Be A Better Person Life Quotes & Sayings

We must become the person who is ready to accept the thing/s that we want. Sometimes, what you want is already waiting for you, alongside the person that you are capable of becoming. Alongside the destined you. So in between here and there, you have that journey, that process, of becoming that person. Wiser, stronger, gentler. We think that to attain what we want, means simply to achieve what we wish to attain. But if we could only see ourselves
our destined selves
already there in the future, standing hand-in-hand with our desires, we would always know that our worthy desires are objects that call us unto a higher calling, a higher state of existence. — C. JoyBell C.

The average person thinks that the purpose of religion is to give us a list of rules and techniques or to frame a way of life that helps us to be more loving, forgiving, patient, caring, and generous. Of course, there is plenty of this in the Bible. Like Moses, Jesus summarized the whole law in just those terms: loving God and neighbor. However, as crucial as the law remains as the revelation of God's moral will, it is different from the revelation of God's saving will. We are called to love God and neighbor, but that is not the gospel. Christ need not have died on a cross for us to know that we should be better people. It is not that moral exhortations are wrong, but they do not have any power to bring about the kind of world that they command. These exhortations and directions may be good. If they come from the Word of God, they are in fact perfect. But they are not the gospel. — Michael S. Horton

Nobody gets through life without facing challenges. What's important is how we handle them. Tough times can be excellent opportunities to grow and become a better person. — Sandra Vischer

My new single 'I'm Gonna show you crazy' is really about knowing it's okay to not be okay. It's not about being legit crazy it's about feeling like you're an outsider and there's nothing wrong with that. I was bitter during that time in my life but I needed that. It helped shaped me and my music. Going through a hard time makes you a better person. Going through hell those two years was worth it. — Bebe

Why science? Many people, with the best intentions, like to give parents advice about raising a child, including parents, non-parents, health visitors, friends, celebrities, bloggers and next-door neighbours. Unfortunately, much of this advice can be completely wrong or based on archaic ideas and practices that have since been disproved or debunked. Some of this advice can even be damaging. In addition, some parents say that they advocate using 'common sense' or 'intuition' in raising their children, but what do those things mean? How is intuition classified, when it differs so greatly from one person to another? Some people do the 'common sense' thing only to find out it was wrong later in life, which is why it is altogether better to be guided by the latest scientific research. In order to learn how to filter the good advice from the bad, I believe that new parents need science-based evidence in their corner. You'll find it in this book. — Zion Lights

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it. — William Penn

I think life is politics anyway. You can't ignore it, but you can go very wrong in politics. You can say what you thought 50 years ago, but maybe you're wrong today. It's something very special, politics. I think you'd better be a good person in life every day - it's much more important. — Anna Karina

Love is more than desire. It's more than passion and moonlight and poetry. Love is a choice you make; it's things you do. Love is holding hands when your wife's morning sickness is so bad she wants to die. It's forgiving when you're mad, and listening to her when you want to talk. It's rubbing her feet when she's tired and you want a whole lot more. It's seeing each other at your worst and choosing to overlook what you know is true because you believe they can be better. It's doing the right thing for the other person. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. That is love, Jaime. — Brandon Gray

Finally, at every opportunity you have to move someone - from traditional sales, like convincing a prospect to buy a new computer system, to non-sales selling, like persuading your daughter to do her homework - be sure you can answer the two questions at the core of genuine service. If the person you're selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began? If the answer to either of these questions is no, you're doing something wrong. — Daniel H. Pink

For most writers, reading is also a very intense experience; they don't read so much as compete. The writer measure's himself against every text he encounters, imagining he could do it better or wishing he had thought of it first. The natural writer would almost always rather be reading, writing, or alone, except of course when he needs to come up for air (that is, for subject matter, food, sex, love, attention). He may be a selfish son of a bitch, he may seem to care more about his work than about the people in his life, he may be a social misfit, a freak, or a smooth operator, but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood. Indeed, the great paradox of the writer's life is how much time he spends alone trying to connect with other people. — Betsy Lerner

Among the greatest tragedies is a person who believes that they aren't meant to win--by winning I mean find their purpose, passion and joy in life.
They believe that other people have better DNA or happiness genes or something, but that they themselves are missing a critical chromosome.
This is a lie and it is begging to be un-believed.
For the moment we know the truth about ourselves, we can take both responsibility for our own lives and inspired action to create exactly the life which is our birthright.
In other words, you were meant to win. You were created for joy. — Jacob Nordby

You taste injustice, even if it's fictional, really taste it,it has a way of doing that. Sometimes, you can never put the shoe on the other foot. We can't go back in time and know what it was like to be a black person then. Even today, when things are supposed to be so much better, not one of you can understand what it's like to be black, to live with the knowledge of what happened to your ancestry and still face injustice. But that book makes us taste it and, reading it, we know how bitter that taste is and we know we don't like it. But that bitter wakes you up, and when you wake up, you open your mind to things in this world, you make yourself think. Then you'll decide you don't like the taste of injustice, not for you and not for anyone, and you'll understand that even though all the battles can't be won, that doesn't mean you won't fight. — Kristen Ashley

Much advice on writing has the tone of moral counsel, as if being a good writer will make you a better person. Unfortunately for cosmic justice, many gifted writers are scoundrels, and many inept ones are the salt of the earth. But the imperative to overcome the curse of knowledge may be the bit of writerly advice that comes closest to being sound moral advice: always try to lift yourself out of your parochial mindset and find out how other people think and feel. It may not make you a better person in all spheres of life, but it will be a source of continuing kindness to your readers. — Steven Pinker

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you just can't tell who you're going to end up with. You might spend your whole life dreaming about one type of person, only to find happiness with somebody completely different. Someone you figured you had nothing in common with just might turn out to be your dream guy. And you know he's your dream guy because you become a better person. He brings out all these great things in you that you never knew or believed were there. And if you're really lucky you do the same for him. It makes it even more incredible that people find each other, considering most of them are looking in the wrong places to begin with. — Kristin Walker

Don't be adamant; don't make up your mind about all the things that don't even have anything at all to do with you. Don't be too quick to define right and wrong. Life has a way of putting the adamant person into the very situations they've made up their minds about, in order to change those very decisions. So, unless you want the things that you judge in others to happen to you, you'd better live and let live. — C. JoyBell C.

In reality, you have to overcome yourself to be a better person. — Paul Nat

There's an enormous difference between being a story writer and being a regular person. As a person, it's your duty to stay on a straight and even keel, not to break down blubbering in the streets, not to pull rude drivers from their cars, not to swing from the branches of trees. But as a writer it's your duty to lie and to view everything in life, however outrageous, as an interesting possibility. You may need to be ruthless or amoral in your writing to be original. Telling a story straight from real life is only being a reporter, not a creator. You have to make your story bigger, better, more magical, more meaningful than life is, no matter how special or wonderful in real life the moment may have been. — Rick Bass

The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it. — Paul Hawken

My life is not separate from my music, you know? It's not like a day job that I leave and go home. It's who I am as a person and how I am trying to grow, come closer to God, be a better person. — Matisyahu

One of the very first things I figured out about life ... is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun. — Barbara Kingsolver

Some women tell me they don't think what I do is important, but would like to travel the world with me. Others say they're not a slut, even though they slept with many strangers. And then many others claim to love me, even though disrespecting my beliefs and ridiculing my knowledge. And I wonder if there's the word idiot written in my forehead, or if some people are just purely addicted to suffering. They then say I'm not spiritual when I call them names and expel them from my life. One the contrary my friend, a spiritual person is very awake, not just spiritually, but mentally too. The real and most spiritual ones are not braindead. They will give you hell if you give them suffering. Hell is very real and they can show you that better than anyone. Otherwise, they're not spiritual, but pretending to be. Spirituality is reality, not cuckoo land full of unicorns and fairies. — Robin Sacredfire

When people self-harm themselves its not always because they want people to notice them, or because they weren't taught better. They sometimes have all the attention a person could want and they have been taught better. People just don't realize that even within all that. Something terrible could be happening in a person's life, which may lead them to cutting. Don't judge. — Triss

It seems to me that the novel is very much alive as a form. Without any question, every epoch has its own forms, and the novel nowadays cannot resemble that of the nineteenth century. In this domain all experiments are justified, and it is better to write something new clumsily than to repeat the old brilliantly. In the nineteenth century, novels dealt with the fate of a person or of a family; this was linked to life in that period. In our time the destinies of people are interwoven. Whether man recognizes it or not, his fate is much more linked to that of many other people than it used to be. — Ilya Ehrenburg

Love often doesn't make any sense at all. It likes to creep up on you when you're least expecting it, with the person you're least expecting it to be with. It climbs walls and crosses oceans to find you. When it's your time, love will track you down. Love isn't possession, it isn't codependency, it isn't jealousy, and it isn't neediness or clinginess. It's not meant to complete you, but to complement you. If it's toxic, it isn't love. Love isn't finding a "better half," but an "equal match." Love is letting go when you want to hold on. Love will never require you to sacrifice your dreams or your dignity. Love isn't uncertainty. It isn't a "maybe" thing. It isn't a question. It's always an answer. Love is beautiful. It is magical. It is life-changing. It is breathtaking. — Mandy Hale

There are people who want to change the world, make it a better place ... but what they don't know, is that to make a difference in the life of one person and to make a single person's life a better thing to live, is just as valuable as changing the whole world. And most of the time, that's the only thing that we should be doing. You can gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process, and in that case, the whole world just isn't worth it. — C. JoyBell C.

An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters. — Steve Goodier

Sadly, some Christians think that they should not grieve. "My loved one is in a better place, so why should I grieve?" Yes, your loved one may well be in a better place, but you have lost an important part of your life, and that causes mourning and grief. We miss that person and the love we shared. Being a Christian does not remove your human feelings from you. You will grieve that loss, just like every other human being. So — James R. White

Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure, per se, offers no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. The pleasure-centered person, too soon bored with each succeeding level of "fun," constantly cries for more and more. So the next new pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger "high." A person in this state becomes almost entirely narcissistic, interpreting all of life in terms of the pleasure it provides to the self here and now. — Stephen Covey

Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, then your heart is unchanged, and you are an unsaved person. The Savior will sanctify His people, renew them, give them a hatred of sin, and a love of holiness. The grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people, not IN their sins, but FROM their sins. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. — Charles Spurgeon

Half my life was spent trying to be a better person, but you reach a certain age and you realize you don't have a choice about who you are. All of us are slaves to ourselves. — Gareth P. Jones

I know what the important things are in life. I know that just because I pretend to be someone else for two hours on the silver screen doesn't make me a better person than the next man. So, I mind all those things. Simple things. — Colin Farrell

You happened to me,You scare me to death, you know. When you stormed into my life, you turned everything inside out. You upset all the things I believed about myself and made me think in new ways. I know who I used to be, but I'm finally ready to figure out who I am. Cynicism gets tiring, Isabel, and you've ... rested me.And don't you dare tell me you've stopped loving me back, because you're still a better person than I am, and I'm counting on you to take more care with my heart than I took with yours. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The essence of Buddhist practice is not so much an effort at changing your thoughts or your behavior so that you can become a better person, but in realizing that no matter what you might think about the circumstances that define your life, you're already good, whole, and complete. It's about recognizing the inherent potential of your mind. In other words, Buddhism is not so much concerned with getting well as with recognizing that you are, right here, right now, as whole, as good, as essentially well as you could ever hope to be. — Yongey Mingyur

I reject the notion that thinness is the goal, that thin = better - that I am an unfinished thing and that my life can really start when I lose weight. That then I will be a real person and have finally succeeded as a woman. I am not going to waste another second of my life thinking about this. I don't want to have another fucking conversation with another fucking woman about what she's eating or not eating or regrets eating or pretends to not regret eating to mask the regret. OOPS I JUST YAWNED TO DEATH. — Lindy West

If you actually get that you're not entitled to be loved, not by one person, not by anybody, and if you get that and then you look at people who love you - who love you - who think, my life is better because you, you are in it - that they get up and think, my whole world is better because you're in it, that for some reason they love you, and that they walk this world when you're not around thinking, but you're in it, and they come home and they want to call you, they want to come home and see you, your face - you can never make a person love you but somehow they do. — Caroline Myss

And I love being a writer because I want to leave something here on earth to make it better, prettier, stronger. I want to do something important in my life, and I think that adding beauty to the world with books like The Relatives Came or Waiting to Waltz or Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea really is important. Every person is able to add beauty, whether by growing flowers, or singing, or cooking luscious meals, or raising sweet pets. Every part of life can be art. I am so grateful to be a writer. I hope every child grows up and finds something to do that will seem important and that will seem precious. Happy living and, especially, happy playing. — Cynthia Rylant

It makes no sense to compare yourself with others because there will always be better & worse people than you out there. Each person has his own path to make. You are where you are now. Could you reach for the stars & have everything you want? realistically no. You may not win Olympic Gold in London 2012 , or be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company etc but you most definitely have the capacity to make YOUR life as the Masterpiece it could really be. The choice is yours ... — Pablo

But I didn't put it back on after the Porters. It isn't a crisis of faith. I'm not sure I ever had faith, not the way Mom does. Mine is more like Dad's - I believe there is a God, and I believe in honoring Him, but I'm not sure how much of a role He plays in our lives, and I don't blame Him for that, because it's up to us, isn't it? It's up to us to say we'll be a good person because that's what we believe is right, not because it'll earn us a better place in the next life. — Kelley Armstrong

The greatest tragedy in your life will not be the death of a loved one or a natural disaster; those things hurt like hell and devastate to the core. But loss like that is part of life. What's not necessary and is therefore most tragic is the demise of your truest identity, your dying before you're dead, the moments when you let the words and judgments of others define who you are instead of rising above that pain to be the person you were meant to be. No matter what has happened in your past, you are still capable of becoming a better version of who you are at this moment. Think right. Believe the voice inside of you that speaks the truth. You are a divine marvel. Act like it. Live like it. — Toni Sorenson

Great wealth can make a man no happier than moderate means, unless he has the luck to continue in propsperity to the end. Many very rich men have been unfortunate, and many with a modest competence have had good luck. The former are better off than the latter in two respects only, whereas the poor but lucky man has the advantage in many ways; for though the rich have the means to satisfy their appetites and to bear calamities, and the poor have not, the poor, if they are lucky, are more likely to keep clear of trouble, and will have besides the blessings of a sound body, health, freedom from trouble, fine children, and good looks.
Now if a man thus favoured died as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word "happy" in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky. — Herodotus

There's been a lot of things said about me
Since that awful day
I'm not the person that I used to be
And that I'll never be the same
That's true - no doubt
But I know more now what life is about
I laugh louder
Cry harder
Take less time to make up my mind
and I
Think smarter
Go slower
I know what I want
And what I don't
I'll be better than I've ever been — David Levithan

When you meet the one person who gives your life meaning, who makes you a better man so you can be worthy of her love, you don't wait for the "right time" to come along. You jump. You run. You fly. "Has — Mia Asher

Life will be so monotonous if I was looking for someone just like me. It's so much better to have that one person in life who is so different from you that you in fact love him (or her). Know that living together will call for tremendous adjustments but they are just adjustments and not issues unless you make them. And trust me, you cannot waste your time in trying to make a list of things that you ought to know before you start living together Because matrimony is a 24 hour game. There will definitely be that ONE thing you will know only when its time comes! — Parul Tyagi

The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that's how I look at my life. I will be a better golfer, I will be a better person, I will be a better father, I will be a better husband, I will be a better friend. That's the beauty of tomorrow. — Tiger Woods

There is a very good organization called "Make a Wish Foundation" that helps make a dying child's wishes come true.
People go out of their way and work together to create an unbelievable lasting memory for a deserving person.
What just dawned on me was:
Why do we wait until someone is dying in order to do that?
We have the opportunity to do this everyday for many, many, many people over our lifetime.
It doesn't have to be a really big wish, small wishes add up fast.
Imagine how much better the world would be if we all granted each other small wishes that came true every day.
Find someone today and implement the "Make a Wish" concept in your life.
Watch what happens. — JohnA Passaro

If I were another person, I go on, I wouldn't want to deal with me, I don't want to deal with me, It's so hopeless, I want out of this life. I really do. I keep thinking that if I could just get a grip of myself, I could be all right again. I keep thinking I'm driving myself crazy, but I swear, I swear to God, I have no control. It's so awful, It's like some demons have taken over my mind. And nobody believes me, Everybody thinks I could be better if I wanted to. But I can't be the old Lizzy anymore, I can't be myself anymore, I mean, actually, I am being myself right now and it's horrible. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

You are persecuted and despised. It were better that a person should be the oppressed than that he should be the oppressor; and fitter that he should be a victim to the frailty of human instincts than that he should be powerful and crush the flowers of life and disfigure the beauties of feeling with his desire. — Khalil Gibran

One person devotes his life to helping the poor. Another one lies and steals. Still another person tries to create better products and services for which he hopes to be paid handsomely. One woman devotes herself to her husband and children. Another seeks a career as a singer. In every case, the basic motivation has been the same. Each person is doing what he believes will bring him happiness. What varies between them is the means each has chosen to gain his happiness. — Harry Browne

Gratitude makes you a better, stronger, wiser person. Ingratitude makes you a negative, angry, miserable person. Which person do you choose to be? — Tanya Masse

Making this a better world happens one person at a time. You cannot force your beliefs on anyone. Rather, be the example that others can emulate. Live your life so that others may be inspired by your words and deeds. That's how change happens. — Tom Giaquinto

Love is the biggest thing. I feel that if we all were truly loving to each other, I think life would be better. Even to like, a stranger. They could be going through something crazy in their day and just to show love towards that person ... — Leon Bridges

Bull. Look, sometimes certain kinds of pain bring important lessons. Those lessons harden you, prepare you for your life and the only way to learn them, the only way to be a better, stronger and yes, harder person to survive the world outside is to learn those lessons first hand. Pain forges strength. — Lauren Dane

Whatever the circumstances of a child's early life, and whatever the history and current state of that child, every human has the built-in power to improve, to change for the better, to significantly restore and often to recover. Tomorrow, that person you see in the mirror can be a stronger, more capable, livelier, more powerfully centered, and still-growing person. — Michael Merzenich

Everyone I say stop bullying it is sad and tears someones heart apart and next thing they do is Suicide because they think that is the right next step!
If you are a Person who gets bullied find someone who will stop this! Don't just kill yourself for the other person to be happy because you are gone! They are just jealous of you and want to start problems and make you a troublemaker! Ignore those mean cruel evil people in you life and spend time with the nice caring sweet loving angels of yours! :D
Because bullying is a dumb and stupid waste of time!
Try to shake it off the mean hurtful stuff and keep on doing the right stuff that is going to help you become a better person and when i say a better person i mean more than a better person!

~Skye Daphne~ — Skye Daphne

Having a character change during the course of the screenplay is not a requirement if it doesn't fit your character. But transformation, change, seems to be an essential aspect of our humanity, especially at this time in our culture. I think we're all a little like Melvin (Jack Nicholson) in As Good as it Gets. Melvin may be complex and fastidious as a person, but his dramatic need is expressed toward the end of the film when he says, 'When I'm with you I want to be a better person.' I think we all want that. Change, transformation, is a constant of life, and if you can impel some kind of emotional change within your character, it creates an arc of behavior and adds another dimension to who he/she is. — Syd Field

I'm talking about the love I'm discovering now and doing my best to destroy before it reveals itself. I'd like you to accept it. It's the little I have of myself, but it's not my own. It's not exclusively yours, because there's someone else in my life, but I would be happy if you could accept it anyway. An Arab poet from your country, Khalil Gibran, says: "It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked." If I don't say everything I need to say tonight, I'll merely be a spectator watching events unfold rather than the person actually experiencing them. — Paulo Coelho

If/when I die, do not want Pam lonely. Want her to remarry, have full life. As long as new husband is nice guy. Gentle guy. Religious guy. Very caring + good to kids. But kids not fooled. Kids prefer dead dad (i.e., me) to religious guy. Pale, boring, religious guy, with no oomph, who wears weird sweaters and is always a little sad, due to, cannot get boner, due to physical ailment.
Ha ha.
Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
Note to self: try harder, in all things, to be better person. — George Saunders

I don't know you very well, and i'm almost afraid to know you better. Maybe i love you because i don't know you. Maybe if i knew what you were really like and what you wanted out of life and what you think is important, I wouldn't care for you at all and that would be the end of this. — Elliot Mabeuse

I feel that it would be tedious for a person to have only one life. It would be much better to have two or three lives going on simultaneously ... — Mu Xin

Of course, music is still a passion for me, and my new sort of career doing radio is also a passion, but definitely to be able to put a smile on someone's face. Or just waking up every day, trying to figure out how I can change a person's life for the better. — Raheem Devaughn

Freedom of mind is the real freedom.
A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man.
One whose mind is not free, though he may not be in prison, is a prisoner and not a free man.
One whose mind is not free though alive, is no better than dead.
Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence. — B.R. Ambedkar

The important things in life always happened by accident. At fifteen she didn't know much, in fact, with each passing year she was a lot less clear about most things. But this much she did know. You could worry yourself sick trying to be a better person, spend a thousand sleepless nights figuring out how to live clean and decent and honest, you could make a plan and bolt it in place, kneel by your bed every night and swear to God you'd stick to it, hell, you could go to church and promise properly. You could cross your heart seven times with your eyes tight shut, cut your thumb and squeeze it and pen solemn vows on a rock with your own blood then throw it in the river at the stroke of midnight. And then, out of the black beyond, like a hawk on a rat, some nameless catastrophe would swoop into your life and turn everything upside down and inside out forever. — Nicholas Evans

I think that fame removes true happiness. Because when you are famous, people know you for who they think you are and when you are happy, it's because people have met you and see you for who you really are. Of course, if you are not a great person, it's better to be famous. But if you have greatness, it's better to not be famous. — C. JoyBell C.

That break comes for all of us, at different times and in different ways. The nourishment of food, the bonds of friendship, the occasions for celebration, and the delights of legitimate pleasure end in a matter of a moment for each life and each relationship. It is to this vulnerability of living that Jesus points His finger. The poet puts it in these words: Our life contains a thousand springs and dies if one be gone; Strange that a harp of a thousand strings can stay in tune so long. There is an old adage that says you can give a hungry man a fish, or better still, you can teach him how to fish. Jesus would add that you can teach a person how to fish, but the most successful fisherman has hungers fish will not satisfy. G — Ravi Zacharias

For me, if somebody tells me to go away, that is an opportunity: for me to give the person a better life, to realize where not to be, and to see what could be even better than being with that person I love. — Byron Katie

No more quickly can a person rob you of your joy and peace than when that individual succeeds at making you feel like you're less than worthy of God as compared to his/her own self. The old adage "You're on your way to hell, and I'm on my way to heaven" spoken or implied to another, is the most predominantly effective way to make someone feel better about himself; and he doesn't even have to prove he's better in this life on earth because now he can just say "Wait 'til I'm looking down at you while you're in hell!" But don't be robbed of your joy and peace, individuals or groups of people like that don't know where God is; He is a whisper-distance away from you, is all. — C. JoyBell C.

It was quite a wedding and as I stood there watching I realized something I'd forgotten a long time ago. Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along. — Greg DePaul

I did not very often consider the reasons my father died. I didn't believe his life was taken to instill some larger meaning in my character, or make me a better person. I preferred to believe that a person might be taken for no reason other than the random winds of chance, the same forces that could create a brilliant sky after a terrible storm. — Jill Bialosky

It felt increasingly, as I became more whole, that I had made it all up, and that I was a phoney. I had to come to some place of acceptance. If I made it all up, then I am an unspeakably evil person, leading so many wonderful, intelligent people astray. What a scheming mind I must have. I knowledge will be hard too live with. But harder still is the thought that perhaps, just perhaps it is all true; that I really was horribly, ritualistically abused in a satanic setting, over and over again and as a result my mind fragmented. The implications of that are completely overwhelming. It was me, my body, that they did those things to. No, I would rather believe I am an evil and deceitful person. At least the I can change, and say sorry, and live a better life from now on. — Carolyn Bramhall

Whatever the unknown in Europe, it had to be better than the known in a small town, where truth was hidden behind smiles, pleasantries, and an abundance of stretch lace at weddings. Whatever, the yet-to-be-written truth about her own life, it seemed certain to be waiting elsewhere on a blank page, somewhere people made no attempt to predict the future based upon a person's past.
Quote from: A Summer Abroad, Mrs. Duchesney's First Real Mystery
c. 2013 Peggy Kopman-Owens — Peggy Kopman-Owens

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life. — Chuck Close

I realised I'd been spoiled at Liverpool. We were used to winning. In Italy I grew up as a person. I didn't enjoy the football, mind. It was very defensive, but I became a better player because of the work I had to do around the box. Off the pitch, I learned about what to eat and what to drink to be successful, and I learned about life. — Ian Rush

I will spend my life loving you and you will spend your happy life making me a better person, as you already have, from your mere presence ... I will be the man you deserve. I'm not quite there, mouse, but I'm working on it. — Belle Aurora

Goal setting is the essence of life. Tenaciously pursue your goals not for external praise but for inner reward. It makes you a better person, parent, professional. It is important to be constantly growing. — Bob Proctor

I mean, it's hard to talk about death without realizing that's our end too, right? I am constantly aware of death. It's not that I want to be, but it's a fascination of the mind and it plays a role in why I want to live my life a certain way. The more I am aware of my mortality the better person I am and the better I am at choosing a life that is aware of its beauty. — Ada Limon

It is a Bush administration official on the moment when torture breaks a victim:
The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.
From Neil Gaiman's account of a torturer in hell:
We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you'll be a better person ... and because we love you. One day you'll thank us for it.
War is peace. Torture is freedom. In the end, you love Big Brother. — Andrew Sullivan

You become great when you are eager to find and nourish greatness in the hearts of others. — Debasish Mridha

I'm not a bad person. I haven't killed anyone. I (rarely) lie. I don't kick little puppies. So why do people look at me as if the world would be a better place without me? — Gena Showalter

Every person has a life mission to fulfill. Never attempt to destroy what God has put in another person to do. You don't know God's plans, but Satan will most certainly use you to stop his plans. — Shannon L. Alder

I can't help but be a different person now that I've had kids. That really does change your whole perspective on life for the better. — Jennifer Lopez

One of the biggest mistakes made by people who wish to help an abused woman is to measure success by whether or not she leaves her abusive partner. If the woman feels unable or unready to end her relationship, or if she does separate for a period but then goes back to him, people who have attempted to help tend to feel that their effort failed and often channel this frustration into blaming the abused woman. A better measure of success for the person helping is how well you have respected the woman's right to run her own life - which the abusive man does not do - and how well you have helped her to think of strategies to increase her safety. If you stay focused on these goals you will feel less frustrated as a helper and will be a more valuable resource for the woman. — Lundy Bancroft

What if you believed that everything in life was like a prize? What if you thought of the world as a big random drawing, and you were always winning things, the world offering them up with a big grin, like an emcee's: Here you go, Hollis. Here is a motorcycle. Here is a little boy who loves you. Here is a weird experience, here is something bad that you should mull over because it will make you a better person. What if you could think that life was this free vacation you'd won, and you won just because you happened to be alive? — Dan Chaon

Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor and creates a motivational charge that gives us an opportunity to be better. A gem cannot be polished without friction and so neither a person without hardships. Friction within and friction without sharpens our senses and revives our internal resolutions. Friction is uncomfortable, hardships are distressing but both are necessary. We cannot light a match without friction nor can we hone steal. Uncomfortable as it may be, our adversity ultimately lights a fire and sharpens our very will to flourish. Today, let us not be discouraged, let us not be bitter in our suffering rather let us be encouraged as we look to our trials as a medium that will eventually make us better. — Jason Versey

You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. 'Father' is the Christian name for God. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. — J.I. Packer

I'm pretty easily overwhelmed and pretty tough as well. I think I'm tougher than I used to be. There's been a lot of hardship along the way. But that's what life is. And it's how you deal with those things, and how you let them shape you that makes you a better person and defines what sort of person you're going to be. — Nathaniel Rateliff

Danny had no idea what the thing was. All he knew was that he lived more or less in a constant state of expecting something any day, any hour, that would change everything, knock the world upside down and put Danny's whole life into perspective as a story of complete success, because every twist and turn and snag and fuckup would always have been leading up to this. Unexpected stuff could hit him like the thing at first: a girl he'd forgotten giving his number to suddenly calling up out of the blue, a friend with some genius plan for making money, better yet a person he'd never heard of who wanted to talk. Danny got an actual physical head rush from messages like these, but as soon as he called back and found out the details, the calls would turn out to just be about more projects, possibilities, schemes that boiled down to everything staying exactly like it was. — Jennifer Egan

There are probably only a handful of times in our lives when someone who will change us forever walks in - when we find someone we can love with our whole hearts, who will challenge us and shape us and make us feel like the world is safer and brighter just because they are in it. A person who loves us for exactly who we are, yet teaches us to be better because of who they are and how they live their life. — Melanie Shankle

Be the good, kind, lovable person you want to see in the world. Every action counts and the more people who behave and act with love and caring the more the world becomes a better place. We can do this! — Deon Potgieter

Sometimes when we're feeling sad, it's important just to feel the sadness. Like a snake shedding its skin, old feelings of remorse and regret and hurt and anger often have to come up in order to be released. On the other side we're a better person, capable of a happier life ... who we are when we're no longer burdened by the buried feelings that weighed us down, or the self - defeating patterns that the pain produced. — Marianne Williamson

Always try to be perceptive and observant in living, sensatory for details and diversity. Always try to see beyond the surface, and look in another perspective. Always try not to judge. Always seeks new experience, embrace and took chances. To live life maximally and develop into a better person. — Nin

Each of us has a role to play, and we all need to contribute to making the world a better place. You cannot sit back and do nothing and hope for change; one person can make the biggest difference. Throughout history people have tried to say that we need love and we need to work together, which we do, but you cannot truly love anything unless you learn to love yourself. It all boils down to you, the individual.
When individuals accept themselves, they are liberated from their suffering, and are capable of fully embracing the world around them. You are the only one who can change your life. When the people recognize this, real change will come. Do not wait around for someone else to save the world. You are unique and you have knowledge from your own experience that no one else has. You have ideas and passions that nobody else can claim. You could be the one to help us out of the dreadful situation that we are in, but if you do not act on your ambition the world will never know. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Although routinely criticized, a pessimist attitude enables a person never to be disappointed with the vagrancies of life or frustrated by the outcome of any event. A pessimist prepares for reality by considering every possible contingency. Having reckoned with the worst possible circumstances, and game planned what to do in the event of the most drastic outcome, a pessimist is pleasantly surprised when they achieve a better than expected result. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Stacey muttered, "But I hate this school, and this city, and the sooner I leave, the better. I want to start over in a new place. I haven't ... " her voice trailed off and she looked away from Jason, hoping instead to find her words among the falling raindrops. "Do you ever feel like you aren't the person you're supposed to be? That you could be a different person - and have a better life - if things had been just a little different? — J.M. Reep

The problem may be a literary one: we are given a single story line about what makes a good life, even though not a few who follow that story line have bad lives. We speak as though there is one good plot with one happy outcome, while the myriad forms a life can take flower - and wither - all around us.
Even those who live out the best version of the familiar story line might not find happiness as their reward. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I know a woman who was lovingly married for seventy years. She has had a long, meaningful life that she has lived according to her principles. But I wouldn't call her happy; her compassion for the vulnerable and concern for the future have given her a despondent worldview. What she has had instead of happiness requires better language to describe. There are entirely different criteria for a good life that might matter more to a person - honor, meaning, depth, engagement, hope. — Rebecca Solnit

In some ways, I always thought you're better off behaving like a rock star when you're a normal person. Because if you do it as a rock star, you'll end up in the papers and your life will be made a misery. — Jarvis Cocker

The more consistent a father can be or a mentor can be in the person's life and teach them principles of real solid manhood, character, integrity and leadership, the more consistent you can be in the person's life and teach them those things at a younger age, and then the better off they'll be. — Allan Houston

Rejection Is God's Protection
When someone rejects or breaks up with you, it may be a blessing in disguise. The person was not right for you. Or maybe you would have eventually been miserable with them. Now the door is open for someone else much better to come into your life. — Pamela Cummins

The trials and pressures of life
and how we face them
often define us. Confronted by adversity, many people give up while others rise up. How do those who succeed do it? They persevere. They find the benefit to them personally that comes from any trial. And they recognize that the best thing about adversity is coming out on the other side of it. There is a sweetness to overcoming your troubles and finding something good in the process, however small it may be. Giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter. Persevering through adversity makes one better. — John C. Maxwell

My lowest self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk!"
My slightly higher self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk right now only because he's going through a really hard time in life, and his parents never taught him how to behave better, and he might have some sort of mild mental illness, and also he has a drinking problem ... so I should try to be more compassionate and generous toward sad, tragic, miserable people like that."
My even higher self says: "We are all just flawed and frightened human beings in an uncertain world, struggling to survive."
Then finally my VERY highest self says: "Lord, please help me stop acting like a total jerk."
... and that's when it finally stops being about the other person at all. — Elizabeth Gilbert

By practicing this little virtue, we counteract the deception that our lives should be more meritorious. It also frees us from the false imaginings of a better life elsewhere than in the state in life that is ours, as in the popular proverb that mistakenly suggests that the grass is greener on the other side. The saint says, instead, that "there is no vocation that does not have its trouble, its bitterness, and its distaste." Nevertheless, "[a] person who no longer has the restlessness of his own will is content with everything: provided that God be served, it does not matter in what manner God employs him; provided that he does his divine will, it is all the same to him — Fr. Thomas Dailey