“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

—  Ben Okri

Last update Oct. 27, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be gr…" by Ben Okri?
Ben Okri photo
Ben Okri13
Nigerian writer 1959

Related quotes

Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo

“Men are not willing to suffer the decision of things to be too easie, and therefore they mingle their own prejudices with truths, and so create greater perplexities than are Naturally found therein; and those scruples, which our selves frame, give us the most pain to untangle.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

p, 125
The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)

“Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Leap

“It comforts me to think that if we are created beings, the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it. It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality, and so it would seem to us, look out from within our reality, that is would contradict reason. But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater that reality, or it would not be reasonable.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Elizabeth Taylor photo

“It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

Source: A Wreath of Roses

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“We have come to the point where we are able to say to those who will even use violence to block us, we will match you capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet you physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. And so throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Jack London photo

“There are things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

"An Odyssey of the North" in The Best Short Stories of Jack London (1962) ISBN 0-449-30053-6

Brené Brown photo

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Oprah.com http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Life-Lessons-We-All-Need-to-Learn-Brene-Brown#ixzz28s3kPWdP <br class="br">Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead <br class="br">Context: Belonging is not fitting in... Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you&#x27;re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. When we don&#x27;t have that, we shape-shift and turn into chameleons; we hustle for the worthiness we already possess.

Related topics