Courageous Survivor Quotes

Don't crawl into that tiny small dark hole. By not facing fears, matters will only become worse. Instead, be brave, find the strength to become strong, to fight back, and find your voice to ask for help. Accomplish overcoming your fears. In return, you will put such a wonderful warm light in your tiny dark room that you will evolve into a courageous survivor. ~ Michelle Moschetti

I've heard some people claim that their abuser/rapist made them stronger. We must realize that abusers and predators don't get credit for our strength, nor our healing. They did not make us stronger. Rather, the abusers and predators broke us. They shattered us. They turned our lives into a living hell. They violated us! Do you know who made you stronger? Do you know who made you brave? YOU did! You are a courageous survivor. You did the hard work. You overcame great obstacles. You are the one healing you. You did it! ~ Dana Arcuri

That's not being afraid. Being afraid is when you let fear control your life, let it stop you from doing what you want. When you're afraid, but you look your fear in the eye and live, that's courageous. And ~ Vi Keeland

Your potential exceeds your beliefs. Be courageous and chose the impossible. ~ Robbie Vorhaus

You're smart and sexy. You're prudent and courageous. You're a good girl and a bad girl. You're a waffle girl and a Napoleon cake girl. I've told you before that you can have it all. You don't have to put yourself in a box, Grace, because you're already the whole package. -Ethan Castle ~ Stephanie Draven

Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together! I ~ Anne Frank

Through pain and turmoil, courageous hearts are born. ~ Julie Anne Addicott

You both have grown up feeling as if you weren't properly loved by those who should have loved you the most. People make mistakes. They make wrong choices at the worst moments. Never at any time were you not loved
Know this. Cherish this. Love one another and be courageous enough to live your life and love more. Don't let fear trap you. ~ Katie McGarry

I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap. ~ John Patrick Shanley

She could do this. She was stronger now. This was her chance to prove it. ~ Talena Winters

Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again ... we are survivors. If you are here today ... you are a survivor. But those of us who have made it thru hell and are still standing? We bare a different name: warriors. ~ Lori Goodwin

Death is a woman, and for that reason she's courageous and just, and never makes distinctions between mortals; she'll crush the ignorant, the arrogant, and the wise alike under her icy foot. ~ Rosario Ferre

Being a breast cancer survivor, as I like to call myself - it will be twenty years next year - I did it to make it possible for women to do regular self breast examinations. It's really important - and, it makes common sense: you know your body better than the doctor does who only sees you once a year, you know? ~ Olivia Newton-John

When I felt as though I had reached land, it was like I was on a deserted sandy beach, feeling isolated and afraid to share with anyone the memories that haunted me. ~ Erin Merryn

By turns sad and uplifting, Life in the Valley of Death tells the amazing tale of Alan Rabinowitz's courageous and spirited efforts to protect Burma's (Myanmar's) remaining tigers and establish the Hukawng Valley Reserve. It is hard to imagine a more passionate or exciting account of today's conservation challenges, or a more thoughtful rendering of life, death, and politics in Burma's most remote corners. ~ Thant Myint-U

Be fueled by the opportunities of today. Do not be passive in your life. Be courageous in driving forward in this journey of life. I know people will try to push you back. I know life will challenge you to find refuge in the past. I know the present induces fear. Do not be fooled into backwards living. Be courageous enough to keep moving forward. ~ Steve Maraboli

Happy be who generous to relatives, to strangers kindly,
Indifferent to wicked, loving to good, shrewd in dealing be;
Who frank with the learned and courageous with enemy,
Ever humble with elders and stern with his wife does be.
[211] 12.3 Chanakya ~ Munindra Misra

Who has ever deserved anything they've been given? Love isn't about deserving,cara mia. It's about giving. And accepting. And sharing. The most worthy heart is also the most courageous. ~ Siri Mitchell

Our difficulty or inability to perceive the experience of others…is all the more pronounced the more distant these experiences are from ours in time, space, or quality," wrote the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. We can be moved by the tragedy of mass starvation on a far continent; after all, we have all known physical hunger, if only temporarily. But it takes a greater effort of emotional imagination to empathize with the addict. We readily feel for a suffering child, but cannot see the child in the adult who, his soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks away from where we shop or work.

Levi quotes Jean Améry, a Jewish-Austrian philosopher and resistance fighter who fell into the grasp of the Gestapo. "Anyone who was tortured remains tortured… Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be able to be at ease in the world…Faith in humanity, already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again." Améry was a full-grown adult when he was traumatized, an accomplished intellectual captured by the foe in the course of a war of liberation. We may then imagine the shock, loss of faith and unfathomable despair of the child who is traumatized not by hated enemies but by loved ones. ~ Gabor Mate

Welcome to my world of dreams Where I live by the rivers and streams As tranquillity flows by And no fear is seen in the eye This is the most peaceful place to be Where you will fall in love with the word "ME" As you learn the art of being free ~ Patricia Dsouza

She very nearly reached for his hand, but curled her fingers into a fist instead. He wouldn't appreciate her pity, and how did you pity a man who'd survived hell? You didn't pity him. You admired him. ~ Maya Banks

I experience what it is to exist in perpetual fear, afraid, totally controlled, manipulated, ashamed at all times and many more things one can't still think to talk around. ~ Patricia Dsouza

Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every honor is appropriate for the courageous Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for our Nation at Pearl Harbor and in the many battles that followed in World War II. Their sacrifice was for a cause, not for conquest; for a world that would be safe for future generations. Their devotion must never be forgotten. ~ Ronald Reagan

All of us are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival? ~ Joan Baez

think about it. you're playing survivor with all the people you love. some, by sheer luck of genetic lottery, end up on the right team. this team simply knows how to dominate the game. this team understands there is no referee or rules. in fact, this team is so good at the game, they made up invisible referees and rules for other teams to find. they simply do what they want because they understand there is no such things as rights.

how do you win if you're not on this team?

you don't.

however, the consolation prize for knowing the campground is puppet-stringed by a small herd of psychopaths is there is no one for them to pass the reigns on to. in the end, any evil there is in the universe dies, too.

i recommend not making any more players and enjoying ice cream while you watch the firework show we tend to call:

sun set. ~ Benjamin Smythe

It was early in my career, and I had been seeing Mary, a shy, lonely, and physically collapsed young woman, for about three months in weekly psychotherapy, dealing with the ravages of her terrible history of early abuse. One day I opened the door to my waiting room and saw her standing there provocatively, dressed in a miniskirt, her hair dyed flaming red, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a snarl on her face. "You must be Dr. van der Kolk," she said. "My name is Jane, and I came to warn you not to believe any the lies that Mary has been telling you. Can I come in and tell you about her?" I was stunned but fortunately kept myself from confronting "Jane" and instead heard her out. Over the course of our session I met not only Jane but also a hurt little girl and an angry male adolescent. That was the beginning of a long and productive treatment. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance... ~ David Whyte

The ability to step aside from the rest of the world has given the Gypsies a lot of survival skills to match their really dark sense of humour. The Gypsies are survivors ~ Karl Wiggins

After all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of childhood? ~ Nicole Krauss

Denial forces victims to retreat in lifeless existence, dieing in the shadows of buried trauma and painful memories. ~ Trudy Metzger

A person must always be ready to kindle the candle in their heart and fill the void in their soul by unveiling into a courageous, peaceful, and loving person. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The first principle of recovery is the empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

The first step is you have to say that you can. ~ Will Smith

I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through. ~ Daniel Barenboim

Go ahead into life, full-blooded, courageous and leap for the adventure. But you must do it soon - before the summer of your youth has cooled off into caution. You are magnificently charming - and you come like a torrent. But you will be spent on the futility of little things. You are not a watercolor. You are carved out of life - and there can be no petty hesitancies about you. ~ Ruth Reichl

But after World War II, the brothers realized they were running hard just to stay in one place. They weren't building volume even though their parking lot was always full. So they did a courageous thing. They closed that successful restaurant in 1948 and reopened it a short time later with a radically different kind of operation. It was a restaurant stripped down to the minimum in service and menu, the prototype for legions of fast-food units that later would spread across the land. Hamburgers, fries, and beverages were prepared on an assembly line basis, and, to the amazement of everyone, Mac and Dick included, the thing worked! ~ Ray Kroc

May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young. ~ Bob Dylan

All of us have at least one great voice deep inside. People are products of their environment. A lucky few are born into situations in which positive messages abound. Others grow up hearing messages of fear and failure, which they must block out so the positive can be heard. But the positive and courageous voice will always emerge, somewhere, sometime, for all of us. Listen for it, and your breakthroughs will come. ~ Pat Riley

The More you do the better you become ~ Dena Tyson

I am not damaged goods, I am not a product of my past. I am whole! ~ Patricia Dsouza

Ted was glad she didn't use the phrase survivor's guilt. He'd heard that so often it made him sick. Yes, he was alive, yes he felt guilt, but he was anything but a survivor. ~ Michael Knost

Life isn't about being strong or pretending we are strong to impress others. It takes courage to be authentic with our feelings and acknowledge that real strength comes from recognizing our moments of weakness. ~ Yong Kang Chan

Still, it's never about staying a prisoner in your childhood, it's about your childhood occurrences, incidents and episodes staying fastened and chained inside of you. ~ Patricia Dsouza