Acceptance Quotes

These quotations about acceptance are powerful reminders of the importance of understanding and embracing life. Through the words of great minds, we can understand how to better accept what happens to us in life and to appreciate one another in all our diversity.  The opposite of acceptance is rejection or ignorance. Consider these words of wisdom, whether you’re looking to explore acceptance of others, acceptance of what happens in life, or self-acceptance.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.

I consider myself to be a relatively sceptical person. I like to see evidence for myself, and try to avoid speculating beyond available evidence. But I also have to accept some things on trust.

Slowly … the truth is dawning upon women, and still more slowly upon men, that woman is no stepchild of nature, no Cinderella of fate to be dowered only by fairies and the Prince; but that for her and in her, as truly as for and in man, life has wrought its great experiences, its master attainments, its supreme human revelations of the stuff of which worlds are made.

Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

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

A Humanist Code of Ethics:
Do no harm to the earth, she is your mother.
Being is more important than having.
Never promote yourself at another’s expense.
Hold life sacred; treat it with reverence.
Allow each person the digity of his or her labor.
Open your home to the wayfarer.
Be ready to receive your deepest dreams;
sometimes they are the speech of unblighted conscience.
Always make restitutions to the ones you have harmed.
Never think less of yourself than you are.
Never think that you are more than another.

Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.

If you can neither accept it or change it, try to laugh at it.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

In the adjustment of the new order of things, we women demand an equal voice; we shall accept nothing less.

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.

People must cherish their own values and appreciate the values of others. When all values come together, the world becomes a single unified entity.

Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence to, not in an exemption from, suffering.

Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one’s best.

We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy and sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering I rush to them. They will give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on.

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

To bow to the fact of our life’s sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.