Lauren > Lauren's Quotes

“Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”
― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

“Anne: "But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice".

Marilla: "I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones".”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“I love a book that makes me cry.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I am going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes - what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows - what new landscapes - what new beauties - what curves and hills and valleys farther on.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us. But I understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
― Deitrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“Emeth speaking of Aslan, "Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek...And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“One always feel better when one has made up one's mind.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)

“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“From cradle to grave, learning is essential to being human. Not only that, it is a human right. The United Nations views education as “a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights.” When we want to deny someone the full practice of their humanity, withholding learning from them is often a measure we employ. Women, the poor, even entire ethnic populations have been kept uneducated for the purpose of control or marginalization. To be human is to learn. To deny human learning is to set ourselves up as God, albeit a malevolent version of him.”
― Jen Wilkin, None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us

“Aslan" said Lucy "you're bigger".
"That is because you are older, little one" answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
― C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“We are saying that women -- as a sex -- are not more sinful than men. Women are not more deceivable than men. Women are not less intelligent than men. Women are not more prone to error than men. Women are not more dangerous than men. Women are not more arrogant or domineering than men. Women are not to be viewed with more suspicion than men. All women are born into sin, unrighteous by both nature and choice -- as are all men.”
― Eric Schumacher, Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm's way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, "Go and sin no more." When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit “Go and sin no more.” When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Come to the table in view of God’s mercy. Come once. Come again. How many times is the table of his body and blood spread before you? Forgive that many times. Forgive, and keep forgiving. He presented his body as a sacrifice. Now present yours, as your reasonable act of worship (Rom. 12:1). Mercy triumphs over justice. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they have received mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for the mercy they have received is without end.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Scarcity has a way of revealing our true understanding of the Golden Rule. Here’s the bare truth: when there is one piece of pie, I don’t want to deny myself and bless someone else with it, and I don’t want to divide it equitably. I want the whole piece. And that’s precisely why I should give the whole piece to someone else—because in doing so, I fulfill the Golden Rule. Yes, at bare minimum I want to be treated fairly by others. But what I really want is to be treated preferentially. My love of preferential treatment displays itself in a thousand ways. I want the best concert seats, the best parking spot, the upgrade to first class, the most comfortable seat in the living room, the biggest serving of pie, the last serving of pie, all the pie all the time. Giving someone else the preferential treatment that I want requires humility. But God gives grace to the humble. Any time we dine on humble pie, we can be certain it will be accompanied by an oversized dollop of grace.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement. Trust isn’t a grand gesture—it’s a growing marble collection.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead