quotes about Serenity
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The goal of a great democracy should be fulfillment, not ease. It should be adequacy, not serenity.
-- Abram L. Sachar -
Ultimate serenity is the coming to rest of all ways of taking things, the repose of named things; no truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone, anywhere.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
There is a kind of serenity in love which is almost a paradise,
-- Alain BadiouSource : "Alain Badiou: a life in writing". Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. May 18, 2012.
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You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.
-- Albert Ellis -
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Even under a harsh God-and I do not believe in a harsh God-one is entitled to serenity in old age.
-- Albert Outler -
I used to find that I could get mental serenity surrounded by chaos.
-- Alexis KnappSource : "Interview: Kirby Bliss Blanton and Alexis Knapp on Project X". Interview with Laremy Legel, www.mtv.com. March 1, 2012.
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Bush has said something new. He said, "If I will be president again, I will be a man of peace and serenity." May the Lord curse the liars, wherever they may be.
-- Ali Meshkini -
I wish everybody finds the serenity that good, strong faith brings.
-- Ann Jillian -
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"What is the secret of your serenity?" Said the master: "Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable."
-- Anthony de Mello -
It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery -
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.
-- Auguste RodinSource : Auguste Rodin (2012). “Rodin on Art and Artists”, p.1, Courier Corporation
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Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes†to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No†to the wrong choices made by others.
-- Ayn Rand -
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She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.
-- Ayn Rand -
Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.
-- Blaise Cendrars -
I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature.
-- Caspar David Friedrich -
This severe, ascetic music, calm and horizontal as the line of the ocean, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous, and yet so intense in its contemplativeness that it verges sometimes on ecstasy.
-- Charles Gounod -
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How can we be scrupulous In a life which, from birth onwards, is so determined To wring us dry of any serenity at all?
-- Christopher Fry -
What moments divine , what rapture serene.
-- Cole PorterSource : Song: Begin the Beguine
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What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.
-- David Guterson -
Suffering accepted and vanquished. . . . will give you a serenity which may well prove the most exquisite fruit of your life.
-- Desire-Joseph Mercier -
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I am very willing to share whatever I know or feel I know about finding some serenity in this lifetime.
-- Dirk Benedict -
Nothing wastes more energy than worrying. The longer one carries a problem, the heavier it becomes. Don't take life too seriously. Live a life full of serenity, not of regrets.
-- Douglas Pagels -
I wouldn't know how to handle serenity if somebody handed it to me on a plate.
-- Dusty Springfield -
You have to be still for a moment to even notice that there is silence outside.
-- Eckhart Tolle -
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Writing, to be memorable, must be done in a state of impassioned serenity.
-- Edna Ferber -
Is there in painting an effect which arises from the being together of repose and energy in the artist's mind? - can both repose and energy be seen in a painting's line and color, plane and volume, surface and depth, detail and composition? - and is the true effect of a good painting on the spectator one that makes at once for repose and energy, calmness and intensity, serenity and stir?
-- Eli Siegel -
Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.
-- Elizabeth Gilbert -
But I do know focusing on the exterior doesn't make me happy. If I want peace and serenity, it won't be reached by getting thinner or fatter.
-- Elle Macpherson -
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The attributes of a great lady may still be found in the rule of the four S's: Sincerity, Simplicity, Sympathy, and Serenity.
-- Emily Post -
Serenity and inner beauty come when we wait upon God. "Waiting" like that is not merely wasting time.
-- Eva Burrows -
Meditation really helps create not only a sense of balance... but serenity and kind of a calm state of mind.
-- Eva Mendes -
You must sacrifice every thought, very ideology for the good of the nation and for the serenity of our fatherhood.
-- Francisco Franco -
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Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.
-- Franz Liszt -
Serenity of manners is the zenith of beauty.
-- Fredrika Bremer -
The key to serenity is trusting that the universe has your back.
-- Gabrielle Bernstein -
The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone's experiences with the serenity of an effortless development.
-- Gae AulentiSource : Gae Aulenti, Margherita Petranzan (1997). “Gae Aulenti”, Rizzoli Intl Pubns
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We might think we can find a buddha or enlightenment somewhere beyond this mind; we might think we can find serenity, clarity, and meaning beyond this mind, but such place does not exist. Everything that appears is this mind, Bodhidharma says.
-- Geoffrey Shugen Arnold -
I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence, what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry.
-- Georges BraqueSource : Georges Braque (1964). “Georges Braque, 1882-1963: An American Tribute”
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And Boucard desisted, probably because like everyone else he was deeply impressed by this man who had laid all ghosts, who had lost all shadows, and who stared you in the eyes with cold serenity.
-- Georges Simenon -
Gardening...demands a certain attitude. It is necessary to accept the dynamism of vegetation with serenity.
-- Gilles Clement -
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The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
-- Glenn Gould -
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
-- Hans ArpSource : "Arp on Arp: poems, essays, memories". p. 231, 1972.
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Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.
-- Henry David Thoreau -
Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one.
-- Henry Miller -
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Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.
-- Honore de Balzac -
When evil times prevail, take care to preserve the serenity of your hear.
-- Horace -
Death comes to us, under many conditions, with all the welcome serenity of sleep.
-- Hosea Ballou -
What I really try to do is photograph people at rest, in a state of serenity.
-- Irving Penn -
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Smiling always with a never fading serenity of countenance, and flourishing in an immortal youth.
-- Isaac BarrowSource : Isaac Barrow (1859). “The theological works of Isaac Barrow, ed. by A. Napier”, p.345
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If you want a real experience of serenity, look for the good. Affirm the good. Acknowledge the good.
-- Iyanla Vanzant -
The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.
-- Jack Kerouac -
Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.
-- Jack Kornfield -
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This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity.
-- Jack Vance -
The modern artist... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.
-- Jackson PollockSource : Jackson Pollock, Gagosian Gallery (1990). “Jackson Pollock: black enamel paintings, April-May 1990”
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Even death itself sometimes fails to bring the dignity and serenity which one would fain associate with old age.
-- Jane Addams -
So many people have tried to get happiness and serenity from outside things; it's pretty much common knowledge that is a road to nowhere. I've never heard anybody say, 'Fame made me the complete person I am.' Well, I'm sure people have said it, but nobody I respect.
-- Jared Leto -
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the patience not to strangle my mother-in-law, chop her into little pieces, and dump them down a sewer.
-- Jennifer WeinerSource : "Serenity Prayer". Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr, www.beliefnet.com. 1951.
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It was he [Vincent] who helped me to accommodate my life in such a way that I can be at peace with myself. Serenity - this was the favorite word of both of them [Vincent and Theo], the something they considered the highest. Serenity - I have found it.
-- Johanna van Gogh-Bonger -
Money can purchase the symbols but not the causes of serenity and buoyancy. In a straightforward way we must agree that money cannot buy happiness.
-- John Armstrong -
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
-- John Donne -
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Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.
-- John Edward WilliamsSource : John Edward Williams (1965). “Stoner: A Novel”
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Serenity is knowing that your worst shot is still pretty good.
-- Johnny Miller -
A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.
-- Joseph Addison -
Living the gospel does not mean the storms of life will pass us by, but we will be better prepared to face them with serenity and peace. 'Search diligently, pray always, and be believing,' the Lord admonished, 'and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly.'
-- Joseph B. Wirthlin -
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Some models of self-control are able to achieve their serenity easily because the soul fires never burn brightly to begin with.
-- Joseph J. Ellis -
Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of mind.
-- Julia Ward Howe -
If a house has a center of gravity, first of all there is stability. From stability there is serenity. I think this leads to a pleasant feeling
-- Junzo Yoshimura -
I have learned to like myself for the first time and to have some serenity.
-- Keith Miller -
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A slightly modified version of the Serenity Prayer: Lord, grant me the serenity to ignore the ***** I cannot avoid; The luck to avoid the ones I can; And the self-awareness not to be one myself
-- Kelly Williams BrownSource : Kelly Williams Brown (2013). “Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps”, p.63, Hachette UK
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I am freeing myself from security, sensation and power addictions that make me try to forcefully control situations in my life and thus destroy my serenity and keeps me from loving myself and others.
-- Ken Keyes Jr. -
I think that the ideal space must contain elements of magic, serenity, sorcery and mystery.
-- Luis Barragan -
Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.
-- Luis Barragan -
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A garden must combine the poetic and he mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy
-- Luis Barragan -
All our interior world is reality, and that, perhaps, more so than our apparent world.
-- Marc ChagallSource : Marc Chagall, Curt Valentin Gallery (New York), Curt Valentin Gallery (1952). “Marc Chagall, sculpture, ceramics, etchings for the fables of La Fontaine”
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The life of an artist is like the life of a monk, a lewd monk if you like, very Rabelaisian. It is an ordination.
-- Marcel Duchamp -
If you separate from . . . everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future . . . and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.
-- Marcus Aurelius -
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The very secret of life for mewas to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility. I had picked a life that dealt with excitement, tragedy, mass calamities, human triumphs and suffering. To throw my whole self into recording and attempting to understand these things, I needed an inner serenity as a kind of balance.
-- Margaret Bourke-White -
The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind... and the search for an equilibrium is essential - to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.
-- Mark Tobey -
Punctuality or the lack thereof oftentimes is the only introduction one will ever have to new groups and friends. Serenity and poise are not the companions of those who lack the courtesy and judgment to be on time.
-- Marvin J. Ashton -
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Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure as he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.
-- Matthieu RicardSource : Matthieu Ricard (2011). “The Art of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill”, p.26, Atlantic Books Ltd
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The thing we're all looking for is happiness, and if we achieve just a modicum of that or even a little piece of serenity even for five minutes a day, we're very lucky.
-- Mel Gibson -
Human Rights for everyone is the necessary foundation upon which all of us may build a world where everybody may live in peace and serenity and plenty.
-- Michael Douglas -
There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?
-- Michael Morpurgo -
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And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.
-- Michael Ondaatje -
Never have I experienced a serenity and sweetness of disposition as with my Chocolate Lab.
-- Mortimer Zuckerman -
This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship ...
-- Muriel Barbery -
Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.
-- Nadine Gordimer -
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Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
-- Nate SilverSource : Nate Silver (2012). “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't”, p.309, Penguin
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Develop serenity and quiet attitudes through your conversation. Depending upon the words we use and the tone in which we use them, we can talk ourselves into being nervous, high-strung, and upset. By our speech, we can also achieve quiet reactions. Talk peaceful to be peaceful.
-- Norman Vincent Peale -
No, my son, do not aspire for wealth and labor not only to be rich. Strive instead for happiness, to be loved and to love, and most important to acquire peace of mind and serenity.
-- Og Mandino -
Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.
-- Paul Brunton -
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So many things which once had distressed or revolted him — the speeches and pronouncements of the learned, their assertions and their prohibitions, their refusal to allow the universe to move — all seemed to him now merely ridiculous, non-existent, compared with the majestic reality, the flood of energy, which now revealed itself to him: omnipresent, unalterable in its truth, relentless in its development, untouchable in its serenity, maternal and unfailing in its protectiveness.
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin -
Christians know how to face difficulties, trials and defeat with serenity and hope in the Lord.
-- Pope Francis -
The aesthetic value of creation cannot be overlooked. Our very contact with nature has a deep restorative power; contemplation of its magnificence imparts peace and serenity. The Bible speaks again and again of the goodness and beauty of creation, which is called to glorify God.
-- Pope John Paul II -
Learn silence. With the quiet serenity of a meditative mind, listen, absorb, transcribe, and transform.
-- Pythagoras -
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There must be a technique for meeting pain. There must be a technique of endurance based on the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity, as Marcus Aurelius taught long ago.
-- Ray Stannard Baker -
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr -
God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr -