Joy Kidney > Joy's Quotes

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”
― C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

“Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
― C.S. Lewis

“It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

“Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something, together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not.”
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

“I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves. ”
― Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel

“Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.”
― Barry Lopez

“It matters not if the world has heard or approves or understands...the only applause we're meant to seek is that of nail-scarred hands.”
― B.J. Hoff

“But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

“Sometimes a world that doesn't exist is the only escape from one that does.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Story Keeper

“When we lose our stories, we lose ourselves.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Story Keeper

“When we have little else, our stories still have value.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Sea Keeper's Daughters

“Life is a process of storms and rebuilding, of fires and regrowth, of loss and gain.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Sea Keeper's Daughters

“How sad, I think now, to live an entire life blinded by the ordinary.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Sea Keeper's Daughters

“Blessings aren't fully realized until they are passed along.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Sea Keeper's Daughters

“. . . was their job to always hold tight to the past, to tell it to the young'uns.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Sea Keeper's Daughters

“At the very least, we must tell our stories, mustn't we?”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“[I]f there is magic in this world, it is contained in books.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“[T]here is no faster way to change your circumstance than to open a great book.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“[E]veryone has history. Just because we're not always happy with what's true doesn't mean we shouldn't know it.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“The most important endeavors require a risk.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“We rarely choose what is subtracted from our lives, but we can choose how we respond. How we reorganize our lives in order to move forward.”
― Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fear.

“But the spiritual growth we experience in trying times, though often more gradual and painful than we'd like, is occasion for celebration. It's not in the absence of difficulties but in their presence that God bestows a mighty blessing on us.”
― Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears

“Mourning is a river that carries us to joy. Sometimes we need to give space for grief in order to make room for joy.”
― Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fear.

“Even microscopic offering cement our commitment to follow God in anything. This grace-given resolve to celebrate Christ in all things is fortified in the storms, not on the still seas.”
― Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.”
― Czesław Miłosz, The Issa Valley