Who We Are Quotes - Page 18

• Memories are precious ... they help tell us who we are.

  Katherine Applegate

  Memories, Helping

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• Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. It is where we come from, what makes us who we are.

  Emily Giffin

  Past, Important, Where We Come

  Emily Giffin (2014). “The Emily Giffin Collection: Volume 2: Baby Proof, Where We Belong, Heart of the Matter”, p.1075, St. Martin's Press

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• I have come to understand that life is composed of a series of coincidences. How we react to these - how we exercise what some refer to as free will - is everything; the choices we make within the boundaries of the twists of fate determine who we are.

  John Perkins

  Fate, Exercise, Choices

  John Perkins (2016). “The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, p.30, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

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• The narratives we create in order to justify our actions and choices become in so many ways who we are. They are the things we say back to ourselves to explain our complicated lives. Perhaps the reason you've not yet been able to forgive yourself is that you're still invested in your self-loathing. Perhaps not forgiving yourself is the flip side of your stealing-this-now cycle. Would you be a better or worse person if you forgave yourself for the bad things you did? If you perpetually condemn yourself for being a liar and a thief, does that make you good?

  Cheryl Strayed

  Liars, Self, Order

  "Dear Sugar, The Rumpus advice Column #68: The bad things you did". therumpus.net. March 24, 2011.

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• We all of us must come to terms with what and who we are, and recognize that this wisdom is not going to earn us any praise, that life is not going to pin a medal on us for recognizing and enduring our own vanity or egoism or baldness or our potbelly.

  Sándor Márai

  Vanity, Life Is, Praise

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• What we know matters but who we are matters more.

  Brené Brown

  Matter, Knows

  Brené Brown (2012). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead”, p.23, Penguin

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• I got to give mom credit for how she handled it.She didn't try to pry and get all the details. All she said was that I should try to do "the right thing" because it's our choices that make us who we are. I figure that's pretty decent advice. But I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do tomorrow.

  Jeff Kinney

  Mom, Giving, Advice

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• We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

  Maya Angelou

  Life, Ocean, Writing

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• ...who we are and what we do it is fundamentally a function of what we remember.

  Joshua Foer

  Remember, Function

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• We are the sum total of our memories. Memories are the most precious things we have. Good or bad. That's what make us who we are. What would we be without them?

  Alexandra Potter

  Memories, Precious Things, Our Memories

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• Shame usually follows a pattern—a cycle of self-recrimination and lies that claims life after life. First, we experience an intensely painful event. Second, we believe the lie that our pain and failure is who we are—not just something we’ve done, or had done to us—and we experience shame. And finally, our feelings of shame trap us into thinking that we can never recover—that, in fact, we don’t even deserve to.

  Craig Groeschel

  Pain, Lying, Believe

  Craig Groeschel (2010). “The Christian Atheist: Believing in God But Living as If He Doesn't Exist”, p.50, Harper Collins

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• God thank you for everything you've given us. For the time we have together. And for the miracle of Christmas. Thank you for the Atonement, the chance to start all over again. Help us to always remember who we are and to trust that we are worthy to make it through our storms. Amen>.

  Glenn Beck

  Miracle, Storm, Together

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• There are many ways that we hurt ourselves when we don't like who we are.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Hurt, Way

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• Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

  Pema Chodron

  Giving Up, Giving, Relax

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.49, Shambhala Publications

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• The burden God places on each of us is to become who we are meant to be. We are most fully ourselves when Christ most fully lives in us and through us. The mother shines brightest with her child in her arms, the father when he forgives his wandering son, and the artist when he or she is drawing attention to grace, by showing the pinprick of light overcoming the darkness in the painting, or the story, or the song. The world knows darkness. Christ came into the world to show us light. I have seen it, have been blinded by it, invaded by it. I will tell its story.

  Andrew Peterson

  Mother, Song, Children

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• There's no "should" or "should not" when it comes to having feelings. They're part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings.

  Fred Rogers

  Believe, Choices, Feelings

  Fred Rogers (1995). “You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor”, p.128, Penguin

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• What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.

  Terryl L. Givens

  Reflection, Embrace

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• Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

  Alain de Botton

  Jobs, Sunday, Personality

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• It's just this: that there are places we all come from-deep-rooty-common places- that makes us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again-and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory.

  Robert Fulghum

  Memories, Home, Self

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• We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

  Anthony Marra

  Believe, Civilization, Clothes

  Anthony Marra (2013). “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena”, p.339, Random House

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• Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The power that connection holds in our lives was confirmed when the main concern about connection emerged as the fear of disconnection; the fear that something we have done or failed to do, something about who we are or where we come from, has made us unlovable and unworthy of connection.

  Brené Brown

  Giving, Connections, Where We Come

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• It’s not about keeping up the population, it’s about passing on who we are and what we've learned, so things keep going. So we don’t just end.

  Isaac Marion

  Passing On, Population, Ends

  Isaac Marion (2016). “Warm Bodies and The New Hunger: A Special 5th Anniversary Edition”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

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• Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart." Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences -- good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as "ordinary courage.

  Brené Brown

  Latin, Commitment, Heart

  "I thought it was just me". Book by Brené Brown, February 2007.

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• What do you know about yourself? What are your stories? The ones you tell yourself, and the ones told by others. All of us begin somewhere. Though I suppose the truth is that we begin more than once; we begin many times. Over and over, we start our own tales, compose our own stories, whether our lives are short or long. Until at last all our beginnings come down to just one end, and the tale of who we are is done.

  Cameron Dokey

  Long, Stories, Done

  Cameron Dokey (2012). “Once: Before Midnight; Golden; Wild Orchid”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• Acceptance. We want someone to look at us, and really see us—our physical flaws, our personality quirks, our insecurities. And we want them to be okay with every square inch of who we are. We’re always afraid we might be too needy or too much work. We put all these limitations on ourselves and our relationships because we’re afraid that we’re not really loved. That we’re not really accepted. We hide little pieces of ourselves because we think that might be the one thing that finally drives away the person who’s supposed to love us.

  Michele Bardsley

  Acceptance, Thinking, Squares

  Michele Bardsley (2010). “Cross Your Heart: A Broken Heart Novel”, p.148, Penguin

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