Jean Vanier Quotes

Stop giving your precious energy to things that make you feel bad.

Build up your health. Do not dwell in silence upon your sorrows.

They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity. Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.

You have to fight unhappiness like a dragon with fire and breathe.

Sometimes I think that's where most of us are. Fighting off the crazy as best we can. Trying to become something better than we were. It's that second bit that's important.

Self-care is the number one solution to helping somebody else. If you are being good to yourself and your body and your psyche, that that serves other people better because you will grow strong enough to life someone else up.

Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?

I talk a lot about strength, faith and love, but I don't ever talk about the fact that I am one of the most sensitive people in my family. That might be the most shocking, because you always see me fighting the good fight, with the strong face on, but I am the most emotional.

I figure if I keep my spirit in shape, the bones will take care of themselves.

I think art is a healing force, and if we give in to the joy that can be found in art, then we are able to sustain ourselves in spite of ourselves.

I fight demons.

As I play the game of life, I try to make it better each and every day. And when I struggle in the night, The magic of the music seems to light the way.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

When we think good thoughts and choose the actions that make us feel good, Life provides us with all the evidence we need that we are loved and cared for.

Depression seems to be related to fear, anger and frustration. When you're in a bad mood, even if you meet with your friends, you don't take pleasure in their company. But when you're in a good mood, even if things go wrong, you can cope with them without difficulty. This is why putting yourself in a good mood, making a point of developing a sense of loving kindness gives you greater inner strength.

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

Fighting for happiness is the hardest thing you'll ever fight for, but it's the only thing worth fighting for.

I never think of physical fighting. It's always spiritual. Fighting is spiritual.

So many people dwell on negativity and I've survived by ignoring it: it dims your light and it's harder each time to turn the power up again.

You are not living, you are surviving.

I did rocks, all this dumb stuff. But now it's just trying to stay afloat and just get through the days.

In the antiseptic world we try to purge ourselves of difficult things. Don't dwell on it, switch off the light and go home. But this is home. I have to be a home to myself. I am the place I come back to and I can't keep hiding difficult things in trunks. Soon the house will be full of trunks and I perched on top of them with the phone saying, "Yes, I'm fine, of course, I'm fine, everything's fine." The trunks shudder.

I think as time goes on, I'm trying to get less fatalistic, because that's just one of those unhealthy, kind of dangerous head spaces to get in, of not being able to tolerate sustained positive energy.

I hope that people take away hope, maybe not in an obvious sense, but in the form of hearing somebody who's genuinely fighting to stay above water. And in that fight, there's hope. In that fight, maybe there's positivity.