Inspirational Ourselves Quotes & Sayings

We hurt ourselves much more than anyone can hurt us just by believing the stupid thoughts we get sometimes. — Charles F. Glassman

There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we're not moving even our little finger to help them. It's in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it's a choice. So what will you choose, huh? — Yoleen Valai

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.

As a society we cannot seem to make peace with nature. As individuals, it's hard for us to be at peace with ourselves. — Terence McKenna

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. — Seneca.

How ironic it is then, to realize how many of we humans are masochists! That even when we are placed in paradise, the majority of us would, by choice, focus on everything outside the present moment and make ourselves suffer by thinking about Dis-Ease! Too many of us would dwell on a past that no longer exists while everything in the present moment is wonderful. What great paradoxes we as humans are capable of! — Alaric Hutchinson

Something deep inside each one of us seeks to prove we are good enough--to our parents, our friends, ourselves, God. We do this because we know deep down that we aren't good enough, and the illusion of feeling like good people feels better than the reality of knowing we are not. — Chris Tomlinson

Before searching for happiness in others, we must first find it in ourselves. — Charles F. Glassman

Only a writer holds conversations between people that don't exist. We don't talk to ourselves. We talk to people we created from nothing.
#FromTheInternet #AuthorUnknown — Unknown

Silence will illuminate you in God ... and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God ... In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence — Isaac Of Nenevah

Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me. — David Mitchell

I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we're actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we're suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before! — C. JoyBell C.

Love is a command to rise to one's highest potential ... the best and noblest vision of ourselves. Love is a reward. The greatest we can earn. Granted to us for the moral qualities we have achieved in our lives. — Helen Mirren

Our environment, including the physical body, reflect our inner state - what we are inwardly, our eternal nature. When we renew our mind and transform ourselves, our environment responds to this change automatically. — Thomas Vazhakunnathu

We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears. — Chang-rae Lee

What we are is what we receive. It is not about waiting for something outside ourselves to change - we must actively be the change if we wish to see the result. — Alaric Hutchinson

Where do we find happiness? We pursue it, search for it, kill ourselves trying to find it, and all the time it's just here ... It comes just when we've stopped expecting anything, stopped hoping, stopped being afraid. — Irene Nemirovsky

And what of regrets? I shall live with them. I shall accept my regrets as part of my life, to be numbered among my self-inflicted wounds. But I will not endlessly gaze at them. I shall allow the memories to prod me into doing better with those still living. And I shall allow them to sharpen the vision and intensify the hope for that Great Day coming when we can all throw ourselves into each other's arms and say, I'm sorry. — Nicholas Wolterstorff

You have to drop all your defenses, only then is intimacy possible. We are all hiding a thousand and on things, not only from others but from ourselves. — Rajneesh

And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be-eagles, not chickens. — Desmond Tutu

What would life be if we didn't shake and wake ourselves up once and a while — Heather Richards

Future strong is relationship-driven and joyful.
Its best bet is on people. Its outcomes create joy
for others and ourselves. — Bill Jensen

Is there any real purpose in being alive if all we are going to do is get up every day and live only for ourselves?
Live your life to help others. Give & live selflessly. — Joyce Meyer

It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and
essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep
reminding ourselves, over and over: This is water, this is water. — David Foster Wallace

It is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey. — Paul David Tripp

The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it. — John Lubbock

Death is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death - and we are death.
Death has set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear,
First our pleasures die - and then
Our hopes, and then our fears - and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust - and we die too.
All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot -
Love itself would, did they not. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Remember, goals are stars to steer by, not sticks with which to beat ourselves. — Barbara Smith

Be grateful to everyone is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected ... If we were to make a list of people we don't like - people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt - we would discover much about those aspects of ourselves that we can't face ... other people trigger the karma that we haven't worked out. — Pema Chodron

Trust in someone means that we no longer have to protect ourselves. We believe we will not be hurt or harmed by the other, at least not deliberately. We trust his or her good intentions, though we know we might be hurt by the way circumstances play out between us. We might say that hurt happens; it's a given of life. Harm is inflicted; it's a choice some people make. — David Richo

Everyone wants to be a God. We manufacture our own worlds, duping ourselves with things to escape the reality we call our lives. Drugs, alcohol, sex, work, school. Bigger houses, newer cars and designer clothes are the universes we invent to exert our god-like rule. We can't control the weather, but it's always a perfect seventy-two degrees in our central-air controlled worlds. — Brian Krans

Don't go through life with a closed mind. Allow innovations and creativity to flow. We should always challenge ourselves to excel in more ways than one. Be open to ideas or suggestions on how to improve. And, the chances of reaching your goals will increase enormously. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

We have to be honest to ourselves to see honesty in others. — Debasish Mridha

How can we know ourselves by ourselves? ... Soul needs intimate connection, not only to individuate, but simply to live. For this we need relationships of the profoundest kind through which we can realize ourselves, where self-revelation is possible, where interest in and love for soul is paramount. — James Hillman

If we are not ourselves now, when things are hardest, when we are needed most, when are we? — John Owen Theobald

Hand in hand, we head for the kiss and cry. Today, we're going to kiss. Sometimes, we'll cry. There'll be broken tree branches. Misunderstandings and crash landings. It turns out all relationships are like Axels. They take a leap of faith and they have their ups and downs.
But it's not about falling, it's about what you do after the fall. Whatever happens, we'll pick ourselves u. Brush ourselves off. And circle around for another attempt. — Katie Van Ark

We put great expectations on our tomorrows when we truly need to rely on ourselves. Far too many overlook personal action, as a means to get things done. Blame is easily passed if one does not hold themselves accountable. — Jay Long

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When engaging in simple everyday banter and communications, this rule of thumb can really help suppress a lot of our negative word 'vomit' since we often mindlessly chat about the things we don't like. If we refrain from expressing our negative opinions about things unless they're directly asked for, we can train ourselves to respond rather than react the second we see or hear something and then feel we must verbalize our views about it.

Remember, even if we don't agree with someone or something, we can still speak about the subject at hand in a positive light to encourage growth rather than guilty motivation. I like to say I express more "inspirations" than "opinions" with each passing day. — Alaric Hutchinson

May We Love Ourselves.
May We Love Each Other.
May We Believe that Our Dreams Can Come True.
We Are Strong.
We Are Wise.
We Are the Heroines of our Own Lives
-The Heroine's Club benediction — Melia Keeton-Digby

Through my writing, I learned my Life Lessons from all the experiences in my past, good and bad. Letting go of the drama we create for ourselves is the biggest gift we can ever receive. — KoKo Nervelli

The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self
all your wishes and precautions
to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good. — C.S. Lewis

We build walls to protect ourselves from the hurt and pain. But someday you will realize that you are alone, in your own prison. — S.C. Rhyne

It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no expects us to be 'as gods'. We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another. — Thomas Merton

By acknowledging and accepting the ultimate commonality, we can naturally and voluntarily develop the attitude of compassion and benevolence toward other people, other life-forms, and all beings. We will want to live for the good of all because we know that's the way we benefit ourselves, too. — Ilchi Lee

I am wondering if many of the things that we say about ourselves as women, are actually responsible for leading us down detrimental paths in life. For example, usually we like to say that we're crazy, messy and lost. But when I think about it, I want to be of sound mind, with purpose and unlost (if there is such a word as unlost). Really, who wants to be mentally unstable and eternally insecure? I think maybe we need to stop saying these things about ourselves and we need to start seeing ourselves as what and who we really want to be. — C. JoyBell C.

A kaleidoscope consists of a tube (or container), mirrors, pieces of glass (or beads or precious stones), sunlight, and someone to turn it and observe and enjoy the forms. Metaphorically, perhaps the sun represents the divine light, or spark of life, within all of us. The mirrors represent our ability to serve as mirrors for one another and each other's alignment, reflecting sides of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. The tube (or container) is the practice of community yoga. We, as human beings, are the glass, the beads, the precious stones. The facilitator is the person turning the Kaleidoscope, initiating the changing patterns. And the resulting beauty of the shapes? Well, that's for everyone to enjoy... — Lo Nathamundi

Let us strive to improve ourselves, for we cannot remain stationary; one either progresses or retrogrades. — Marie Anne De Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise Du Deffand

Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves. — Kirk Douglas

Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection. — Brene Brown

Ultimately we want to use dream to liberate ourselves from all relative conditions, not simply to improve them.. — Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

To speak without shame about books we haven't read, we would thus do well to free ourselves of the oppressive image of cultural literacy without gaps, as transmitted and imposed by family and school, for we can strive toward this image for a lifetime without ever managing to coincide with it. — Pierre Bayard

Loving the Earth with a fierce devotion can mean that we view the damage being done to nature as attacks on our own family and kinship group. The despair and rage we feel as witnesses to terracide, animal exploitation and the everyday callous disregard for the environment can be channelled into creating awareness, resistance efforts, the earth rights movement, and by rejecting the numbing and destructive values of Empire. By opening our hearts to the Earth in our thoughts, words, actions and cultural life we will find sacred purpose in the co-creation of an earth-honoring society. Our re-enchantment with the natural world is essential for devoting ourselves to eco-activism, environmental healing, earth restoration and rewilding, and the future rests with us! — Pegi Eyers

ARE YOU LIVING THE LIFE THAT YOUR MAKER INTENDED?
Does your life lack the flavor, the crackle, the intensity you've hoped for?
Daily, we find ourselves bombarded by a thousand recommendations for extending the duration of our lives - exercise three times weekly! smoke in moderation! exchange sugar for saccharine! - but the truth is that time does not gain value by accruing. Time acquires value by being "spent," and spent freely. The longest life is not always the best one; in the marjority of cases, just the opposite.
If you are, in fact, living the life that your maker intended - it may be time to seek another maker. — John Wray

We are never free when we imprison ourselves in the prison of our fixed, false beliefs. — Debasish Mridha

When we believe in ourselves, everything becomes easy and possible. — Debasish Mridha

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! — C. JoyBell C.

Do not dilute the truth of your potential. We often convince ourselves that we cannot change, that we cannot overcome the circumstances of our lives. That is simply not true. You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life. But you can't just wish it, you can't just hope it, you can't just want it ... you have to LIVE it, BE it, DO it. — Steve Maraboli

If we who self-designate ourselves with terms like "Catholic," "Orthodox," "Protestant," "Evangelical," "Charismatic," "Pentecostal" and others would fully surrender ourselves to The Holy Spirit, we could stop focusing on the secondary words we use to describe the primary experience of The Holy Spirit. — John David Geib

There is only one reality: the act of feeling ourselves in the process of making choices. — Erich Fromm

Forrest Gander: Maybe the best we can do is try to leave ourselves unprotected. To keep brushing off habits, how we see things and what we expect, as they crust around us. Brushing the green flies of the usual off the tablecloth. To pay attention. — Brian Christian

Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position. — Audre Lorde

Knowing ourselves is knowing our worth in the eyes of God. That's why the number one thought we cannot fail to think and believe is that He loves us. Always. No matter what. — Toni Sorenson

Fear is an illusionary place we travel to in our minds when we allow ourselves to move away from the heart. — Molly Friedenfeld

All life has in it the dimension of the Unknown; it is a thing forever unfolding. It seems important to consider the possibility that science may have defined life too small. If we define life too small, we will define ourselves too small as well. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Whether people need nature or not, it was clear that nature needed people. But perhaps nature needs us like a hostage needs her captors: nature needs us not to annihilate her, not to run her over, not to cover her with cement, not to chop her down. We can hardly admire ourselves, then, when we stop to accommodate nature's needs: we are dubious heroes who create peril and then save it's victims, we who rescue the animals and the trees from ourselves. — Amy Leach

We often try to understand the world without understanding ourselves. — Debasish Mridha

The journey to loving ourselves doesn't mean we like everything. — Sharon Salzberg

Our culture is obsessed with perfection, especially when it comes to the way women look. The parameters of acceptability as far as physical appearance go are so limiting that only a handful of women actually fall into this category. And the rest of us are left to either squeeze ourselves into molds that don't fit, hating ourselves all the while, or we just give up entirely. — Yancy Lael

To find out how much we can do or how far we can go, we have to challenge ourselves constantly. — Debasish Mridha

We may live victoriously, not because we have any power within ourselves, but because when we give ourselves to God, He gives himself to us. — Norman Vincent Peale

Compassion dervies from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, to feel her pain as though it were our own, and to enter generously into his point of view. That is why our hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism. — Karen Armstrong

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die. — Douglas Coupland

We can't always follow our hearts, no matter how good our intentions are. Sometimes, whether we like it or not, we just have to do whatever's necessary to keep ourselves going. — Kevin Brooks

To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. — Orhan Pamuk

It's tempting to tether ourselves to the familiar comfort of the way things are, but fulfillment is often discovered in the unpredictable and unknown. We can serve ourselves and our universe, best, when we can take the journey that takes us from the limited desire of our ego, to the ever-expanding love and wisdom, of our divine nature. — Jaeda DeWalt

Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives. — Frederic Flach

They made us believe that each one of us is the half of an orange, and that life only makes sense when u find that other half.
They did not tell us that we were born as whole, and that no-one in our lives deserve to carry on his back such responsibility of completing what is missing on us: we grow through life by ourselves. If we have a good company it's just more pleasant. — John Lennon

Accept, forgive and forget. Forgive not only the people who hurt us, but also forgive ourselves, accepting whatever is the outcome, then forget the wrongs, learn from them and move on. Holding on to the guilt and pain would just make life miserable for us. — Kcat Yarza

We need more than just the Law of Attraction. We need to connect with its more successful twin, the Law of Generosity. And further entwine ourselves with their parent; the Law of Love. — Steve Maraboli

If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless. — Bruce Sterling

We must surrender ourselves to God, not our assignments. — E'yen A. Gardner

Instead of accepting ourselves as we are, we try to imitate what we see around us. — Paulo Coelho

Being young and trying to catch a glimpse of the depths, of the true self, of the soul, or whatever human beings have called it over the centuries, we often find ourselves surrounded by bossy, hectoring voices trying to short-circuit our personal experience by super-imposing their own disappointments. Much of this bossiness masquerades as an education. — David Whyte

The problem about cutting out the best of your heart and giving it to people, is that 1. It hurts to do that; and 2. You never know if they are going to throw it away or not. But then you should still do it. Because any other way is cowardice. At the end of the day, it's about being brave and we are only haunted by the ghosts that we trap within ourselves; we are not haunted by the ghosts that we let out. We are haunted by the ghosts that we cover and hide. So you let those ghosts out in that best piece of your heart that you give to someone. And if the other person throws it away? Or doesn't want it to begin with? Someone else will come along one day, cut out from his/her heart that exact same jagged shape that you cut out of your own heart, and make their piece of heart fit into the rest of yours. Wait for that person. And you can fill their missing piece with your soul. — C. JoyBell C.

By our ideas on how others 'ought to be' we rob ourselves of the chance to know them for who they already are. - See beyond the limits of your expectations. — Russell Kyle

...and from here I realized, with the deepest sense of my being, that we can erect and dismantle the great walls of the world, but we will only truly survive as a species when we dedicate ourselves to removing the walls from within. — Dawn Kohler

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness. — Mother Teresa

Sometimes the ugliest parts of ourselves are what others love the most. — Susan Renee

By recalling God's past provision, we can reassure ourselves that what He has done in the past, He will do again in the future. — Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson

There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves. — Robert Quillen

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful middle way ... Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way ... true communication can happen only in that open space. — Pema Chodron

Shortcomings we hate in others can be hidden issues we have failed to recognize within ourselves. — Okisha Jackson

Before we can change the world, we have to change ourselves. We can do it by focusing, concentrating, meditating, and self-realizing. — Debasish Mridha

Awakening and owning the dreams that God has placed in our hearts isn't about getting stuff or attaining something. It's about embracing who we are and who he has created us to be. In him. He is our dream come true, and the one true love of our life. But we can't love him with our whole hearts when our hearts are asleep. To love Jesus means to risk coming awake, to risk wanting and desiring. — Stasi Eldredge

we may have a better reflection of ourselves in the mirror depending on how thick the opaque substance behind it is; the lighter the substance, the poorer the image; the thicker the substance,the better the image. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. — Anatole France

Sometimes we fall into the negative so deeply that we do not realize our first instinctive reaction to everything is to think negatively or to "look" for the bad in every situation. The phrase "too good to be true" directly comes from this aspect of ourselves. To be cautious can be good in certain situations, but to dismiss every interaction or idea to the possibility of "bad things happening" puts us in a place where the beautiful or the divine never gets a chance to fully blossom. Mind your thoughts carefully, as you are the only one who can allow happiness to thrive in your life — Gary Hopkins

Whether they realized it or not, they were doubting possibility, and the unknown. They believed I would fail. And when we only believe what has been said before, what has been done before, we give our own power away. Possibility evaporates; potential melts and seeps away deep into the earth below us. We cut ourselves short by thinking this way. I have always felt that it is from what we believe that our lives are created, not the other way around. — Shreve Stockton

We are images of Adonai, and are responsible for one another, and for taking care of all on earth created by Adonai: just as Adonai is responsible for everything created. We learned to differentiate between good and evil. We can even create order out of chaos, as Adonai did on day one. We not only procreate, but also teach the next generations. (Deuteronomy 6:7). All of these abilities and responsibilities, we inherited when created in the image of Adonai. Every person also has a spark of Adonai within. We can choose to ignore this, or to embrace this. We have the power of choice. With this great power, comes great responsibility. You see, not only were we given the ability to reason, but also, we have the ability to create a new and different future, because we have the ability to change, both ourselves, and the world. — Laura Weakley