Patty > Patty's Quotes

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
― Mother Teresa

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
― Rita Mae Brown

“Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.”
― Brian Weiss, Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

“Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realising you were the prisoner!”
― max lucado

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.”
― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”
― Anne Lamott

“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.”
― Anne Lamott

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”
― Anne Lamott

“The difference between you and God is that God doesn't think He's you. ”
― Anne Lamott

“Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.”
― Lily Tomlin

“Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.”
― Lily Tomlin

“The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“It's easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you'd be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it's lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, Acheron

“Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?”
― Mary Manin Morrissey

“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner's love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother's love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”
― bell hooks

“Yes, I decided, a man can truly change. The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Wedding

“We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.”
― Deepak Chopra

“The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”
― Thomas S. Monson

“We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience