From healing to harmony: 75 quotes on moving towards a better society
Hate speech and animosity are tearing apart societies. But these quotes inspire us to rise, overcome, and create a more just and humane world.
Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our past articles. This special compilation of quotes highlights the importance of healing and forgiveness – and making some compromises, but moving away from hate.
I. Healing
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. - Helen Keller
Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognising your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them. - Thomas Kinkade
Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world. - Marianne Williamso
Even the smallest shift in perspective can bring about the greatest healing. - Joshua Kai
Every human bleeds the same colour and occupies the same world. Let us recognise that we are all part of each other. We are all human. We are all one. - Suzy Kassem
Every problem you face is an opportunity to learn something. The biggest lessons in your life have been learned from the darkest days. - Tracy Malone
Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which ones to surf. - Jonatan Martensson
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mahatma Gandhi
Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay. - Sallust
It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place. - David Hume
Only when we face the impossible, and experience the unbearable, do we find out who we truly are. - Vironika Tugaleva
Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion. - Buddha
Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us. - David Richo
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. - Kahlil Gibran
Progress and healing involves seeing every person as not so different from ourselves. - Bryant McGill
The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces. - Robert James Waller
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mahatma Gandhi
The wound is the place where the Light enters you. - Rumi
Time didn't heal, but it anesthetised. The human mind could only feel so much. - PD James
Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. - CS Lewis
We don’t heal in isolation, but in community. - S Kelley Harrell
When wounds are healed by love, the scars are beautiful. - David Bowles
II. Compromise
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece. - Ludwig Erhard
A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution. - Angela Merkel
A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognise it. - Barack Obama
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take. - Mahatma Gandhi
Any negotiation involves compromise, and no one will get everything they want. - Nicky Morgan
Compromise brings harmony to both, happiness to none. - Amit Kalantri
Compromise is the work of mature people. - Rita Mae Brown
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof. - James Russell Lowell
Dignity compromised is no longer dignity. - Adam Levin
More often, there’s a compromise between ethics and expediency. - Peter Singer
Politics is compromise. - Paddy Ashdown
Unless you are willing to compromise, society cannot live together. - Alan Greenspan
Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. - Ayn Rand
III. Overcoming hate
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Dislike what deserves it, but never hate. - William Penn
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate. - Socrates
Guilt and rage, hatred and fear were pathways to weakness and clumsy choices. - Jonathan Maberry
Hate cages all the good things about you. - Terri Guillemets
Hate is a lack of imagination. - Graham Greene
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. - Coretta Scott King
Hate isn’t healthy, it damages the hater more than the one who’s hated! - Eric Jerome Dickey
Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but has not solved one yet. - Maya Angelou
Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat. - Harry Emerson Fosdick
Hatred is a cold fire, and it gives no warmth. - Laurell K. Hamilton
If you learn to hate one or two persons, you'll soon hate millions of people. - Jerry Spinelli
It’s okay to disagree with each other, what’s not okay is to hate each other because we disagree. - Abhijit Naskar
Love is one-eyed, hate is blind. - Danish Proverb
Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the one thing hated. - George MacDonald
Never loan your heart to hatred; it pays you back with self-destruction. Majority of people living are not aware that anger is an acid that destroys its own container. - Israelmore Ayivor
Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. - Malachy McCourt
Somewhere between love and hate lies confusion, misunderstanding and desperate hope. - Shannon L. Alder
Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. - Og Mandino
IV. Forgiveness
As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. - Nelson Mandela
Blame keeps wounds open. Only forgiveness heals. - Thomas S. Manson
Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace. - Jonathan Huie
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. - Paul Boose
Forgiveness gives you a chance to be fulfilled rather than be eaten up with anger. - Bettany Hughes
Forgiveness has an uncanny way of bringing incredible good out of incredibly bad situations. - Paul Meyer
Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. - William Arthur Ward
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. - Tony Robbins
Forgiveness is a way of opening up the doors again and moving forward, whether it's a personal life or a national life. - Hillary Clinton
Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it. - Mason Cooley
Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge. - Isaac Friedmann
Forgiveness is your own mental healing. Forgiveness is an act of self-love. - Don Miguel Ruiz
Forgiveness isn’t approving what happened. It’s choosing to rise above it. - Robin Sharma
Forgiveness provides hope, joy, and a bright future that nothing else can. - Paul Meyer
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. - Abraham Lincoln
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive. - Mother Teresa
It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend. -William Blake
It’s not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you. - Tyler Perry
Life is an adventure in forgiveness. - Norman Cousins
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. - Edwin Hubbel Chapin
The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world. - Marianne Williamson
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. - Thomas Szasz
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mahatma Gandhi
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. - Josh Billings
To err is human, to forgive, divine. - Alexander Pope
To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness. - Robert Muller
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. - Lewis B. Smedes
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends. - Sir Francis Bacon
We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it's absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive. - TD Jakes
When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive. - Alan Paton
Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation. - Roberto Assagioli
Without forgiveness, there's no future. - Desmond Tutu
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