quotations and passages on acceptance

Acceptance is the truest
kinship with humanity.

G.K. Chesterton

Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not
mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary it means accepting
it as it comes. . . . To accept is to say yes to life in its entirety.

Paul Tournier

Some people confuse acceptance with apathy but there's
all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish
what can and cannot be helped; acceptance makes the distinction.
Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it
by relieving it of impossible burdens.

Arthur Gordon

Let us learn to accept ourselves--accept the truth that we are capable in some directions and limited in others, that genius is rare,
that mediocrity is a portion of almost all of us, but that we can contribute from the storehouse of our skills to the enrichment of our common life.

Joshua Liebman

To teach people how to live without certainty and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation is the lesson of learning acceptance.

anonymous

Of course there is no formula for success
except perhaps, an unconditional acceptance
of life and what it brings.

Artur Rubinstein

Acceptance is observation of life and
suspension of judgment about whether what
is happening is good or bad, right or wrong.

Ron Smotherman

Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be
that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.

Epictetus

Acceptance is a letting-go process. You let go of your
wishes and demands that life can be different. It's a conscious choice.

Gary Emery

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement
of the facts of a situation, then deciding
what you're going to do about it.

Kathleen Casey Theisen

Today I know that I cannot control the ocean tides. I can only
go with the flow. . . . When I struggle and try to organize the Atlantic
to my specifications, I sink. If I flail and thrash and growl and grumble,
I go under. But, if I let go and float, I am borne aloft.

Marie Stilkind

The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.

Dave. E Smalley

The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.

Will Garcia
(AIDS patient)

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.
So suffering must become love. That is the mystery.

Katherine Mansfield

Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are,
ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is
to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even
begin. . . . Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the
facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism, the can be
the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health
and therefore spiritual progress can be built.

As Bill Sees It

Acceptance says, True, this is my situation at the moment.
I'll look unblinkingly at the reality of it. But I'll also open my hands
to accept willingly whatever a loving Father sends me.

Catherine Marshall

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step
to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.

William James

I accept life unconditionally. Most people as for happiness on condition.
Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Artur Rubinstein

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Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make
the best of it, as it is, is the only way of being happy.

Jennie Jerome Churchill

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence,
and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Helen Keller

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither,
but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.

Thornton Wilder

There are people who live lives little different than the beasts,
and I don't mean that badly. I mean that they accept whatever happens
day to day without struggle or question or regret. To them
things just are, like the earth and sky and seasons.

Celeste de Blasis

God does not make clones. Each person is different, a tribute
to God's creativity. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves,
we must accept people as they are and not demand
that they conform to our own image.

Henry Fehren

It just ain't possible to explain some things. It's interesting
to wonder on them and do some speculation, but the main thing
is you have to accept it--take it for what it is,
and get on with your growing.

Jim Dodge

Anything in life that we don't accept will simply make trouble for us until we make peace with it.

Shakti Gawain

God asks no person whether he or she will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how.

Henry Ward Beecher

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to
accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to,
everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise,
serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil,
can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with
an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for those
who have the vision to recognize it as such.

Henry Miller

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weaknesses.

Jean Vanier

Acceptance is not a talent you either have or don’t have.
It’s a learned response. My meditation teacher made a great point
about the difference between a reaction and a response: You may
not have control over your initial reaction to something, but you can
decide what your response will be. You don’t have to be at the mercy
of your emotions, and acceptance can be your first step toward
empowerment . . . For me, acceptance has been the cornerstone
to my having an emotionally healthy response to my illness.

Morrie Schwartz

I started to discover the meaning of happiness when I started
to discover--and practice--the art of acceptance. When I started
to accept life for what it was and I started to accept whatever
situation I was in as the way things were, I started to see that
my happiness depended on my own attitude. When I started focusing
on getting the most out of my life the way it was rather than trying
to turn it into what I thought it should be, I started to realize
that I was, indeed, becoming a much happier person.

tom walsh

Traveler: What kind of weather are we going to have today?

Shepherd: The kind of weather I like.

Traveler: How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?

Shepherd: Having found out, sir, I cannot always get what I like, I have learned always to like what I get. So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like.

Anthony De Mello

Once you accept yourself there's no reason to hold anything back.

Stephen C. Paul

If you can accept the flow of life and give in to it, you will be
accepting what is real. Only when you accept what is real
can you live with it in peace and happiness. The alternative is a struggle
that will never end because it is a struggle with the unreal,
with a mirage of life instead of life itself.

Deepak Chopra

When we accept what happens to us
and make the best of it, we are praising God.

Teresa of Avila

If two angels were sent down from heaven--one to conduct an empire, and
the other to sweep a street--they would feel no inclination to change employments.

Isaac Newton

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Lao-Tzu

The transition from rebellion to acceptance has an extremely important consequence. . . in which we start seeing life as a training school, to teach us what we need to learn.

Piero Ferrucci

Rowing against the tide is hard and uncertain. To go with the tide and thus take advantage of the workings of the great natural force is safe and easy.

Ralph Waldo Trine

Only when you can accept
that you are alone,
will you discover
that you are not alone.

Leonard Jacobson

Our entire life. . . consists ultimately of accepting ourselves as we are.

Jean Anouilh

Fighting life only saps our energy, blocking us from the love,
healing, and compassion available to us from our own hearts.
Once we accept our given reality, our energy shifts. Release happens.

Susan Santucci

Several of our children have married outside my faith. Would I
prefer they marry within their religion? Yes, because I know that
marrying outside the family faith will very likely bring them more
problems--but not from me. My job is to accept them and love
them, not to criticize them and make their lives more difficult.

Bernie Siegel

Therapists want to help us throw out what is unwanted and keep only
what is wanted. But what is left may not be very much. If we
try to throw away what we don’t want, we may throw away
most of ourselves.
Instead of acting as if we can dispose of parts of ourselves, we should
learn the art of transformation. We can transform our anger, for example,
into something more wholesome, like understanding. We do not need surgery to
remove our anger. If we become angry at our anger, we will have two angers
at the same time. We only have to observe it with love and attention.
If we take care of our anger this way, without trying to run away from it,
it will transform itself. This is peacemaking. If we are peaceful in ourselves,
we can make peace with our anger. We can deal with depression, anxiety,
fear, or any unpleasant feeling in the same way.

Thich Nhat Hanh