Quotes about acceptance
page 6

“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.”

Walter Brueggemann (1933) American theologian

Nature, Hurt

“I'm a fan of the truth… even if it's painfully hard to accept.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

Truth

“It was finally becoming clear to her that love wasn't about finding someone perfect to marry. Love was about seeing through to the truth of a person, and accepting all their shades of light and dark. Love was an ability.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Tempt Me at Twilight

Love, Truth, Light, Personality

“… in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.”

Judith Lewis Herman (1942) American psychiatrist

Women, Men

“He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Way

“Success tended to make the unorthodox acceptable”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Siege of Macindaw

Success

“But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Personality

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Hope, Courage, Cry

“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Comments after President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address (20 January 1961).

History

“Patience is… clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation. It is the acceptance of a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged. Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Life, Patience

“To accept one's past - one's history - is not the same things as drowning in it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Variant: To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
Source: The Fire Next Time

Life, History, Past, Season

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the patience not to strangle my mother-in-law, chop her into little pieces, and dump them down a sewer.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Source: Little Earthquakes

God, Law, Courage, Change

“When you wear the weed of impatience in your heart instead of the flower Acceptance-with-Joy, you will always find your enemies get an advantage over you.”

Hannah Hurnard book Hinds' Feet on High Places

Source: Hinds' Feet on High Places

Flowers, Heart, Joy

“Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

Source: Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

“Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying "Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Faith, Way, Understanding, Universe

“The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard.”

George S. McGovern (1922–2012) American politician, Congressman, senator, Democratic presidential candidate

Love, Country

“… when you let go of your expectations, when you accept life as it is, you're free. To hold on is to be serious and uptight. To let go is to lighten up.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Life

“A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

World, Idea

“There is no way to hold your own in a relationship and simultaneously accept rude behavior.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Way, Behavior

“He taught us the art of unqualified love. How to give it, how to accept it. Where there is that, most other pieces fall into place.”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Love, Art

“When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

People, Personality

“You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

Home, Learning

“To cut off the confusion and accept an answer just because it's too scary not to have an answer is a good way to get the wrong answer.”

Janet Jackson book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself

Source: True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself

Way

“We're told that men are strong & brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat & bear physical & mental agony much better than men.”

Lisa See book Shanghai Girls

Source: Shanghai Girls

Women, Men, Thinking, Strong

“Sometimes you have to accept how things are. You can make it easy on yourself, or you can make it hard. The choice is yours.”

Susan Mallery (1950) American author

Source: Almost Perfect

“Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Books

“Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Reluctance", st. 4 (1913)
1910s

Love, Heart, Season

“the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience –
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: The area dividing the brain and the soul
Is affected in many ways by experience --
Some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
Some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
Some lose both and become:
accepted.
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Way, Soul

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

Truth

“You cannot argue stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.”

Nevil Shute book Round the Bend

Source: Round the Bend

Stupidity

“The same goes for envy, anger and insults - said the master. - When they are not accepted, they continue to belong to the one who carried them.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Envy, Anger

“When bad fortune occurs, the unresourceful, unimaginative man looks about him to attach the blame to someone else; the resolute accepts misfortune and endeavors to survive, mature, and improve because of it.”

Anne McCaffrey Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Source: Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern 1983

“How can I accept a limited definable self when I feel, in me, all possibilities?… I never feel the four walls around the substance of the self, the core. I feel only space. Illimitable space.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Feeling

“Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Soul

“Pritkin kissed like he did everything else, straightforward, accepting no prisoners and with an intensity that left me breathless. It was hot and hard and desperate, like he was starving for it, and I opened my mouth and took it, because,.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Embrace the Night

Kiss

“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

Life, Dead, Motivational, Graduation

“Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that build up of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out.
- My Bestfriend's Girl”

Dorothy Koomson (1971) British writer

Feeling, Girl, Cry

“What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

“Is it a shame that I can’t accept love? Am I too burned out to move towards what will keep me alive or too smart to get pulled into someone else’s world?”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Love, World

“In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

Dan Brown book Deception Point

Source: Deception Point

Women, Men, History, Failure

“Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Change

“When a person screams in pain, the actual pain is only half the noise they make. The other half is the terror at being forced to accept that they exist.”

Noah Cicero (1980) American writer

Source: The Condemned

Pain, Personality

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time, Sad, Depressing

“To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.”

Milan Kundera book Immortality

Source: Immortality

Dead

“Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.”

Dan Barker (1949) American atheist activist

Source: Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

Faith, Way

“the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners”

Barbara Kingsolver book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Error

“If that is what this world is, what humans are… There is no future. Understanding and faith… If you take those away, all that's left is fear. I can't accept immoral methods or giving up.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Source: Naruto, Band 11

World, Fear, Faith, Understanding

“Being around someone who accepts and supports you will remind you to accept and support yourself.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Support

“Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Happiness, Children, Nature, Joy

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

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

Evil, Help

“In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realtities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become.”

Mary Roach book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

Source: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it's accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Hope, Forgiveness, Time, Past

“If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies' territory, we must accept the fact that the grizzlies, from time to time, will harvest a few trespassers.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

People, Time

“Nothing can be repaired or advanced but only accepted”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Love In A Blue Time

“There are accepted revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; there are refused revolutions, which are called riots.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“Your noble friend will not accept pretension but will gently and very firmly confront you with your own blindness. Such friendship is creative and critical; it is willing to negotiate awkward and uneven territories of contradiction and woundedness.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Friendship

“There's no shame in trying to make stuff work, is how I see it. It's better than just accepting the broken.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

“What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?”

Audre Lorde book The Cancer Journals

Source: The Cancer Journals

Life, Death

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(1997)
Source: Warrior of the Light

Beauty, Light, Learning, Perfection

“Accept that some days you’re the bug, and some days you’re going to be the windshield.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: The Sweetest Thing

“A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“Nor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.”

Robin Wasserman book Skinned

Source: Skinned

Training

“She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than i did the sun for shining on me.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Sun

“Everyman has his own destiny: The only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Context: As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pass once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

Love, Way, Reality, Memory

“It was one thing to accept I couldn't have Dimitri. It was something entirely different to realize someone else could.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“there is nothing to be done.

only accept it…

and hurt.”

Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American author and civil liberties advocate

Source: How to Survive the Loss of a Love

Hurt

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Walking on Water (1980)

Children, Thinking

“What would it be like to look in the mirror and actually accept what you see? Not loathe the reflection, or despise it, or be resigned to it? But to like it?”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless – one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Mais, fat impudent, tu ne veux pas qu'on te pardonne, tu veux qu'on croie ou qu'on prétende n'avoir rien à te pardonner. Tu veux qu'on baise la main qui frappe et la bouche qui ment.
Source: Letter (17 June 1837) in The Intimate Journal of George Sand (1929) translated and edited by Marie Jenney Howe; also quoted in The Quotable Woman, 1800-1975 (1978) by Elaine Partnow

Lie, Kiss

“He recognized and accepted this strange new feeling: that he would rather be hurt himself than hurt Alec.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Course of True Love [and First Dates]

Feeling, Hurt

“Sometimes we find it hardest to accept in others that which we cling to in ourselves.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Truth, History, Childhood

“You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.”

Dennis Lehane (1965) Novelist

Truth, Lie, Learning

“We deny the parts of ourselves that we deem unacceptable rather than accepting the fact that we're all less than perfect.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Parting, Perfection

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”

Tony Schwartz (1952) American writer

Learning

“There is a difference between giving into something and accepting it.”

Elise Broach (1963) American writer

Source: Shakespeare's Secret

“The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. It is said that even the gods must die." He winks. "But not without one hell of a fight.””

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 365

God, Hell, Light, Fight

“To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. To accept injustice”

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

1950s, Three Ways of Meeting Oppression (1958)
Context: To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed fails to be his brother's keeper. So acquiescence-while often the easier way-is not the moral way. It is the way of the coward.

Religion, Evil

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

“Calvin: Know what I pray for?
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity to tell the difference.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

28 Aug 92
The Days Are Just Packed
Source: The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

Change

“Sometimes, you get no second chance and that its best to accept the gifts the world offers you.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

World, Chance

“We must accept our pain
Change what we can
and laugh at the rest”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Pain, Change

“It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks latenesses, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patchings to repair great rents in the quotidian.”

John Updike book Couples

Source: Couples (1968), Ch. 2

Time

“If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Life

“Our flaws are what makes us human. If we can accept them as part of who we are, they really don't even have to be an issue.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Parting

“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris

World

“So be who you really are. Embrace who you are. Literally. Hug yourself. Accept who you are. Unless you're a serial killer.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

“Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Of Love and Other Demons

Source: Of Love and Other Demons

People

“True love would look a second time. True love would not be thwarted. True love would not accept no for an answer. He would search the world and certainly look again and again in every cottage until he finds you.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: A Kiss in Time

Love, World, Search, Time

“If you accept such love with purity and humility, you will understand that Love is neither giving nor receiving -it is participating.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Love, Understanding

“Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

“Faith ― acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Faith, Imagination, Faith

“Was insanity really easier to accept than unconsciousness?”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

“It's hard to get along with people. As much as you try to like them and accept them as individuals, it becomes difficult because they keep getting out of line and wasting your time.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

People, Time

“But Mary-Lynnette was thinking. Of course she'd like to find somebody who would accept her completely, who would share everything with her.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Thinking

“Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.”

Andrew Solomon book Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Source: Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Love, People, Drawing

“Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too.”

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August

Children

“Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

As quoted in Vogue (14 March 1963)
1960s
Variant: Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.

Life, Way

Quotes about acceptance page 6

Quotes about acceptance
page 6