Blessings In Disguise Quotes

Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise. [ ... ]
That useless thoughts spoil all: that the mischief began there; but that we ought to reject them, as soon as we perceived their impertinence to the matter in hand, or our salvation; and return to our communion with GOD. ~ Brother Lawrence

If she'd learned nothing else, it was that sometimes things don't always work out the way anyone planned. Roundabouts and detours in life were often blessings in disguise. ~ Leah Atwood

Arjuna, I will now enumerate the marks of the devotee I most dearly love. I love the one who
harbors no ill will toward any living being, who returns love for hatred, who is friendly and
compassionate toward all. I love the devotee who is beyond 'I' and 'mine,' unperturbed by pain and not elated by pleasure, who possesses firm faith, is forgiving, ever contented and ever meditating on Me.
"I love the peaceful devotee who is neither a source of agitation in the world nor agitated by the world. I love those who are free of fear, envy, and other annoyances that the world brings, who accept the knocks that come their way as blessings in disguise.
"I love those who do their worldly duties unconcerned and untroubled by life. I love those who expect absolutely nothing. Those who are pure both internally and externally are also very dear to Me. I love the devotees who are ready to be My instrument, meet any demands I make on them, and yet ask nothing of Me.
"I love those who do not rejoice or feel revulsion, who do not grieve, do not yearn for possessions, are not affected by the bad or good things that happen to and around them and yet are full of devotion to Me. They are dear to Me because they live in the Self (Atma), not in the commotion of the world.
"I love devotees whose attitudes are the same toward friend or foe, who are indifferent to honor or ignominy, heat or cold, praise or criticism - who not only control their talking but are silent within ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

People often say that a bad event is a 'blessing in disguise.' Trust me, experience will teach you that some are unbelievably well disguised. Everyone gets fired, or decides to make a radical change at some point. Everyone suffers setbacks. ~ Tom Freston

Life is strange sometimes. It throws things at us that, at
the moment the events are happening, we can't possibly believe or
understand they could be good in any way, we can't believe it's
what's supposed to happen to us. But sometimes really hard things
that make us hurt, that make us struggle, that make us fight for
what we want, are blessings in disguise. Sometimes we have to
live through them in order to have a better appreciation of our lives
and the good things that happen. ~ M.L Rhodes

Some souls are ennobled and elevated by seeming misfortunes, which then become blessings in disguise. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Once you have the gift of life, you are blessed. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

All the criticism is ultimately a blessing in disguise. Because now people know about Malawi [due to the child adoption]. And now people know about the orphans there. And hopefully it's gonna turn around. And a positive is gonna come out of the negative. ~ Madonna Ciccone

How selfish and dark it was to count my blessings based on another's hell ~ Mercy Cortez

At the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University, McAdams studies the stories that people tell about themselves. We all write our life stories as if we were novelists, McAdams believes, with beginnings, conflicts, turning points, and endings. And the way we characterize our past setbacks profoundly influences how satisfied we are with our current lives. Unhappy people tend to see setbacks as contaminants that ruined an otherwise good thing ("I was never the same again after my wife left me"), while generative adults see them as blessings in disguise ("The divorce was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, but I'm so much happier with my new wife"). Those who live the most fully realized lives - giving back to their families, societies, and ultimately themselves - tend to find meaning in their obstacles. In a sense, McAdams has breathed new life into one of the great insights of Western mythology: that where we stumble is where our treasure lies. ~ Susan Cain

And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.
This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind. ~ Oscar Wilde

Happiness is seeing blessings in disguise, beauty under camouflage, and love amid conflict. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Keep in mind too, our failures serve to teach us, and usually teach us more than our successes do. What we may perceive as a failure is also an opportunity for someone else to rise to the occasion and perform a mitzvah, or mitzvot. Do not begrudge someone their joyous performance of mitzvot. Sometimes, perhaps even more often then you may think, what we consider our failures were blessings in disguise for ourselves, or others, or everyone. Abraham did not change the world just because he himself changed, and followed his own destiny. He changed the world through his giving others opportunities to rise to their own greatness. ~ Laura Weakley

God never cooperates with evil. He simply offers us the opportunity to transform the painful experiences in our lives into advantages and blessings. (Fr. Maximos) ~ Kyriacos C. Markides

Everything that is given to us in life is either a blessing or a curse. ~ Seth Adam Smith

What we count the ills of life are often blessings in disguise, resulting in good to us in the end. Though for the present not joyous but grievous, yet, if received in a right spirit, they work out fruits of righteousness for us at last. ~ Matthew Henry

Beautiful gifts sometimes come adorned in ugly wrapping. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

We, in our Province, are beginning to realize and appreciate that our slowness in keeping up with our North American neighbours may well have been a blessing in disguise. ~ Alex Campbell

God is faithful.
God is merciful. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Hold on to and cherish even the smallest of moments... you may not know it yet, but years from now when you look back... they could become one of your biggest memories! ~ Nyki Mack

I am grateful to God for all His many untold blessing upon my life. ~ Lailah GiftyAkita

I am living proof that uncertainty is vastly underrated and often times a blessing in disguise. ~ Tony Shalhoub

Paradise Lost is sometimes Heaven found. ~ Arthur Yorinks

We all write our life stories as if we were novelists, McAdams believes, with beginnings, conflicts, turning points, and endings. And the way we characterize our past setbacks profoundly influences how satisfied we are with our current lives. Unhappy people tend to see setbacks as contaminants that ruined an otherwise good thing ("I was never the same again after my wife left me"), while generative adults see them as blessings in disguise ("The divorce was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, but I'm so much happier with my new wife"). ~ Susan Cain

Sometimes, the hard knocks of life are blessings in disguise. ~ James Houston Turner

Duke by Day, Rogue by Night is a rollicking romp of a pirate romance in the classic style. From ship deck to London ballroom, Katherine Bone's story is packed with intrigue, and the disguise of her rough and dangerous hero as a town popinjay positively delights." Katharine Ashe, author of HOW TO A LADY WEDS A ROGUE ~ Katherine Bone

All the greatest blessings are a source of anxiety, and at no time should fortune be less trusted than when it is best; to maintain prosperity there is need of other prosperity, and in behalf of the prayers that have turned out well we must make still other prayers. For everything that comes to us from chance is unstable, and the higher it rises, the more liable it is to fall. Moreover, what is doomed to perish brings pleasure to no one; very wretched, therefore, and not merely short, must the life of those be who work hard to gain what they must work harder to keep. By great toil they attain what they wish, and with anxiety hold what they have attained; meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. ~ Seneca.

Every person who will learn the right way, and who will then continue diligently to follow that right way, is absolutely certain in time to possess great riches and all attending blessings. ~ Joseph Franklin Rutherford

But truly, what man doth not wear a mask?
For all of us are maskèd in some way–
Some choose sharp cruelty as their outward face,
Some put themselves behind a king's façade,
Some hind behind the mask of bravery,
Some put on the disguise of arrogance.
But underneath our masks are we not one?
Do we not all wish for love, and joy, and peace? ~ Ian Doescher

I run to the high mountains
I pour my heart out to the skies
I sing of the summer song
While the sky above dance in the yellow light.
The cool breeze fools the sun above
Takes a run, wins the mighty fight.
Your light then comes to me with warmth,
A view my heart wants.
Love to me is the song you write.
The tricks you play with the endless sky
And with the icy wind you find a disguise.
You burn me like sun that burns up
In the blue abyss.
With the ink of my emotions
You write a song of Fire and Ice. ~ Jaishree Garg

Nothing else but seeing God in everything can make us loving and patient with those who annoy us. When we realize that they are only the instruments for accomplishing His purpose in our lives, we will actually be able to thank them [inwardly] for the blessings they bring us. ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

Prayer changes from entreaty to thanksgiving, and meditation on the divine truths of faith fills the heart with a sense of jubilation and unimpeachable hope. This hope is a foretaste of future blessings, of which the soul even now receives direct experience, and so it comes to know in part the surpassing richness of God's bounty, in accordance with the Psalmist's words, 'Taste and know that the Lord is bountiful' (Ps. 34:8). For He is the jubilation of the righteous, the joy of the upright, the gladness of the humble, and the solace of those who grieve because of Him. ~ Gregory Palamas

Dear Lord, who made the face of me not all that I would have it be, not really homely, only plain, but strong and patient in the main. Yet one, a man apart, who found me fair and gave his heart. Now Lord, that I have grown more sage ... into middle age. I only ask, as face grows lines of countenance, it be described as kind; that wrinkles by my eyes will show a little humor as I go; that I may view my humble scene with glance of one content, serene, through grateful, shining eyes that see the blessings you have given me. ~ Ruth Perry

That experience showed me that I-from moment to moment-am the only person in control of my connection to God. It's not that God is deciding to connect with me, depending on whether I had a good day, or did good or bad deeds. It's all up to me. God, the awareness of God, the love of God, the blessings of God-that lively ecstasy-is always there. It's me who separates from God by judging, by indulging in negativity, by criticizing myself, as well as others. ~ Barbara De Angelis

Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society. ~ James Madison

In a mystery, you must play fair by giving all the clues, but disguise them by immediately distracting the reader with something else. ~ Joan Lowery Nixon

Portia we can admire because, having seen her leave her Earthly Paradise to do a good deed in this world (one notices, incidentally, that in this world she appears in disguise), we know that she is aware of her wealth as a moral responsibility, but the other inhabitants of Belmont, Bassanio, Gratiano, Lorenzo and Jessica, for all their beauty and charm, appear as frivolous members of a leisure class, whose carefree life is parasitic upon the labors of others, including usurers. When we learn that Jessica has spent fourscore ducats of her father's money in an evening and bought a monkey with her mother's ring, we cannot take this as a comic punishment for Shylock's sin of avarice; her behavior seems rather an example of the opposite sin of conspicuous waste. Then, with the example in our minds of self-sacrificing love as displayed by Antonio, while we can enjoy the verbal felicity of the love duet between Lorenzo and Jessica, we cannot help noticing that the pairs of lovers they recall, Troilus and Cressida, Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, are none of them examples of self-sacrifice or fidelity. […] Belmont would like to believe that men and women are either good or bad by nature, but Antonio and Shylock remind us that this is an illusion; in the real world, no hatred is totally without justification, no love totally innocent. ~ W.H. Auden

May the blessings which flow in all weddings
be gathered, God, together in our wedding!
The blessings of the Night of Power,
the month of fasting
the festival to break the fast
the blessings of the meeting of Adam and Eve
the blessings of the meeting of Joseph and Jacob
the blessings of gazing on the paradise of all abodes
and yet another blessing which cannot be put in words:
the fruitful scattering of joy
of the children of the Shayak
and our eldest!

In companionship and happiness
may you be like milk and honey
in union and fidelity,
just like sugar and halva.
May the blessings of those who toast
and the one who pours the wine
anoint the ones who said Amen and
the one who said the prayer ~ Rumi

I have now lived long enough to know that, whatever our situation, our troubles melt and disappear like frost in the morning sun when we dwell upon our blessings rather than our disappointments. No matter how pessimistic one's view may become of the times and the seasons, we can always fall back on special friendship, on faithful, personal love, and on simple, true dealings in our own personal lives. ~ James E. Faust

Half my concern in love became how to disguise love, to make it harmless and merry. ~ Alice Munro

The minimalist life. Pleasure is an egg. Blessings that can be counted, on the fingers of one hand. But possibly this is how I am expected to react. If I have an egg, what more can I want? In ~ Margaret Atwood

They are yours, but you don't understand them," snapped Reza. "Only Adam was given true intellect, and only the banu adam have the power to call things by their right names. What you call the bird king and the hind and the stag - these are only symbols to disguise a hidden message, just as a poet may write a ghazal about a toothless lion to criticize a weak king. Hidden in your stories is the secret power of the unseen." The stories are their own message, said the thing, with something like a sigh. That's the secret. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Anger is always - always - fear in disguise. ~ Spider Robinson

Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near - that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.
I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due - that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.
Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.
- chapter 2 ~ Philip Gulley

The fact of the matter is, we really and truly need each other. Women naturally seek friendship, support, and companionship. We have so much to learn from one another, and we often let self-imposed barriers keep us from enjoying associations which could be among the greatest blessings in our lives. ~ Bonnie L. Oscarson

Prayer is an essential part of conveying appreciation to our Heavenly Father. He awaits our expressions of gratefulness each morning and night in sincere, simple prayer from our hearts for our many blessings, gifts, and talents. Through expression of prayerful gratitude and thanksgiving, we show our dependence upon a higher source of wisdom and knowledge - God the Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are taught to 'live in thanksgiving daily.' (Alma 34:38.) ~ Robert D. Hales

Every day I see Jesus Christ in all his distressing disguises. ~ Mother Teresa

We write a line we're especially proud of, and weeks later find it staring -no glaring- back at us from some stanza in George Herbert or Emily Dickinson. All poets have debts outstanding. It's how we learn; how we adore; we come to ourselves by putting those selves into the hands of masters. With experience we learn how to disguise our thefts (sometimes by flaunting them). It is how we both continue and extend a tradition. -J.D. McClatchy, Writing Between the Lines ~ Robin Behn

In one memorable episode, Warren received a trusting note from a woman in the bookkeeping department via the library's pneumatic-tube system, which ran between the library and store. "It's very slow here on this rainy day," the bookkeeper complained. "Please send me one of those novels you have had to withdraw from circulation as unfit for a lady to read." Warren fulfilled the request and was surprised the next day to receive the book back, discreetly wrapped, with the message: "Blessings upon you! You're quite right. This is not fit for anybody to read. Please send another just like it. ~ Molly Guptill Manning

Neither does man have gills for living in a water environment; yet it is not sinful to explore the depths of the oceans in search of food or other blessings. ~ Walter Lang

The best gift for an actor is the love of the fans. Many make sweet cards, write letters and even come and meet me wherever I am in India. The love and blessings of your elders is also always cherished, but the extra mile that the fans go to is memorable. ~ Abhishek Bachchan

Ah! How little I then thought that my eyes looked on him who was to be my life's beloved; how little I dreamed of the honour God was preparing for me in the near future! It is a mercy that our lives are not left for us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us; else we might sometimes turn away from our best blessings and put from us the choicest and loveliest gifts of His providence. (quoted in Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon by Ray Rhodes, Jr.) ~ Susannah Spurgeon

Under the mellowing influence of good food and good music, Adam relaxed, and I discovered that underneath that overbearing, hot-tempered Alpha disguise he usually wore was a charming, over-bearing, hot-tempered man. He seemed to enjoy finding out that I was as stubborn and disrespectful of authority as he'd always suspected.
He ordered dessert without consulting me. I'd have been angrier, but it was something I could never have ordered for myself: chocolate, caramel, nuts, ice cream, real whipped cream, and cake so rich it might as well have been a brownie.
"So," he said, as I finished the last bit, "I'm forgiven?"
"You are arrogant and overstep your bounds," I told him, pointing my clean fork at him.
"I try," he said with false modesty. Then his eyes darkened and he reached across the table and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. He watched me as he licked the caramel from his skin.
I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. "That is not fair. I'll eat your dessert and like it - but you can't use sex to keep me from getting mad."
He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh.
To change the subject, because matters were heating up faster than I was comfortable with, I said, "So Bran tells me that he ordered you to keep an eye out for me."
He stopped laughing and raised both eyebrows. "Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran."
It was a tr ~ Patricia Briggs

Fynn disguise nobody but Fynn. At the time of writing I have known him for a couple of years. But there is another way in which I have known him all my life. For there is about him that transparent vulnerability which makes for a total and immediate correspondence with anyone who is prepared to throw prejudices to the wind and celebrate life as a lump of mysterious and joyful awe. But all the speculation about a trained scientist or theologian with imaginative leanings and communications was pretty well wide of the mark. Fynn, thank God, was not trained as either of these. Intelligent to the eyelashes and with a gargantuan appetite for knowledge, Fynn was early advised to eschew (may his adviser rest in peace) universities and other institutions for the purveying of processed thought. Some of his most formative thinking took place far from the quads and colleges and punted rivers amongst the small streets, warehouses, and canals of the East End. But with his modest job and his Woolworth's do-it-yourself laboratory he produced thought to which few PhD's have approximated. ~ Vernon Sproxton

The gift of today, blessings of the moment. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

With all this extra stressin
The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath
When will I finaly get to rest? Through this supression
they punish the people that's askin questions
And those that possess, steal from the ones without possesions
The message I stress: to make it stop study your lessons
Don't settle for less - even the genius asks-es questions
Be grateful for blessings
Don't ever change, keep your essence
The power is in the people and politics we address. ~ Tupac Shakur

Most astonishing of all to the citizens of Constantinople, however, was the emperor's habit of wandering in disguise through the streets of the capital, questioning those he met about their concerns and ensuring that merchants were charging fair prices for their wares. Once a week, accompanied by the blare of trumpets, he would ride from one end of the city to the other, encouraging any who had complaints to seek him out. Those who stopped him could be certain of a sympathetic ear no matter how powerful their opponent. One story tells of a widow who approached the emperor and made the startling claim that the very horse he was riding had been stolen from her by a senior magistrate of the city. Theophilus dutifully looked into the matter, and when he discovered that the widow was correct, he had the magistrate flogged and told his watching subjects that justice was the greatest virtue of a ruler.* ~ Lars Brownworth

Americans and other Westerners who want their families to enjoy the blessings of life in a free society should understand that the life we've led since 1945 in the Western world is very rare in human history. Our children are unlikely to enjoy anything so placid, and may well spend their adult years in an ugly and savage world unless we decide that who and what we are is worth defending. ~ Mark Steyn

Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Raise your awareness to your own inner strength and positivity. You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life, or you can choose to be positive instead by focusing on the great things that are truly important. So talk about your blessings more than you talk about your problems. Just because you're struggling doesn't mean you're failing. Every great success requires some kind of worthy struggle to get there. ~ Anonymous

Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you. ~ Mother Teresa

All of her blessings had come so easily in the beginning of her life, and she'd spent the back half losing them all. ~ Brit Bennett

They've said: PRAYING isn't enough in this situation.
Contrary to belief, prayer is all you need. If you believe that it isn't, it's only because you haven't truly experience the power of praying in your life.
Keep praying. When there was a battle, one man prayed, and God caused the sun to delay setting, so they could win the battle. (Joshua 10)
The prayers of the Righteous, they have overwhelming impacts and I encourage you to include that in whatever your next move is in this situation.
I don't march, I don't openly protest... No important reasons... I just don't... but I can do what I do best... Help behind the scenes.. and PRAY.. because, I know it works.
Peace and Blessings ~ Jennifer M. Malone

Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel. Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or to present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. This process is complicated and confusing and scary, and also hard work, but it turns out to be the best fun there is.
The fact that you can now sustain the fun of writing only by confronting the very same unfun parts of yourself you'd first used writing to avoid or disguise is another paradox, but this one isn't any kind of bind at all. What it is is a gift, a kind of miracle, and compared to it the reward of strangers' affection is as dust, lint. ~ David Foster Wallace

That was the great misconception about men: because they dealt with money, because they could hire someone on and later fire him, because they alone filled state assemblies and were elected congressional representatives, everyone thought they had power. Yet all the hiring and firing, the land deals and the lumber contracts, the complicated process for putting through a constitutional amendment-these were only bluster. They were blinds to disguise the fact of men's real powerlessness in life. Men controlled the legislatures, but when it came down to it, they didn't control themselves. Men had failed to study their own minds sufficiently, and because of this failure they were at the mercy of fleeting passions; men, much more than women, were moved by petty jealousies and the desire for petty revenges. Because they enjoyed their enormous but superficial power, men had never been forced to know themselves the way that women, in their adversity and superficial subservience, had been forced to learn about the workings of their brains and their emotions. ~ Michael McDowell

Throughout history, people in all cultures and lands have gathered together at mealtimes. In forests and mountains, in humble abodes and great mansions, beneath star filled skies and beside hearths, people have given thanks, and offered their blessings. ~ John Robbins

There is no God, I'm sure of that. But the more they've sought me out, the more I am convinced that there are holy men and women. So I send blessings, such as they are, to all my priests who constitute the Resistance. Down with the fur and the edicts. And if they like, they're welcome to include me in their prayers. Can't hurt. None of us will free the world of intolerance alone. We need people of God, especially if He isn't here. ~ Paul Monette