Inspirational Quotes

 

Quotes & Excerpts 

 

On transformation and change

When we are transformed by change, our lives, our actions and our attitudes invite others to join us. Because we are changed, we are then able to change the world. And suddenly change begins to happen, not only in us, but also because of us. And that is the greatest miracle of all.
(Dale Hanson Bourke)


On walking towards the light

When we finally reach the light we find that it was within us all the time.
(Charlene Smith)

On the need to acknowledge and accept pain

A child who has been abused needs society to kneel before him or her and bend its ears to the whispers of his or her pain.
( Charlene Smith. 2001. Proud of Me.)

What is the name, the colour, the sound of this heartbreaking sorrow?
(Joyce Allan. 2002. Because I love you: The Silent Shadow of Child Sexual Abuse.)

A man’s suffering is similar to the behaviour of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how bit the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore, the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.
(Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.)

On spinning the straw of our suffering into gold

You can transcend all negativity when you realise that the only power it has over you is your belief in it. As you experience this truth about yourself you are set free. (Eileen Caddy.Wisdom for the New Millenium)

I don’t think of the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.
(Anne Frank, 1929-1945)

If I go eastward, he is not there;
Or westward – still I cannot see him.
If I seek him in the north, he is not to be found.
Invisible still when I turn to the south.
And yet he knows of every step I take!
Let him test me in the crucible; I shall come out pure gold.
( Old Testament. Book of Job)

O Lord, remember not only the men of goodwill, but also of ill will, but do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have borne – our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown out of all this; and when they come to judgement, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.
( Anonymous).

The following expert is by Dr Viktor Frankl, who survived incarceration in the Auschwitz and Dachau Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War. A renowned psychiatrist, he thought deeply about the experience and responses of the prisoners to the sadistic and inhumane treatment they received.

The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action…We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitudes to any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom: which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.
(Victor Frankl: The Search for Meaning)

Ending Evil

If you shut up the truth and bury it underground, it will but grow and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.
(Emile Zola).

Each time a man stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.  And, crossing each others from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance
(Robert Kennedy, 1966. South Africa)

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only the initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as the make their journey on life’s highway.
(Martin Luther King. Strength to Love)

I sometimes think we stand at sunset … It may be that night will close over in the end, but morning will come. Morning always grows again out of darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearer, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.
(Sutcliff, 1959)

If we face in the right direction, all we have to do is go on walking.
(Buddhist saying)

Poems

Still Falls the Rain

(The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn)

Edith Sitwell.

Still falls the Rain -
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss -
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the
hammer-beat
In the Potters Field, and the sound of impious feet

On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain
In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human
brain Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross
Christ that each day, each night, nails there,
Have mercy on us -
On Dives and on Lazarus
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are one.

Still falls the Rain -
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man’s wounded Side:
He bears in his Heart all wounds, -those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad
uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear -
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh…the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain-
Then -O Ile leape up to my God: who pulls me doune-
See, see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree;
Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world, -dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar’s laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child whom among beasts has lain-
Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.

When someone deeply listens to you

By John Fox

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.

When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.


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