Acceptance - the truest kinship with humanity

Reading the following quotes about acceptance, one can only wonder that it is not common knowledge, that we seem to have no current expressions about acceptance (apart from the put-down ‘get over it’.) My grandparents had the expression ‘what cannot be cured must be endured’. It seemed to my youthful self at the time to be a poor, tired, defeatist expression. Perhaps their grandparents had a few more expressions which they did not pass down, as I have not passed down their expression to my children.
Acceptance is not part of our vocabulary. But it is so important to a healthy attitude. Humility, gratitude, patience, sincerity, love, acceptance – how little we think of them on a daily basis, yet how impoverished our thoughts and actions are throughout the day that are not based in them. All of them are ‘companions of wisdom,’ their invisible power is always there, waiting to be tapped by us on demand, yet we rarely do.

The power of spiritual forces in the Universe – how active it is everywhere! Invisible to the eyes, and impalpable to the senses, it is inherent in all things, and nothing can escape its operation.

Nothing can escape its operation, especially not us, the only reasoning animals on the planet, with one foot on earth and one foot on heaven.

Reading these quotes I feel a kind of shame for my irritation with small things, my unreasonable, unaccepting anger with what life brings me, my ignorance of the necessity of acceptance, and my lack of grace in adapting to what is required of me by life. I am resolved to change my attitude. Thank God I decided to write this blog, I might never have discovered acceptance.

Acceptance is the truest kinship with humanity. G. K. Chesterton

Happiness can exist only in acceptance. Denis De Rougement

Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Werner Erhard

Listening is a form of accepting. Stella Terrill Mann

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances. David Hume

Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great humilities-of not trying to conform to some dramatized version of ourselves. David Grayson

Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers. Johann von Goethe

Happiness comes from within a man, from some curious adjustment to life. Hugh Walpole

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Okakura Kakuzo

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself. Michel de Montaigne

We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could. Walter Savage Landor

If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible. Winston Churchill

There is no quality of human nature so nearly royal as the ability to yield gracefully. Charles Conrad

What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly. Mignon McLaughlin

If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is. Wayne Dyer

Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens. Wayne Dyer

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes. Moses Maimonides

Our entire life consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are. Jean Anouilh

A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is. Michel de Montaigne

Trouble will come soon enough, and when he does come receive him as pleasantly as possible ... the more amiably you greet him, the sooner he will go away. Artemus Ward

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. Sara Teasdale

To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is – and rise above it. Michael Korda

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns. Orison Swett Marden

The most popular persons are those who take the world as it is, who find the least fault. Charles Dudley Warner

We must accept life for what it actually is -- a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature. Ida R. Wylie

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension. Joshua L. Liebman

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give. Eleanor Roosevelt

It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is. Wilhelm von Humboldt

God asks no man whether he will accept life. This is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how. Henry Ward Beecher

You have to take it as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it. German proverb