Are you struggling with accepting something? We’ve curated this collection of 31 acceptance quotes from a range of thoughtful luminaries to give you perspective on self acceptance, accepting others, accepting change and accepting death.
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 or her. – Lao Tzu
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. – Melody Beattie
Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.
A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away. – George Eliot
When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others. – Peace Pilgrim
Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices. – Paul Tournier
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself—and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. – Jim Morrison
The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you. – Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss
Apologizing does not mean that you are wrong and the other one is right. It simply means that you value the relationship much more than your ego.
Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself. – Deborah Reber, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. – William James
Happiness can exist only in acceptance. – George Orwell
To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous. – Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you – the first time around. – Oprah Winfrey
No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it. – Fernando Pessoa
The acceptance of death gives you more of a stake in life, in living life happily, as it should be lived. Living for the moment. – Sting
We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we’d learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn’t fall apart, you’d stop suffering when they did. – John Green, Looking for Alaska
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. – Nathaniel Branden
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu
Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future. – Fulton Oursler
Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. – Miyamoto Musashi
My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. – Michael J. Fox
Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Marriage equality is about more than just marriage. It’s about something greater. It’s about acceptance. – Charlize Theron
For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
– Reinhold Niebuhr
image 1: Mario Entero; image 2: Ben Ashmole (Creative Commons NC) images 3-5: Caras Ionut
