Control Our Responses Quotes

We may not control a situation, but we can control our responses and actions. ~ Debasish Mridha

Response is what we have trained ourselves to be; it is a reflection of our manhood, character, ideals. We cannot always control our surface reactions, but we can sit at the helm of our lives and control our responses to the blows of life. ~ Wilferd Peterson

But since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, things haven't been fair. Bad things happen to good people. But if we wait for justice, we are putting our lives under the control of those who hurt us. Better far to take God's solution of grief and forgiveness and grow through the unfair situation. Remember that God himself didn't demand fairness and justice for us; rather, he valued his relationship with us so much that he went to the cross for us: "Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6). ~ Henry Cloud

Make good scouts of yourselves, become good rifle shots so that if it becomes necessary that you defend your families and your country that you can do it. ~ Robert Baden-Powell

But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22 ~ Nicholas Sparks

His head lowered and his breath feathered over her face. "Ye belong to me, Kenzie Denune - every passionate, stunning part of ye. Me, Colleen, and our entire family, we all need ye." His lips moved against hers as he spoke. "But mainly, me, for ye fit against me, every delectable inch, outside and in." Then his lips covered hers and took control. ~ Vonnie Davis

I think humanity is not wise enough to know what genotype or somatype is going to be the most successful or the most fit - simply because we're not fully in control of our environment. ~ Paul Di Filippo

We must see God not as a Him (some linear rewarding fellow) but an IT, a great beast beyond our understanding, who wants something from us, and we must give it, and all we may control is the spirit in which we give it and the ultimate end which the giving serves. ~ George Saunders

Our 'responses' determine our results...How about an 'intelligent' response to 'unintelligent' behavior or treatment. It is powerful if we can do that ! ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

That's what art is, he said, the story of a life in all its particularity. It's the only thing that really is particular and personal. It's the expression and, at the same time, the fabric of the particular. And what do you mean by the fabric of the particular? I asked, supposing he would answer: Art. I was also thinking, indulgently, that we were pretty drunk already and that it was time to go home. But my friend said: What I mean is the secret story ... The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every damn thing matters! It's just that we don't realize. We tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, we don't even realize that's a lie. ~ Roberto Bolano

Don't you think...doesn't it seem sometimes like life is like a plane?...And we're all piloos, you know, of our own planes. When things are going smoothly then we're, like, on autopilot, but sometimes things get a little, well, turbulent and then we have to land the plane on our own..."What about the air traffic control?"...Well, sure. Sometimes the guy is helpful, but maybe he's drunk?...Or maybe there's this big fog so you just put your hands on the controls and look for the runway lights and do your best. On your own. ~ Gayle Friesen

When we were first born, Spirit was our predominate guide, but as we 'matured,' our society quickly cured us of that.

I learned later in my studies that any negative moaning I have about my life is only an affirmation of weakness and makes all those around me not want to be there.

Life is nothing more than a dance with God; we just need to follow His lead and quit stepping on His toes.

We must be able to release the things we hold dearest in order to truly have.

I believe you must know the feeling of hunger before you can truly taste and enjoy food, you can only recognize authenticity by experiencing fraud, and you can only experience true love after enduring heartache. Your level of awareness will increase as you experience the rawness of life on your path to becoming more.

God never gives you more than you can handle. He is perfect in His teaching.

Know that what comes around goes around, and what you're unable to forgive and let go will stay around.

We need to control what we think, what we say, and how we feel. It's our thoughts that produce our words, and our words lead to our actions. Our actions over time become habits, which form our character. Our character is what unfolds into our reality.

Life is not about a future someone, it's about 'becoming' someone and enjoying every step along the way. There's no need to wait - significance is available right now.

If you had to ~ Doug Burnett

Grace generates panic, because it wrestles both control and glory out of our hands. This means that the part of you that gets angry and upset and mean and defensive and slanderous and critical and skeptical and feisty when you hear about God's one-way love is the very part of you that is still enslaved. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we've just played, it's perfectly clear that we're affected every day by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them. ~ Arthur Golden

Let truth be told. The more we allow water to be controlled, bottled and sold - the more we sell the security of our sons, daughters and souls. He who controls the water, controls us all. Water is the true gold. ~ Suzy Kassem

When we're each aware of our own Magnificence, we don't feel the need to control others, and we won't allow ourselves to be controlled. ~ Anita Moorjani

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes. ~ Jack Kornfield

This vast life - the real, interior one in which we remain linked to the dead (because the dream inside us ignores trivialities like breath, or absence) - this vast life is not under our control. Everything we have seen and everyone we have known goes into us and constitutes us, whether we like it or not. We are linked together in a pattern we cannot see and whose effects we cannot know. ~ Anna Funder

Trust me, Jennifer. Just...trust me."
I drove another block or two. "Why should I?"
"Why shouldn't you?"
Because you left me, Cameron. After everything we went through. But I knew it wasn't his fault, any more than it was mine. It wasn't like either of us had control over our lives. We were at the mercy of our parents, both of us. Anyway, I'd already turned the car toward the freeway entrance. I turned on the car radio and we drove twenty minutes without talking. When the exit finally came into view, ugly warehouses and the new Wal-Mart looming before us, I said, "Let's go to my old apartment first. I haven't been there since we moved."
"I've gone by it a couple of times."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Living there with you was kind of my best memory."
I imagined that, him going to the apartment and looking up at the window and thinking about me. ~ Sara Zarr

But she wouldn't. I knew that already. My mother and I had an understanding: we worked together to be as much in control of our shared world as possible. I was suposed to be her other half, carrying my share of the weight. In the last few weeks, I'd tried to shed it, and doing so sent everything off kilter. So of course she would pull me tighter, keeping me in my place, because doing so meant she would always be sure, somehow, of her own. ~ Sarah Dessen

Mindfulness practices enhance the connection between our body, our mind and everything else that is around us. Mindful living is the key to understanding our struggles with weight and to empowering us to control our weight. ~ Nhat Hanh

When we respond accordingly, when our responses are healthy, when we are not trying to beat the system, life treats us well. ~ Sunday Adelaja

I shook my head. "I'm good, Nicky helped."
Nicky looked at Edward. "She's having one of those what-if-killing-feels-really-good, doesn't-that-make-me-a-bad-person moments."
Edward nodded as if that made perfect sense. "Then it feels good. We can't really control what flips our switch; don't judge it, Anita, and just accept it."
I wanted to argue, but it would have been beyond stupid to argue with the two sociopaths in my life. "Why do I have moral quandary questions with the two of you?"
"Because you don't really have moral quandaries about violence, Anita, but you're afraid of being judged for enjoying it, so you only bring it to the two people in your life who won't judge you."
I wanted to argue with Edward, but I couldn't. "Well, fuck. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control. ~ Epictetus

This," he says, "is precisely what campfires are for. The sharing of stories. There's a spiritual connection between flame and narrative."

S. nods. He understands Stenfalk's proposition intuitively; we create stories to help us shape a chaotic world, to navigate inequities of power, to accept our lack of control over nature, over others, over ourselves. ~ Doug Dorst J. J. Abrams

Harm reduction is often perceived as being inimical to the ultimate purpose of "curing" addiction - that is, of helping addicts transcend their habits and to heal. People regard it as "coddling" addicts, as enabling them to continue their destructive ways. It's also considered to be the opposite of abstinence, which many regard as the only legitimate goal of addiction treatment. Such a distinction is artificial. The issue in medical practice is always how best to help a patient. If a cure is possible and probable without doing greater harm, then cure is the objective. When it isn't - and in most chronic medical conditions cure is not the expected outcome - the physician's role is to help the patient with the symptoms and to reduce the harm done by the disease process.

In rheumatoid arthritis, for example, one aims to prevent joint inflammation and bone destruction and, in all events, to reduce pain. In incurable cancers we aim to prolong life, if that can be achieved without a loss of life quality, and also to control symptoms. In other words, harm reduction means making the lives of afflicted human beings more bearable, more worth living. That is also the goal of harm reduction in the context of addiction. Although hardcore drug addiction is much more than a disease, the harm reduction model is essential to its treatment. Given our lack of a systematic, evidencebased approach to addiction, in many cases it's futile to dream of a cure.

So long as s ~ Gabor Mate

We must control the politics and the politicians of our community. They must no longer take orders from outside forces. We will organize, and sweep out of office all Negro politicians who are puppets for the outside forces. ~ Malcolm X

It is all too easy to give ourselves over to the traumas of the past -- allowing pain to define us. There is a medicine for that -- hope and perseverance. Light brings light. And no matter what we face there is one thing we can control: our outlook. It's not about ignoring the pain, or mindlessly believing things will simply be better -- it's about finding the joy in participating. And when the weight of the past pulls us low we must find the strength to release it ... and finally give ourselves permission to start over. ~ Rick Remender

The Republican Party had a big day in yesterday's midterm elections and now controls the House and Senate. And don't ask me how this happened, but the Republican Party also gained control of three seats in our show's band. ~ Conan O'Brien

Without a revolution of the inner life, however slow, all our big designs are worthless. The work we have to do is with ourselves if we're ever going to be at peace with each other ... the good that flows from it will shape our societies in an unprogrammed, unforeseen way, under the control of no single group of people or set of ideas. ~ Ian McEwan

We are always coming into being. If our beings are subject to chances and choices, then there are numerous potential permutations for each one of us. We are capable of many things, and of those tasks within the scope of our innate reach, we will probably only realize a small percentage of successes. It is crucially important that we make the best decisions we can and efficiently utilize our allotted time to make the most out of our lives. While we do not control every aspect of our ultimate destiny, we can certainly waste our life on frivolities. Alternatively, we can work resolutely with passion and purpose and by doing so place a premium value upon a life that is otherwise utterly absurd. Human beings can use thoughts to direct free will in order to exert control over our personal attitude and behavior, monitor what we say and how we behave, and determine whom we associate with and whom we avoid. Human free will allows us deliberately to determine what subjects we wish to study and what theories we desire actively to integrate into our lives. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency first by inflation then by deflation the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered ... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies ... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The first truth is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a conditional rule that applies only when you are good, pure, and lovable. God's passionate and personal love for each and every human being expresses who God is. Unfailing love is the divine nature and the divine choice in relation to us. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality. It is a gift, a given.We cannot control whether God loves us by efforts to gain this love or even to lose it. Since we neither deserve nor earn such love, God's fondest dream is that we will receive and respond to it. ~ Marjorie, J. Thompson

Her father said, "You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes." "Even at a time like this?" Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband's voice, had nearly broken her control. "Especially at a time like this," her mother said gently. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Our lives are in constant flux, which generates many predicaments. But when these are faced with a calm and clear mind supported by spiritual practice, they can all be successfully resolved. When our minds are clouded by hatred, selfishness, jealousy, and anger, we lose not only control but also our judgment. At those wild moments, anything can happen, including war. Although the practice of compassion and wisdom is useful to us all, it is especially valuable for those responsible for running national affairs, in whose hands lie the power and opportunity to create a framework for world peace. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

...(S)uffering is universal. But victimhood is optional. There is a difference between victimization and victimhood. We are all likely to victimized in some way in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimization. It comes from outside. It's the neighborhood bully, the boss who rages, the spouse who hits, the lover who cheats, the discriminatory law, the accident that lands you in the hospital.

In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization. We develop a victim's mind -- a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries. We become our own jailors when we choose the confines of the victim's mind. ~ Edith Eger

I learned a long time ago we've control of little in this world, Amanda. It doesn't belong to us. It's out of our hands. Like being born or being sold into prostitution at eight. All we can change is the way we think and the way we live. ~ Francine Rivers

The world is so unpredictable.
Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly.
We want to feel we are in control of our own existence.
In some ways we are , in some ways we are not ... ~ Paul Auster

I think Britain can be one of the great success stories of the 21st century - we've got the talent, the drive, the connections around the world. But if we vote to Leave, then we lose control. We lose control of our economy, and if you lose control of your economy you lose control of everything. That's not a price worth paying. ~ George Osborne

You always were selfish. Your one fault. Not willing to share anything, are you?" Suddenly, Damon's lips curved up in a singularly beautiful smile. But fortunately the lovely Elena is more generous. Didn't she tell you about our little liaisons? Why? The first time we met she almost gave herself to me on the spot."
"That's a lie!"
"Oh, no, dear brother, I never lie about anything important. Or do I mean unimportant? Anyway, your beauteous damsel nearly swooned into my arms. I think she likes men in black." As Stefan stared at him, trying to control his breathing, Damon added, almost gently, "You're wrong about her, you know, You think she's sweet and docile like Katherine. She isn't. She's not your type at all, my saintly brother. She has a spirit and a fire in her that you wouldn't know what to do with."
"And you would, I suppose."
Damon uncrossed his arms and slowly smiled again. "Oh, yes. ~ L.J.Smith