Courage To Be Oneself Quotes

Your power is in your story and all the wisdom it has brought you. ~ Angela Mayah Solstice

We are all born to fly. Instead, we sit on the branches afraid of the leap into the unknown. But the unknown is where enlightenment lives. Our true nature is the unknown. ~ Enza Vita

Stubbornness is knowing exactly what you want courageously living by free will; never to be judged or ridiculed. ~ Michelle Cruz-Rosado

I judge the world by my own lights
and I come by my own hand. ~ Catherine Madsen

There was once a poor shoemaker who had three fine strong sons and two pretty daughters and a third who could do nothing well, who shivered plates and tangled her spinning, who curdled milk, could not get butter to come, nor set a fire so that smoke did not pour into the room, a useless, hopeless, dreaming daughter, to whom her mother would often say that she should try to fend for herself in the wild wood, and then she would know the value of listening to advice, and of doing things properly. And this filled the perverse daughter with a great desire to go even a little way into the wild wood, where there were no plates and no stitching, but might well be a need of such things as she knew she had it in herself to perform ... ~ A.S. Byatt

The monster is only scary while it is in the closet.
Once in the light,
you can see its many flaws
and weaknesses.

And often,
we end up laughing,
at what we shield our eyes from
no more. ~ Tom Althouse

Dream your own dreams,
be your own person and image,
no matter the extremes. ~ KayeC Jones

Rejoice in your troubles, all things will work for your good. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Stop groveling, stop whining and start working! ~ Abhijit Naskar

You don't always have to follow the rules. You have to stand for what you believe. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Take action to conquer mountains; don't ever go without faith, tenacity and vigilance! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Like your tastebuds, desires and goals are ever-changing. What used to work, might not do it for you anymore. The question is: Do you have the guts to do something about it? ~ C. Nzingha Smith

The wind has many lovers and I am one of them, I move freely in her arms
I know no chains, nor bound to anyone's truth, you can call me a harlot of the wind,
I take no offense, because I know at the end of my days, my face will show that
I have been kissed by the breath of GOD.

~Micheline Jean louis ~ Micheline Jean Louis

You don't really love me, or you never would have treated me like you did. You were just afraid of letting me go. There's a difference, and no one knows that better than I do. We were both afraid of moving on, me of what I really wanted. It brought us together, it bound us, but no longer. I am done with making decisions based on fear. [Nicholas to Grace] ~ Emily Colin

Character and purpose are directly linked to confidence and conviction. What links them? Courage – to be oneself, no matter what others might say. ~ Fennel Hudson

If you don't fight for it then you don't deserve to have it ~ Abie Sigauke

No longer will I doubt my abilities ... I will give myself a chance. ~ Stephanie Lahart

One must stand apart in order to truly know another. ~ Regina O'Melveny

Taking the journey towards ourselves is the hardest journey we have to make in this life and yet the most courageous ~ Mimi Novic

... I'm no longer willing to let myself down. ~ Sarah Jio

For the sake of all the others who are like you, but less strong and less gifted perhaps, many of them, it's up to you to have the courage to make good. ~ Radclyffe Hall

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Spontaneous insanity is the real bliss! It's sad that we are honored for playing sane, serious, safe, miserable and controlling in this poor world. ~ Saurabh Sharma

Have the courage to let some go, and sacrifice for some to stay; thus, live and make life your own way. ~ Mohammed Ali Bapir

I was attached to this city by the god - though it seems a ridiculous thing to say - as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you
all day long and everywhere I find myself in your company. ~ Socrates

Mr. Kendrick was born on a horse and he'll die on one, and maybe that's not something you can breed for. He's one of those rare men who can make a horse work for him but never asks for more than they have. WOW. Very unexpected. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Roar to your own beat! ~ Janet Autherine

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway. ~ Mother Teresa

I didn't say a word. He wouldn't be using oxygen. K2 is more dangerous than Everest. ~ Susan Oakey-Baker

Without confidence, there is no courage. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell. ~ Ayn Rand

...to remind myself that a person can die while they're still alive, simply by not choosing to live." It's taken me a long time to understand what she'd meant by that. Worry can be pernicious. Left unchecked, it slowly bleeds the soul of joy and replaces it with fear. ~ Ami McKay

His voice bellowed with strength and courage, "People of Israel, Yahweh has spoken to me and has told me to be strong and courageous, for we will inherit this land that Yahweh had sworn to our forefathers! But we must be careful to do according to all the law that Moses commanded us! We must not turn from it to the right or to the left, and only then will we have success wherever we go! The book of the Law shall not depart from our mouths, but we shall meditate on it day and night, for Yahweh our Elohim is with us wherever we go!" The people applauded. Caleb beamed with honor. They had been through so much. They had survived thirst and starvation in a desert land, the death of loved ones, rebellion, plagues, famines, and wars. And now, finally, finally they were about to gain their inheritance. Their eternal wandering would be over. ~ Brian Godawa

We believe that cowardice is to blame for the world's injustices. We believe that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace. We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even to our sanity. We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. We believe, not in just bold words, but in bold deeds to match them. We believe that pain and death are better than cowardice and inaction because we believe in action. We do not believe in living comfortable lives. We do not believe that silence is useful. We do not believe in good manners. We do not believe in empty heads, empty mouths, or empty hands. We do not believe that learning to master violence encourages unnecessary violence. We do not believe that we should be allowed to stand idly by. We do not believe that any other virtue is more important than bravery. ~ Veronica Roth

I summon the courage to go for what I want. Having cancer has left me less afraid than I used to be. I'm painfully aware that life is short and we've got to seize the moment, especially when the moment is lying in my arms, hard and hot and sexy and so tormented.
… "Time wasted is time we never get back. I don't believe in playing games or mincing words. ~ M.S. Force

Blind compassion is rooted in the belief that we are all doing the best that we can. When we are driven by blind compassion, we cut everyone far too much slack, making excuses for others' behavior and making nice in situations that require a forceful "no," an unmistakable voicing of displeasure, or a firm setting and maintaining of boundaries. These things can, and often should, be done out of love, but blind compassion keeps love too meek, sentenced to wearing a kind face. This is not the kindness of the Dalai Lama, which is rooted in courage, but rather a kindness rooted in fear, and not just the fear of confrontation, but also the fear of not coming across as a good or spiritual person. When we are engaged in blind compassion we rarely show any anger, for we not only believe that compassion has to be gentle, we are also frightened of upsetting anyone, especially to the point of their confronting us. ~ Robert Augustus Masters

In the spiritual life, the opposite of fear is not courage, but trust. Branch out. Not only do our beliefs define us, but so does the community of like-minded people who share those beliefs. Christian traditions, denominations, and congregations provide a group identity. We are social animals, so we should not judge our spiritual groups, or those of others, as necessarily a problem. Only when our communities become the defining element of our spiritual lives, packs that protect those boundaries at all costs, do problems begin. That leads to isolation, "us versus them" thinking, and the illusion that "we" are basically right about the Bible and God and "they" aren't - the kind of wall-building that Jesus and Paul criticized. So much can be learned from ~ Peter Enns

After you have suffered great losses and known much pain, it is not cowardice to wish to live henceforth with a minimum of suffering. And one form of heroism, about which few if any films will be made, is having the courage to live without bitterness when bitterness is justified, having the strength to persevere even when perseverance seems unlikely to be rewarded, having the resolution to find profound meaning in life when it seems the most meaningless. ~ Dean Koontz

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true. ~ Bertrand Russell

It's impossible not to be taken in by the spectacle of oneself, which is the biggest sin of the culture right now. ~ Michael Tolkin

Amd I am not blind to the fact that I have been given gifts you never had. Living a godly life was expected on me, and it was an easy path for me to follow. No one ever had such expectations of you. For you to embrace the Lord at this point in your life would be nothing short of heroic, Alex. It would take an act of such strength and courage that it would be humbling for all who have ever know you. You can begin building a life of valor today. ~ Elizabeth Camden

Don't be their friend, be their parent!", they say. Hmm...yea, fuck that advice. To each their own, but I pretty much think that's the worst advice you could offer. I know far too many teens who come talk to me about their REAL life because they can't talk to their parents. We are headed into preteen years and I want my girls to be able to talk to me about what's really going on with them. I don't want them to be scared to talk to me for fear that I will be angry or disappointed. People tell me that I'll regret this and that it will bite me in the ass someday. I'll take my chances. The way I see it is: You can't scare someone into changing, you'll just scare them enough that they learn how to pretend. They will put on a mask and they may never find the courage to take it off. I've been telling them they could trust me since they were born; not with my words, but with my actions. One reaction at a time, letting them know that I'm not scared of who they are. I share my opinions and I give advice when the time is right, but mostly I'm here to hold space for them while they find their way in this world. I'm not worried about my kids appearing perfect, I'm worried about them being one person in front of me and an entirely different person when I'm not around. I choose to be their friend and get to know them as they are, not as I want them to be. ~ Brooke Hampton

You can't make a difference until you dare to be different. ~ Orrin Woodward

It would be unfair to expect other people to be as brilliant as oneself. ~ Oscar Wilde

The judicious words of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the first existentialist philosopher, are apropos to end this lumbering manuscript.
1."One must learn to know oneself before knowing anything else."
2."Life always expresses the results of our dominate thoughts."
3."Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are."
4."Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own."
5."Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all."
6."Don't forget to love yourself."
7."Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
8."Life has its own hidden forces, which you can only discover by living."
9."The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, or read about, nor seen, but if one will, are to be lived."
10."Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown."
11."It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate on only what is most significant and important."
12."To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."
13."Since my earliest childhood, a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic, if it is pulled out I shall die."
14."A man who as a physical being is always turned to the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside of him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him."
15."Just as in earthly life lovers ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

But as he plodded along a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind; he found himself at one point, with no notion of how it could be, a step from an almost certain fatal cliffside fall - falling humiliatingly and helplessly, he thought; on and on, with no one even to witness it. Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else's degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves. ~ Philip K. Dick

George P. A. Healy; I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should do when once there; but I was not yet one-and-twenty, and I had a great stock of courage, of inexperience - which is sometimes a great help - and a strong desire to be my very best. ~ David McCullough

A change of perspective may be all it takes to transform a painful experience into a powerful growth experience. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so emotional. It's just that it's been a very trying few weeks. My feelings are all a bit too close to the surface and I can't seem to manage them properly."
She was collected against his warm body, his hard muscles surrounding her, his voice weaving through her hair. "Evie, love, don't apologize for being emotional. You've been through hell. And only a heartless brute like me could truly appreciate the courage it takes to be honest about your feelings. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I want to be the cure that doesn't exist. But I'm nothing. I can't even work up the courage to say something. ~ Lauren DeStefano

Identity cannot be found or fabricated but emerges from within when one has the courage to let go. ~ Doug Cooper

Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree. Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure- or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

But he immediately felt he did not really want to take that step. It would lead him back, give his soul back to himself; but when one is frantic, the last thing one desires is to be oneself again. ~ Thomas Mann

I have worked in the homes of many successful people and have seen firsthand that everyone fails in life, but failure can be a gift if you don't give up and are willing to learn, improve, and grow because of it. You see, failure often serves as a defining moment, a crossroads on the journey of your life. It gives you a test designed to measure your courage, perseverance, commitment, and a dedication. Are you a pretender who gives up after a little adversity or a contender who keeps getting up after getting knocked down? ~ Jon Gordon

You see, we may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away – I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up! I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. I have so much courage in me that I have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. That's it. That's how you get to know who you are. ~ Maya Angelou

For weeks past he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his mind that anything would be needed except courage. The actual writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years. ~ George Orwell

To remember, for instance, that here just a year ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just as lonely, just as dejected as to-day.

And one remembers that then one's dreams were sad, and though the past was no better one feels as though it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now; that one was free from the gnawing of conscience - the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now gives me no rest by day or by night.

And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years.

Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not?

Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation.

Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . .

Oh, Nastenka! you know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing . . . for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opi ~ C. JoyBell C.

We must not be timid from a fear of committing faults: the greatest fault of all is to deprive oneself of experience. ~ Luc De Clapiers

It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice. ~ Denis Diderot

Anyone who would be a disciple of Christ kneels sometime at [our own] Gethsemane.
But . . . we need not stay. We can find the courage to surrender, to accept the gift of the
Savior, who already suffered there; we can stand and move on to another garden. Grace [and the Atonement] offer[s] the quiet promise of that safe passage. ~ Elaine Sorensen Marshall

a novelist's work is often a strategy (I don't mean the author need be aware of this) for dealing with some personal dilemma. Not just that the dilemma is "worked out" in the narrative, as critics often tell us, but that the acts of writing and publishing and positioning oneself in the world of literature are all part of an attempt to find a solution, however provisional, to some deep personal unease. ~ Tim Parks

Life is a chain of interrelated puzzles.Pain and Sorrow are some necessities to greater heights and people may be the architects of our woes. We may develop some hatred for such people through whom the woes of life came our way but when we get to the point where we fully understand why sorrow and pain came our way, we ought to be grateful to those through whom the woes that propelled us to our greatness came. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

He walked me to the door, and we stood on the top step. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he kissed me on the nose and said, "I'm glad I came back." God, he was sweet.
"I'm glad you did, too," I replied. "But…" I paused for a moment, gathering courage. "Did you have something you wanted to say?"
It was forward, yes--gutsy. But I wasn't going to let this moment pass. I didn't have many more moments with him, after all; soon I'd be gone to Chicago. Sitting in coffee shops at eleven at night, if I wanted. Working. Eventually going back to school. I'd be danged if I was going to miss what he'd started to say a few minutes earlier, before my mom and her cashmere robe showed up and spoiled everything.
Marlboro Man looked up at me and smiled, apparently pleased that I'd shown such assertiveness. An outgoing middle child all my life, with him I'd become quiet, shy--an unrecognizable version of myself. He'd captured my heart so unexpectedly, so completely, I'd been rendered utterly incapable of speaking. He had this uncanny way of sucking the words right out of me and leaving nothing but pure, unadulterated passion in their place.
He grabbed me even more tightly. "Well, first of all," he began, "I really…I really like you." He looked into my eyes in a seeming effort to transmit the true meaning of each word straight into my psyche. All muscle tone disappeared from my body.
Marlboro Man was so willing to put himself out there, so unafraid to put forth his true ~ Ree Drummond

There is no ache more Deadly than the striving to be oneself. - Yevgeniy Vinokurov ~ Judith Viorst

Many Vietnam veterans I see in the clinic swing painfully between a crushed, tainted mortality and its nostalgically longed-for, but dreaded, godlike opposite. Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything, seems to have fled their lives. As products of biblical culture, most veterans believed it is nobler to strive to be like God than to want to be human. However, all of our virtues come from not being gods; generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want; courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury; and so on. ~ Jonathan Shay

It may be true that "expressing ourselves," giving free rein to our "natural" impulses, gives us momentary relief from our inner tensions, but we remain trapped in the endless circle of our usual habits. Such a lax attitude doesn't solve any serious problems, since in being ordinarily oneself, one remains ordinary. As the French philosopher Alain has written, "You don't need to be a sorcerer to cast a spell over yourself by saying 'This is how I am. I can do nothing about it. ~ Matthieu Ricard