being a man is to understand that.
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988, American Western author)
A mountain man tries to live with the country instead of against it.
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988, American Western author)
She had believed the land was her enemy, and she struggled against it, but you could not make war against a land any more than you could against the sea. One had to learn to live with it, to belong to it, to fit into its seasons and its ways.
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988, American Western author)
You can't fight the desert... you have to ride with it.
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988, American Western author)
There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the easy ones that lie within it.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864, British poet, essayist)
We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864, British poet, essayist)
As the soft yield of water cleaves obstinate stone, So to yield with life solves the insolvable: To yield, I have learned, is to come back again.
Lao-Tzu (BC 600-?, Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism)
You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762, British society figure, letter writer)
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything; one's last is to come to terms with everything.
Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799, German physicist, satirist)
Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension.
Joshua Loth Liebman
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.
Yutang, Lin (1895-1976, Chinese writer and philologist)
It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit that you don't know all the answers.
John P. Lougbrane
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
Russell Lynes (1910-1991, American editor, critic)
I have done what I could do in life, and if I could not do better, I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me.
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949, Belgian author)
If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.
Maxwell Maltz (1944-, Canadian-born American plastic surgeon, author of "Psycho-Cybernetics")
We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns.
Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924, American author, founder of Success Magazine)
Acceptance says, True, this is my situation at the moment. I'll look unblinkingly at the reality of it. But I'll also open my hands to accept willingly whatever a loving Father sends me.
Catherine Marshall
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
Marcus Valerius Martial (40-104, Latin poet and epigrammatist)
We do not write as we want, but as we can.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
True freedom lies in the realization and calm acceptance of the fact that there may very well be no perfect answer.
Allen Reid McGinnis
Love yourself and do yourself a favor without doing other people a favor, and vice versa.
Dr. Karl Menninger
All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.
James A. Michener (1907-1997, American writer)
Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
Henry Miller (1891-1980, American author)
We must learn to accept life and to accept ourselves... with a shrug and a smile... because it's all we've got.
Harvey Mindess
A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.
John Morley (1838-1923, British journalist, biographer, statesman)
When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.
Jim Morrison (1943-1971, American rock musician)
Accept everything about yourself -- I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end -- no apologies, no regrets.
Clark Moustakas (Humanistic psychologist)
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.
Axel Munthe
What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.
Louise Nevelson
Don't keep any secrets of yourself from yourself.
Greek Proverb (Sayings of Greek origin)
Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief; your time for joy will come, believe me.
Aleksandr Pushkin
There is no sense in the struggle, but there is no choice but to struggle.
Ernie Pyle
For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.
George Orwell (1903-1950, British author, "Animal Farm")
It is arrogance to expect that life will always be music.... Harmony, like a following breeze at sea, is the exception. In a world where most things wind up broken or lost, our lot is to tack and tune.
Harvey Oxenhorn
I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing, and when I accepted that and found the way to do it, then I was able to write.
Robert B. Parker
Okay, I have arthritis, and this is the way arthritis is. Take pain as it comes and you can better master it.
Charles Clifford Peale
It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914, American philosopher, logician, mathematician)
A man needs self-acceptance or he can't live with himself; he needs self-criticism or others can't live with him.
James A. Pike (1913-1969, American Episcopal bishop)
There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future, hunting impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes.
Pindar (BC 518?-18438, Greek poet)
Life is a very sad piece of buffoonery, because we have... the need to fool ourselves continuously by the spontaneous creation of a reality... which, from time to time, reveals itself to be vain and illusory.
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936, Italian author, playwright)
Since God has been pleased to give us the Papacy, let us enjoy it.
Pope Leo X
It is enough that I am of value to somebody today.
Hugh Prather
The person who guards himself will not be destroyed.
African Proverb (Sayings of African origin)
Don't cry over spilt milk.
American Proverb (Sayings of American origin)
Don't hang your hat higher than you can reach.
Belizean Proverb
Wood may remain ten years in the water, but it will never become a crocodile.
Congolese Proverb
Don't sail out farther than you can row back.
Danish Proverb (Sayings of Danish origin)
The person who is not ashamed does whatever he wants.
Egyptian Proverb
Io get what we want, we must accept some things we don't want. No rose without a thorn.
French Proverb (Sayings of French origin)
No one is expected to achieve the impossible.
French Proverb (Sayings of French origin)
No person can like all, or be liked by all.
German Proverb (Sayings of German origin)
Even if you hide yourself from the world, don't lose sight of your real nature.
Japanese Proverb (Sayings of Japanese origin)
No matter how much you feed a wolf, he will always return to the forest.
Russian Proverb (Sayings of Russian origin)
I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618, British courtier, navigator, writer)
I have accepted all and I am free. The inner chains are broken, as well as those outside.
C.F. Ramuz
Happiness can exist only in acceptance.
Denis De Rougamont
Self-control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Real life is, to most men... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, British philosopher, mathematician, essayist)
Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by its own will.
Johann Friedrich Von Schiller (1759-1805, German dramatist, poet, historian)
The great soul surrenders itself to fate.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca (BC 3-65 AD, Roman philosopher, dramatist, statesman)
Things past redress are now with me past care.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
We cannot all be masters.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
What cannot be avoided, t'were childish weakness to lament or fear.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
If one is cruel to himself, how can we expect him to be compassionate with others?
Hasdai Ibn Shaprut
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991, Polish-born American journalist, writer)
The individual who is best prepared for any occupation is the one able to adapt himself to any situation.
Mortimer Smith
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
Baruch Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677, Dutch philosopher and theologian)
Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.
St. Francis De Sales (1567-1622, Roman Catholic bishop, writer)
Do not wish to be anything but what you are.
St. Francis De Sales (1567-1622, Roman Catholic bishop, writer)
Today I know that I cannot control the ocean tides. I can only go with the flow.... When I struggle and try to organize the Atlantic to my specifications, I sink. If I flail and thrash and growl and grumble, I go under. But if I let go and float, I am borne aloft.
Marie Stilkind
Perhaps they think that since they can master the job, there is no need to master themselves.
John Stevenson
Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1895, Scottish essayist, poet, novelist)
We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.
William Styron (1925-, American novelist)
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it.
Kathleen Casey Theisen
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can?
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862, American essayist, poet, naturalist)
When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862, American essayist, poet, naturalist)
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965, German protestant theologian, philosopher)
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882, British novelist)
The point is to dwell upon the brightest parts in every prospect, to call off the thoughts when turning upon disagreeable objects, and strive to be pleased with the present circumstances.
Abraham Tucker
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
Mark Twain (1835-1910, American humorist, writer)
Science says: "We must live," and seeks the means of prolonging, increasing, facilitating and amplifying life, of making it tolerable and acceptable; wisdom says: "We must die," and seeks how to make us die well.
Miguel De Unamuno (1864-1936, Spanish philosophical writer)
A flower falls even though we love it. A weed grows even though we don't love it.
Author Unknown
Accept your humanness as well as your divinity, totally and without reserve.
Author Unknown
Acceptance of others, their looks, their behaviors, their beliefs, bring you an inner peace and tranquility -- instead of anger and resentment
Author Unknown
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Author Unknown
He who attempts to resist the wave is swept away, but he who bends before it abides.
Author Unknown
If you have arthritis, calmly say, I was always complaining about the ruts in the road until I realized that the ruts are the road.
Author Unknown
Keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting.
Author Unknown
One does not have to stand again the gale. One yields and becomes part of the wind.
Author Unknown
Resistance causes pain and lethargy. It is when we practice acceptance that new possibilities appear.
Author Unknown
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890, Dutch-born French painter)
Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.
Jean Vanier
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambitions.
Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747, French moralist)
Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
We must accept life for what it actually is -- a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.
Ida R. Wylie
Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them
Donald J. Walters (1926-, American author, lecturer, playwright)
Trouble will come soon enough, and when he does come receive him as pleasantly as possible. The more amiably you greet him, the sooner he will go away.
Artemus Ward
The most popular persons are those who take the world as it is, who find the least fault.
Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900, American author)
Buddha's doctrine: Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent... this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
Alan W. Watts (1915-1973, British-born American philosopher, author)
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900, British author, wit)
I not only bow to the inevitable, I am fortified by it.
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975, American novelist, playwright)
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