30 Motivational Quotes for the Compassionate Misfit to Live By

30 Motivational Quotes for the Compassionate Misfit to Live By

30  “When you see a good person, think of becoming like him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”
Confucius

29  “We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are . . .” Pema Chödrön

28  “There’s nothing wrong with self-improvement, as long as you recognize that at some point you’re going to have to accept yourself in all your imperfect glory. What’s wrong with liking yourself the way you are?” Jessica Zafra

27  “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”  Mahatma Gandhi

26  “I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.” Jonathan Safran Foer

25  “An authentic and genuine life grows like a sturdy tree. And like a tree, it grows slowly. Every time you make a different and better decision, it grows a little. Every time you choose to do the right thing, even when nobody would find out otherwise, it grows a little. Every time you act with compassion, relinquish your right to strike back, take a courageous stand, admit fault or accept responsibility, it grows a little.”
Steve Goodier

24  “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” Mahatma Ghandi

23  “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Carl R. Rogers

22  “It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” John Joseph Powell

21  “When you’re socially awkward, you’re isolated more than usual, and when you’re isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages.” Criss Jami

20  “We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.” Paul Coelho

19  “Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.” Jean Vanier

18  “Nobody can make you to feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

17  “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.” Abraham Lincoln

16  “I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” Arthur Rubinstein

15  “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.”  Thomas Edison

14  “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”           Mahatma Gandhi

13  “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.” Buddha

12  “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”  Margaret Mead

11  “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.” David Allen

10  “Even on my weakest days I get a little bit stronger.” Sarah Evans

9  “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller

8  “I am a part of all that I have met.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

7  “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”  Viktor E. Frankl

6  “Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him.” Lao Tzu

5  “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.” Audre Lorde

4  “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”  E.E. Cummings

3  “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle

2  “It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
Stephen Fry

1  “No one’s life ever goes as they planned. That truth alone should bring a sense of relief to everyone.” Andrena Sawyer

Compiled by Samantha Craft of Everyday Aspergers, Happy New Year 2017