Transformation Quotes

“To say nothing is saying something. You must denounce things you are against or one might believe that you support things you really do not.”
― Germany Kent

“The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“When you fight yourself to discover the real you, there is only one winner.”
― Stephen Richards

“And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.”
― Angela Carter

“The time is a critical one, for it marks the beginning of the second half of life, when a metanoia, a mental transformation, not infrequently occurs.

(on being 36 yrs old)”
― Carl Gustav Jung, Symbols of Transformation

“We can see the Divine in each speck of dust, but that doesn't stop us from wiping it away with a wet sponge. The Divine doesn't disappear; it's transformed into the clean surface.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

“Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

“To bring about the new takes not just a development of the old, but a radical leap forward - revolutionary and transforming - and that requires extra factors that were not present before.”
― Belsebuub, Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living

“Love is an expression of power. We can use it to transform our world.”
― Ericka Huggins

“To live meant feeding my former self to my current self.”
― Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet

“And these things
that keep alive on departure know that
you praise them; transient,
they look to us, the most transient,
to be their rescue.
They want us to change them completely,
in our invisible hearts,
into -- O endlessly -- us! Whoever,
finally, we may be.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

“Might we begin then to transform our passing illuminations into abiding light?”
― Huston Smith

“Will I ever be done, transformed in the past tense, or will I always be transforming, better and better until I die?”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

“Similar to a butterfly, I've gone through a metamorphosis, been released from my dark cocoon, embraced my wings, and soared!”
― Dana Arcuri, Reinventing You: Simple Steps to Transform Your Body, Mind, & Spirit

“I am thankful that there are those among us who have sacrificed dearly on behalf of us. And I ardently pray to God that I might be less like myself and more like them.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“There is no such thing as a relationship without a contract. All relationships are governed by contracts, be they implied or explicit. Relationship contracts are not legal contracts, though sometimes societal expectations of relationships get worked into law (this can come into play in situations like divorce as well as the legal establishment and relinquishment of paternity).

The society in which you grew up provided you with a set of template contracts to which you implicitly agree whenever you enter a relationship, even a non-sexual one. For example, a common clause of many societal template contracts among friends involves agreeing to not sleep with a friend's recent ex. While you may never explicitly agree to not sleep with a friend's ex, your friend will absolutely feel violated if they discover that you shacked up with the person who dumped them just a week earlier.

Essentially, these social contracts tell an individual when they have “permission” to have specific emotional reactions. While this may not seem that impactful, these default standards can have a significant impact on one’s life. For example, in the above reaction, a friend who just got angry out of the blue at a member of their social group would be ostracized by others within the group while a friend who became angry while citing the “they slept with my ex” contract violation may receive social support from the friend group and internally feel more justified in their retaliatory action. To ferret out the contractual aspects of relationships in which you currently participate, think through something a member of that relationship might do that would have you feeling justifiably violated, even though they never explicitly agreed to never take such action.

This societal system of template contracts may have worked in a culturally and technologically homogenous world without frequent travel, but within the modern world, assumed template contracts cause copious problems.”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage

“When, at last, I ceased to be myself, I came to be.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“God can take the ordinary and create the extraordinary. Our incredible God has the power to transform your simple life and give you the life of your dreams. Remarkable things happen in your life when you believe.”
― Amaka Imani Nkosazana, Heart Crush

“I love my enemies for two reasons: they inspire me to recognise my weakness. They also inspire me to perfect my imperfect nature.”
― Sri Chinmoy

“The Christian does not avoid sin to achieve salvation, but rather salvation brings him to a desire not to sin. The closer that one's spirit is synchronized with the holy knowledge of God, the more he comprehends how and why sin is destructive to himself and others in each and every circumstance. The dwindling desire for sin is a premature gift of Heaven - where there will be no sin, where all will, too, possess that full and complete wisdom; all will have perfect reasons not to sin. In this way, free will might still exist, but the shared wisdom of God will simply outwit all desires, impulses, and needs to sin.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“If isolation is the furnace of transformation, I could be ashes by now.”
― stephen christian, The Orphaned Anything's: Memoir of a Lesser Known

“The love of Christ is always there and unchanging, no matter what we do, but it is when we are obedient that we actually begin to feel it.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“You only struggle because you're ready to grow but aren't willing to let go.”
― Drew Gerald

“In these times where it has seemed dark indeed
where integrity appears solely buried in legend and lore,
it is an opportunity in contrast to the shadows,
to create miracles...
by choosing first courage,
then diligence,
standing,
opening our mouth
and speaking the truth that in rare moments,
may ignite the light.”
― Tom Althouse, The Frowny Face Cow

“Head held high and lips parted, she breathed in the music, sending it through her torso and arms and legs the way the Tai Chi teacher told us to breath the air, transforming it into energy, motion.
Dancing is the body's song, and Bess sang.”
― Lynne Sharon Schwartz

“For a Siddhar yogi, time is precious. It is important to utilize every moment to evolve into ever higher states of consciousness. We understand stagnancy as decay and for growth, we constantly discard the old to welcome change as the new. We tap into the magical abilities to evolve. "Every saint was a sinner in the past" maxim holds true. In the intensity of our yogic pursuit we evolve quickly. By evolving, we know that is the greatest gift of a lifetime we could ever receive- to be angelic as a being of consciousness. Consciousness is ever evolving and dynamic in transforming.”
― Nandhi Tapasyogi, Mastery of Consciousness: Awaken the Inner Prophet: Liberate Yourself with Yogic Wisdom.

“Choose love and joy as much as you can in each moment and watch your life transform.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree

“Skye said when she looked at Lise, she saw a black mark, an aura. Just like the mark on Lise’s thigh, it was a warming. Deenie thought of it now, of Lise and the stretch mark on her thigh. And how the fevered mind of her fevered friend might believe anything. But also, somewhere inside, it felt the smallest bit true. That the stretch mark was a kind of witch’s mark, the blot of Lise’s body that reminded you of what she had been -a plump, awkward girl- before the lithesome beauty took her place.

It was a kind of witchcraft, that transformation.”
― Megan Abbott

“Look at us, she said. We are all of us in this room
still waiting to be transformed. This is why we search for love.
We search for it all of our lives,
even after we find it.”
― Louise Glück, Winter Recipes from the Collective

“What if we measure the radicalism of speech by how radically it transforms open-minded people, by how the speech liberates the antiracist power within? What if we measure the conservatism of speech by how intensely it keeps people the same, keeps people enslaved by their racist ideas and fears, conserving their inequitable society?”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist