Renetta Collins

“What if illness - the stripping away of our health, our dreams, our understanding of who we are and what our future holds - is really a gift - God offering Himself to us unencumbered by all the noise, all the things that clutter our hearts and so easily fill our days? Because what if that quiet, stripped-away space is where hope is found? Where God leans in close whispering love to our weary souls until it becomes as familiar as the beating of our own hearts?”
― Cindee Snider Re, Discovering Hope: Beginning the Journey Toward Hope in Chronic Illness

“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal

“These are the few ways we can practice humility:

To speak as little as possible of one's self.

To mind one's own business.

Not to want to manage other people's affairs.

To avoid curiosity.

To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.

To pass over the mistakes of others.

To accept insults and injuries.

To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.

To be kind and gentle even under provocation.

Never to stand on one's dignity.

To choose always the hardest.”
― Mother Teresa, The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living

“Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much", a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.

Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers.”
― Susan Cain