Inspirational Quotes

I love to collect quotes. Below is a growing collection of my favorites that relate to coping with cancer and life challenges in general. For me, quotes serve as reminders about what I have learned or what I know to be true. I have a wall in my office covered with quotes. Whenever I come across something in a book or article or even something someone says that resonates with me and I want to remember it, I post it on my wall. When I am having a hard day, I look up and read one. Whatever I read always seems to be something I need to be reminded of.

No emotion, no more than a wave, can long retain its own original form.
~Henry Ward Beecher

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These are your greatest treasures. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
~Lao-Tzu

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
~William Stafford

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
~Kahil Gibran

Often in times of crisis when we reach for what we have considered our strength we stumble on our wholeness and our real power.
~Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
~Elisabeth Kubler Ross

If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you. I came to live out loud.
~Emile Zola

So what does it mean to be a spiritual warrior? It is far from being a soldier, but more the sincerity with which a soul faces itself in a daily way. It is this courage to be authentic that keeps us strong enough to withstand the heartbreak through which enlightenment can occur.
~Mark Nepo, Book of Awakening

The only journey is the one within.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

The refuge from completing oneself is to exist in extremes. Why insist that you are one thing and not also another? Those who defend themselves unite with images they deem good and repress what they consider bad or negative. Joy comes from uniting opposites. Are you both sad and happy, competent and a fool? Answer Yes and the full range of life is open to you. Answer No and what you deny will rise up and swallow you, then spit you out.
~Unknown

We are all here for a single purpose: to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. We can do this through losing as well as through winning, by having and by not having, by succeeding or failing. All we need to do is to show up openhearted for class.
~Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom

Open your arms and embrace paradox.
~Marion Woodman

It is clear that breathing into the pain works with body massage. Perhaps it also works with emotional pain. Turning toward a large wave in the ocean is the best defense. Diving into the huge wave can save you.
~SARK

We are the hero of our own story.
~Mary McCarthy

There is nothing stronger than gentleness.
~Han Suyin

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