A Attitude of Gratitude believes that the spoken word gives us a unique glimpse of the world we share. Additionally, we believe that inherent in these quotations shared here lies the essence of the individuals we have quoted; their interests, belief system, comments and ideas. Hopefully their character will help yours.
Step 1: Quotes About Honesty
“He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears.”
– Michel De Montaigne
“Truth is eternal. Our knowledge of it is changeable. It is disastrous when you confuse the two. “
– Madeleine L’ Engle
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure. “
– Abraham Lincoln
Step 2: Quotes About Hope
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Do that, for what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
– H. Thurman
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
– Chuck Swindoll
“If you follow your bliss…the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.”
– Joseph Campbell
“The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”
– Thomas Merton
Step 3: Quotes About Willingness
“Desire is the critical first piece, the engine that drives us toward something yet unrealized. Without it, nothing further takes place.”
– Dave Brisbin
“You have to give up the life you planned, and find the life that is waiting for you.“
– Joseph Campbell
“Prayer will never do our work for us; what it will do is to strengthen us for work which must be done.”
– William Barclay
Step 4: Quotes About Courage
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.“
– Carl Jung
“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.“
– Joseph Campbell
“In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ‘finding himself.’ If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.”
– Thomas Merton
“Probably the most common reason we make mistakes in our life and have resentments, are the visions we have of how it is supposed to be.”
– Anonymous
Step 5: Quotes About Integrity
”The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.“
– Bertrand Russell
“Serenity is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.“
– Anonymous
“The wise man looks ahead. The fool attempts to fool himself and won’t face facts.“
– Proverbs 14:8 TLB
“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weaknesses.”
– Jean Vanier
Step 6: Quotes About Acceptance
“We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves. We are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.“
– Thomas Merton
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.”
– Socrates
“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”
– Nathaniel Branden
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.
Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
– M Scott Peck
Step 7: Quotes About Humility
“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”
– Dalai Lama
“Surrender your heart to God, turn to him in prayer, and give up your sins— even those you do in secret. Then you won’t be ashamed; you will be confident and fearless. Your troubles will go away like water beneath a bridge, and your darkest night will be brighter than noon. You will rest safe and secure, filled with hope and emptied of worry”
– Job 11:13-18 CEV
“Surrender and giving up are not the same. Giving up is merely the end of resistance; surrender is the beginning of submission.“
– Dave Brisbin
“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.“
– Saint Francis of Assisi
Step 8: Quotes About Reflection
“All our experiences are but lessons in some form or another which condition us for our larger destiny. Of that I am sure. Any way you look at it, it’s a problem world. What matters, and what matters only is what we do with our problems”
– Bill Wilson
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
– Abraham Lincoln
“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down you can’t see something that’s above you.”
– C.S. Lewis
“We must love them both; those who opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in search for their truth and both have helped us in finding our own.“
– Thomas Aquinas
Step 9: Quotes About Justice
“Begin each amends by forgiving yourself for not knowing what you did not know before you learned it. And when you can tell your story and it doesn’t bring you pain, then you know you have healed.”
– Anonymous
“Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.”
– James 1:2-4 MSG
“It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny.”
– Jean Nidetch
“Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.”
– 2 Corinthians 13:5 MSG
Step 10: Quotes About Perseverance
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.“
– William James
“And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
– Romans 8:28 NIV
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.“
– Theodore Roosevelt
Step 11: Quotes About Spirituality
“A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.“
– Thomas Merton
“Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ.“
– Philippians 2:5 TLB
“For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”
– Romans 8:16
”Jesus’ Kingdom is the opposite of control. It is the breathless participation in whatever comes this way.“
– Dave Brisbin
Step 12: Quotes About Service
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”
– Johann Harri
“One critical thing Jesus taught was that controlling the world is not just impossible but inherently sinful. Our task as Christians is to control no one but ourselves and to love all. Our main weapon must always be example, not control.“
– Father Antony
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
– Thomas Merton