Quotes about Resilience
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
— Ernest Hemingway
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
— Etty Hillesum
I believe that I know and share the many sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them, I do not prolong such moments of agony. They pass through me, like life itself, as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream, and life continues. And as a result all my strength is preserved, does not become tagged onto futile sorrow or rebelliousness.
— Etty Hillesum
I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves.
— Etty Hillesum
One should accept things as they are and not try to lift them to impossible heights; only if you let them be will they reveal their true worth.
— Etty Hillesum
William Faulkner was once asked how he went about writing a book. His answer: "It's like building a chicken coop in a high wind. You grab any board or shingle flying by or loose on the ground and nail it down fast." Like becoming a pastor.
— Eugene Peterson
As long as matters are really hopeful," wrote Chesterton, "hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all the Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable.
— Eugene Peterson
When besieged, I'm calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I'm collected and cool.
— Eugene Peterson
It's the set of the sail, and not the gale that determines the way they go.
— Eugene Peterson
The exile was the "crucible of Israel's faith". They were pushed to the edge of existence where they thought they were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and they found that in fact they had been pushed to the center, where God was.
— Eugene Peterson
Traveling in the way of faith and climbing the ascent to Christ may be difficult, but it is not worrisome. The weather may be adverse, but it is never fatal. We may slip and stumble and fall, but the rope will hold us.
— Eugene Peterson
The promise of the psalm—and both Hebrews and Christians have always read it this way—is not that we shall never stub our toes but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, that is, will be able to separate us from God's purposes in us.
— Eugene Peterson