Top 100 Affirming Quotes
#1. Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing 'M*A*S*H'; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling.
Sanjeev Bhaskar
#2. Is the basic teaching of Buddhism - on ignorance, deliverance and enlightenment - really life-denying, or is it rather the same kind of life-affirming liberation that we find in the Good News of Redemption, the Gift of the Spirit, and the New Creation?
Thomas Merton
#3. The time and intelligence that our ancestors spent on understanding the sovereignty revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are directed by our contemporaries in affirming and validating the sovereignty of our needs, wants, and feelings.
Eugene H. Peterson
#4. I do not believe I am exaggerating in affirming that the empire of Russia is a country whose inhabitants are the most miserable on earth, because they suffer at one and the same time the evils of barbarism and of civilization.
Marquis De Custine
#5. Laughter can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound,and also the most sinister and animalistic one.
Christopher Hitchens
#6. By affirming your own gifts and accomplishments, you build your confidence and increase your ability to build a brighter future.
Debbie Ford
#7. Positive, affirming relationships bring great pleasure while poor relationship brings great pain. Greatest happiness found in good relationships, greatest pain found in bad relationships
Gary Chapman
#9. In the first place, all books that get fairly into the vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel though they cannot say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#10. The sexual conquest is huge with men in terms of affirming themselves and their feelings of masculinity. That's a misguided kind of affirmation. That is not helpful, but that stuff happens.
Donald Miller
#11. A biblically based worldview is capable of affirming the best insights of secular philosophies without ever falling into reductionism.
Nancy Pearcey
#12. Faith is not limited to affirming the existence of God. No, faith tells us that God loves us and demands a loving response. This response is given through love for human beings, and that is what we mean by a commitment to God and to our neighbor.
Gustavo Gutierrez
#13. Whereas orthodox Christianity answers Jesus' question to Peter - "Who do you say I am?" (Mark 8:29) - by affirming that Christ was both God (the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Israel) and human (an average Joe, yet without sin), these heretical thinkers answered the question differently.
Justin S. Holcomb
#14. The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#15. When you blame others, you are affirming that you have no power, and your existence is only a reaction to the power of others.
Bryant McGill
#16. Action eradicates fear. No matter what you fear,
positive, self-affirming action can diminish or completely cancel that which you are fearful of.
Mark Victor Hansen
#17. I am very close to my family, and there's something life-affirming about that. Even if you feel completely different from them and have totally different views on politics and ethics, you're still family and have that immediate acceptance.
Susanne Bier
#18. I am affirming that the casting couch for men exists in the modeling world
Arjun Rampal
#19. we are affirming our trust that creation means well within us all, and that whatever painful growth and change may lie ahead, it is leading us to Life, not destruction
Margaret Silf
#20. Conservation is not a desperate, defensive effort. It is instead joyous and life-affirming. - from Zen Birding
Susan Guyette And David White
#21. Love allows us to confront these negative realities in a manner that is life-affirming and life enhancing.
Bell Hooks
#22. Philosophy isn't programmed into us, and a lot of the forces of our culture steadfastly work against it. Philosophy, for me, is a way of resisting the nihilism of the present by making, creating, affirming. By going on.
Simon Critchley
#23. Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics.
Michael Ignatieff
#24. The feminist call was for women to embrace ways of seeing beauty and adorning ourselves that are healthy, life-affirming, and not overly time-time consuming.
Bell Hooks
#25. Many couples have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other.
Gary Chapman
#26. The problem with driving around Iceland is that you're basically confronted by a new soul-enriching, breath-taking, life-affirming natural sight every five goddamn minutes. It's totally exhausting.
Stephen Markley
#27. The surest sign that you're working with the life-affirming kind of discipline, rather than the spirit-depressing kind, is that you don't complain very much about doing what it takes.
Danielle LaPorte
#28. It's one thing to know "The Secret" or take whatever life-affirming steps you've read about in order to bring positivity into your life, but it's something else altogether to actually create opportunities for yourself. You're definitely not going to find them reading a book.
James Altucher
#29. ...the Christian life in its fullness is far more than being active in a Christian community, affirming a certain set of beliefs or adopting a particular behavior pattern. These are a secondary result of the primary reality of a life engaged in an ever deepening union with God in love.
M. Robert Mulholland Jr.
#30. I grew up in church and it's always been important to me. I've always had a sense of calling to do life and faith-affirming media.
Brian Bird
#31. Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take.
Willis Harman
#32. Envy is one of the great enemies of active spirituality. It keeps us from loving our neighbours, from functioning with others in community, and from affirming people's unique worth. It also steals contentment from the heart. Is there anything or anyone you are envious of?
Charles R. Swindoll
#33. You can make yourself enthusiastic by affirming enthusiasm and by thinking, talking, acting enthusiastic.
Norman Vincent Peale
#34. We live in times of high stress. Messages that are simple, messages that are inspiring, messages that are life-affirming, are a welcome break from our real lives.
Simon Sinek
#35. In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.
Leo Tolstoy
#36. The most incredible beauty and the most satisfying way of life come from affirming your own uniqueness.
Jane Fonda
#37. God is not in a hurry to fix us. Our behavior is not his first priority. We are his first priority. Loving us, knowing us, affirming us, protecting us. That is his top goal and his main concern.
Judah Smith
#38. When you choose to be angry you are affirming that you want greater anger in your life.
Louise Hay
#39. However, for Hardy the possibility of poetry's traditional function of transcendence remains, but in a more limited form. In Hardy's work the poet transcends himself towards humanity, affirming the central values of loving-kindness and fellowship.
Geoffrey Harvey
#40. The wise legislator will only rarely initiate a new rule of behaviour; more usually he will confine himself to affirming in law what has already become the custom of the people.
Gregory Bateson
#41. Where a generation ago people felt entitled to a chance at education, they now feel entitled to the credential affirming that they have completed a course of study regardless of their actual mastery.
William A. Henry III
#42. There is always money to kill people. There is never enough money for life affirming ends.
Derrick Jensen
#43. Watching birds has become part of my daily meditation affirming my connection to the earth body.
Carol P. Christ
#44. We are affirming human rights for all women and girls, acknowledging the full range of diversity that exists, and detailing actions to prevent violence.
Bella Abzug
#45. Growth can also involve producing services instead of goods. In particular, a major expansion of public and caring services (like child care, education, elder care, and other life-affirming programs) would generate huge increases in GDP and incomes, with virtually no impact on the environment.
Jim Stanford
#46. Undermining life-affirming social solidarities and any viable notion of the public good, right-wing politicians trade in forms of idiocy and superstition that mesmerize the illiterate and render the thoughtful cynical and disengaged.
Henry Giroux
#47. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU CAN HANDLE ANYTHING THAT COMES YOUR WAY IS THE KEY TO ALLOWING YOURSELF TO TAKE HEALTHY, LIFE-AFFIRMING RISKS.
Susan Jeffers
#48. The key to living in the post-industrial post-modern world is finding means of affirming that we are citizens...that we are persons and associating with other persons to have voice and action in the making of our world
John Pocock
#49. The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion, wishful thinking, or the whingeing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.
Richard Dawkins
#50. The power of our beliefs can work in either direction to become life affirming or life denying.
Gregg Braden
#51. I may have to shop with them. But on Sunday I don't want to have to worship with them. I want to be able to just be myself and let my hair down. It's also, of course, as we know, the seat of political organization and the affirming of your blackness and so on.
Michael Emerson
#52. Never ever discount the idea of marriage. Sure, someone might tell you that marriage is just a piece of paper. Well, so is money, and what's more life-affirming than cold, hard cash?
Dennis Miller
#53. Americans are a lot more open, of course. There's something more declamatory in the way you express emotions. It's a stereotype but it's true. British people can appear repressed in expressing emotions. Not very good at self-evaluating, or affirming situations, touching, anything like that.
Emily Blunt
#54. Music has touched me deeply, sometimes to tears. But at the same time it's been life-affirming, because I've been grateful for the fact that I'm alive and human and capable of being so moved.
Brian Molko
#55. Awards movies are normally sort of ... life-affirming and noble. It's probably too much of an intellectual conceit and, you know, people don't like it when you don't lead the bad guy off in cuffs.
David Fincher
#56. God is the reason expressing, affirming itself as the highest existence. To the imagination, the reason is the revelation of God; but to the reason, God is the revelation of the reason[.]
Ludwig Feuerbach
#57. When I first came to London, I loved hanging around in cafes, smoking, scribbling, dreaming. It was life-affirming and fun.
Peter Capaldi
#58. We are not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings
Gregory Of Nyssa
#59. I love to make music that makes people feel mood-enhancing, life-affirming brilliance but I just make whatever comes out at the time and sometimes it's up and sometimes it down and sometimes it sideways with a hint of s smile.
Eliza Doolittle
#60. Recognition of the modes of existence of technical objects must be the result of philosophic consideration; what philosophy has to achieve in this respect is analogous to what the abolition of slavery achieved in affirming the worth of the individual human being.
Gilbert Simondon
#61. Every thought you think and every word you speak is affirming something.
Louise Hay
#62. A glorious failure can sometimes be more life affirming than a cautious win.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#63. Life affirming doesn't mean good things happen.
James Gray
#64. Affirming others isn't 'flattering' them - it's when you genuinely and consistently acknowledge their efforts and accomplishments, both large and small. Make affirmation a habit and watch what happens!
Lee Ellis
#65. Movies that are consciously life-affirming are to be consciously avoided ...
Pauline Kael
#66. Ribbons a-flutter and orchids a-tremble, Yearly the vigilant Daughters assemble, Affirming in fervid and firm resolutions Their permanent veto on all revolutions.
Marya Mannes
#67. Only by affirming the animateness of perceived things do we allow our words to emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world.
David Abram
#68. My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I'd wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, 'You're going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.'
Stephen Covey
#69. I love my life, my family and my friends, and I'm drawn to 'relationship' novels because of their affirming focus on the power of love to heal wounds and transform lives.
Susan Wiggs
#70. The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty.
Alexandra Fuller
#71. You don't go to a town to present the play and have applause at the end of it, but that's benign conquest. It's a glorious way of exploring other landscapes and other cultures in a very life-affirming way.
Ben Kingsley
#72. I've always been a dreamer, have always believed
in the power of love and art and loud, life-affirming rock and roll, but, for the first time,
I'm starting to have doubts. Can a dream even exist in reality? Or does it turn to stone
the second it leaves your mind?
Pete Wentz
#73. Heroism is all about discovering our purpose of life, exercising the Power of ONE and affirming the Power of Intent which we are all blessed with. The Seriousness of intent and Honesty of Purpose can help each individual awaken the hero within.
Jeroninio Almeida
#74. The world will persist in exhibiting before you what you persist in affirming the world is.
Emma Curtis Hopkins
#75. Often girls feel deeply cared about as small children but then find as we develop willpower and independent thought that the world stops affirming us, that we are seen as unlovable.
Bell Hooks
#77. Constantly reemphasize to yourself the great fact that God built potential strength into your nature. By affirming it and practicing it, this basic strength will toughen up as muscles do.
Norman Vincent Peale
#78. The formulaic repetitiveness of filing and stuffing envelopes appeals to me in some fundamental life-affirming way.
Paul Beatty
#79. The mere act of dreaming is a vitalizing, life-affirming endeavor. As it turns out, using your imagination is very, very good for your wellbeing. Einstein believed that imagination was even more important than knowledge itself.
Danielle LaPorte
#80. The essence of sin is a shift from God centeredness to a self-centeredness. The essence of salvation is a denial of self, not an affirming of self.
Henry Blackaby
#81. God, Most High, is the very one who Himself affirms His unity by the tongue of whatever of His creatures He wishes. If He Himself affirms His unity by my tongue, it is He and His affair. Otherwise, brother, I have nothing to do with affirming God's Unity.
Mansur Al-Hallaj
#82. Utopian speculations ... must come back into fashion. They are a way of affirming faith in the possibility of solving problems that seem at the moment insoluble. Today even the survival of humanity is a utopian hope.
Norman O. Brown
#83. Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice.
Stephen Covey
#84. Partying at this time of ecological meltdown is not affirming of reality, but an abdication from it. It is a place of false refuge especially so when there is no evidence of an acknowledgement of affirming life as it is, for this would require of these people a heartbrokeness.
Stephen Jenkinson
#85. Naturally, etiquette books order handwashing before as well as after meals, but the practice also appears, with a frequency that borders on obsession, in poetry. Poets found it hard to describe a banquet or even a meal without affirming that everyone washed their hands.
Katherine Ashenburg
#86. The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward that happiness which is the same as God Himself, and which is the aim and purpose of all that happens in the world.
Josef Pieper
#87. Research highlights a striking link between between encouraging child-raising and class. Half of working-class parents' interactions with their 12-18 month-olds were affirming, versus 80% among the affluent and 20% among those in poverty.
Betty Hart
#88. Goddess is the deep Source of creating integrity and the Self-affirming be-ing of women.
Mary Daly
#89. I've just finished reading a book about the brilliant Margaret Rutherford. She wasn't a beauty, but inside she was absolutely blazing and passionate about her work. She's one of those life-affirming characters.
Sophie Thompson
#90. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented, and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful. Such attitudes are active and definite factors in creating satisfactory conditions. Watch your manner of speech then if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind.
Norman Vincent Peale
#91. It is the life-affirming genius of baseball that the short can pummel the tall, the rotund can make fools of the sleek, and no matter how far down you find yourself in the bottom of the ninth you can always pull out a miracle.
Bill Vaughn
#92. If Scripture teaches the imputation of sin, we should not stumble when we find it affirming the imputation of righteousness.
Arthur W. Pink
#93. Positive means feeling enjoyment, suspense, amusement, and the satisfaction of what psychologists call belief affirmation - stories turning out as readers believe they should. That requires more than just a happy ending. It means affirming readers' beliefs and validating their morals.
Donald Maass
#94. A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of spirit over matter.
Susan Sontag
#95. An affirmation is almost like a mantra. It does not really matter if what you are affirming is not totally true as yet. By repeating an affirmation over and over again, it becomes embedded in the subconscious mind, and eventually it becomes your reality.
Stuart Wilde
#96. I realized the preserving a relationship at all costs was not as important as affirming the human right to be free from abusive treatment.
Rebecca Ann Parker
#97. Cells, tissues, and organs do not question information sent by the nervous system. Rather, they respond with equal fervor to accurate life-affirming perceptions and to self-destructive misperceptions. Consequently, the nature of our perceptions greatly influences the fate of our lives.
Bruce H. Lipton
#98. Very curious, at the age of about 13 years, Oswald began to study Marxism and he kept on in his writing, affirming that he was a Marxist. Probably he did want to show himself as a great, supreme Marxist.
John Sherman Cooper
#99. My son, who sees me almost every day of his life, will look at me and go, "I know that dude! I like that dude!" It's incredibly affirming.
John Darnielle
#100. When I read War and Peace in Norway, really far away from humanity for a long time, it was such an amazing, affirming blast of "humanity" in all forms. It totally cracked my mind-nut open and rainbows shot out. I loved humanity and being alive, rather than wanting to bury my head in the snow.
Phil Elvrum
