Quotes to spur clarity and courage in times of confusion and chaos

Despair, when not the response to absolute physical and moral defeat is, like war, the failure of imagination.  Adrianne Rich

Your deepest heartache radiates outward like a beacon of light to attract the teacher and the teaching you need.  Sufi proverb

The shadows are deepening all around us.  Now is the time when we must begin to see our world and ourselves in a different way.  Madeleine L’Engle

It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.  Madeleine L’Engle

I merely took the the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.  Duke Ellington

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are waiting to see use once beautiful and brave.  Rainer Maria Rilke

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.  Buckminster Fuller

Everything that is worthwhile in life is scary.  Choosing a school, choosing a career, getting married, having kids – all those things are scary.  If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.  Paul Tournier

I have accepted fear as a part of life – specifically the fear of change…I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says, “Turn back!”  Erica Jong

When we enter a forest phase in our lives we enter a period of wandering and a time of potential soul growth.  Here it is possible to find what we have cut off from, to “remember” a once vital aspect of ourselves. We may uncover a wellspring of creativity that has been hidden for decades.  Jean Shinoda Bolen

 

With thanks to Rosalee Deer Heart and Alison Strickland who used these quotes in a writing workshop June 2002.

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• Confused? Great time to use your imagination. (creativityland.ca)