Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
254 quotes
"I am grateful for the rare opportunities to look at my circumstances from a higher perspective, one detached from the dim outlook I normally insist on seeing. These periodic glimpses show me life's grandeur."
"No one is without troubles, without personal hardships and genuine challenges. That fact may not be obvious because most people don't advertise their woes and heartaches. But nobody, not even the purest heart, escapes life without suffering battle scars."
"Nothing in this world compares to the comfort and security of having someone just hold your hand."
"One way or another, I think we are all destined to learn the same lessons in life. Universal truths are universal truths. They cannot be changed."
"The key to valuing something is to lose it and then realize how rare it was—after which you pray like mad to regain what you foolishly lost. The value of an item often depends upon how hard it is to attain."
"I'm not saying that I think one man is better than the other. I'm not saying that either is kinder or wiser or more ambitious, more thoughtful, confident, or able. But the fact is that when I'm with the one, comfort settles into my bones. I feel calm around him, as if the sun is smiling down on me and the world has suddenly become a sweet, safe place to be. I feel good about life―about myself. And it's hard not to want to be near someone who, just by their very nature, makes you feel that way."
"I have a funny side. I have a soft and sympathetic side. I have a serious side, and a seriously romantic side. I have lots of sides; it's the main course I haven't quite figured out."
"World peace, true love, and happily-ever-afters amount to wasted wishes, failed endeavors, and most precious dreams."
"Beauty exists, even in unlikely places. The key isn't to open your eyes but to open your heart."
"Even the smallest tender mercy can bring peace when recognized and appreciated."
"Though I may accumulate a great deal of riches in this world, it is only my wealth of knowledge, talents, and emotional bonds that I keep when I leave."
"To love is to accept a soul entirely, not wishing that the person was otherwise, nor hoping for change, nor clinging to some ideal past. To love is to cherish the individual standing before you presently―charms, quirks, and all. To love is to give someone a piece of your heart that you will never, ever reclaim."
"Happiness is simply a habit of looking on the brighter side of everything."
"Laughing in the face of danger doesn't negate the fear, it simply enables you to smile at it."
"Our greatest duty to our children is to love them first. Secondly, it is to teach them. Not to frighten, force, or intimidate our children into submission, but to effectively teach them so that they have the knowledge and tools to govern themselves."
"A mother is a child's first looking glass into the world."
"A society built upon a foundation of vengeance is a society doomed to destroy itself."
"When you devalue ethics and morals by proclaiming that our attitude toward them should be casual or lenient, you can't be surprised by a rising generation who then behaves disrespectfully, treating life, people, and choices as if they possess little value or worth. For whether or not that was the intention, society has taught them to believe thusly."
"There is strength in numbers, yes, but even more so in collective good will. For those endeavors are supported by mighty forces unseen."
"Live your day and live it well. It's yours whether you want it or not."
"If you feel like a nearly-drowned rat that’s been dragged through the mud, all twisted up inside your mother’s borrowed, prized quilt, having been tossed about by gale force winds that managed to entangle you in barbed wire one-thousand miles from your goal in the middle of a hot, barren nowhere void of any basic necessities―then congratulations! You’re no observer but an actual participant in the game of life! Stand up and keep living."
"I don't believe that the course of anyone's lifetime has ever been as unerring as that of the rising and setting sun, but I know many lives that have been just as inspiring."
"The power behind living a dream lies in either believing it's a dream or knowing it's not."
"Life demands much. Give more."
"Every brush stroke on the canvas, every dab of color introduced, the fine textures impressed in the paint—this accumulation of many small acts combines to shape a final work of art. And so it is with life; each step, each deed, each brief choice builds gradually, day by day, to shape both character and destiny."