If there’s ever a time that we badly need words that would uplift, encourage, and inspire us — 2020 would definitely be at the top of that list.
In this post, I will share 20 of my go-to quotes that help me cope with and navigate the uncertainties and unknowns in life.
Bookmark this page and come back whenever you need a pick-me-up. May these quotes uplift, encourage, and inspire you at the time you need them most.
On living and choosing how to respond
1. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. (Marcus Aurelius)
2. It’s nice to know you have a choice. It’s also humbling because then you start to realize how you are choosing every bit of your own suffering. While one has to start to take responsibility for that, at least you don’t blame it on anyone else. I hope that you don’t blame it on yourself either, because that doesn’t have any positive effect either. (Adyashanti)
3. I don’t fix my problems. I fix my thinking. Then the problems fix themselves. (Louise Hay)
4. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. (Viktor Frankl)
On finding the gift and turning on the light
5. Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. (Albus Dumbledore through J.K. Rowling…or is it the other way around? Hm…)
6. The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience…read that again: Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. (Mark Manson)
7. To celebrate the gift of life is to find the gift in everything that happens, even the parts that are difficult, that we’re not sure how we can survive. To celebrate life, period. (Dr. Edith Eva Eger)
8. Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom. (Rumi)
On getting back up and growing through setbacks
9. The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce. (Edmund Vance Cooke)
10. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. (Maya Angelou)
11. For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction. (Cynthia Occelli)
12. The road to progress is rarely as straight as we’d like it to be. For every two steps forward, we take one back, or end up on some detour we never anticipated. (Daily Stoic)
On contributing and planting seeds
13. You can’t change it all, but your freedom empowers you to contribute to the world, and your love gives you the way to do so. (Jack Kornfield)
14. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit — fruit that will last — and so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you.” (John 15:16)
15. In our relationships, in our community, on this earth, we may not live to see the results of our efforts. Still, we can turn toward the world and plant seeds for a more compassionate future. (Jack Kornfield)
16. Be such a [person], and live such a life, that if every [person] were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s paradise. (Phillips Brooks)
On unlearning, allowing, and surrendering
17. When we are allowing everything to be as it is, there is nothing that is fracturing our experience into preferable or not preferable, into “I want this” or “I want that.” All at once, our experience just unifies. (Adyashanti)
18. Before moving into action, first, identify and release your inner barriers to receiving what you desire to create. (Claire Zammit)
19. In the absence of answers, faith is born. When you don’t have what you think you needed, it makes way for God to fill that gap. (Steven Furtick)
20. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
How about you? What are your go-to quotes whenever you need to uplift, encourage, and inspire your spirit?
You may also want to read:
5 Things Making Me Happy During Quarantine
Models of Reality that Help Me Live in Peace
30 Ways to Deepen Your Gratitude Practice
