Anne Morrow Lindbergh Quotes (65 Quotes)



    Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind and spirit--qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected. It is growth along these lines that will make us whole, and will enable the individual to become world to himself.


    The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires.

    This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.



    How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.

    My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen - no retouching, no shadows, no flattery - just stark me.


    I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

    We tend not to choose the unknown, which might be a shock or a disappointment or simply a little difficult to cope with. An yet it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching.


    Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce, not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia. Pure, undiluted, untouched joy.


    Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.

    My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.

    The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much social life is exhausting one is wearing a mask.

    One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

    If one talks to more than four people it is an audience, and one cannot really think or exchange thoughts with an audience.


    Total freedom is never what one imagines and, in fact, hardly exists. It comes as a shock in life to learn that we usually only exchange one set of restrictions for another. The second set, however, is self-chosen, and therefore easier to accept.

    I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.

    For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.

    If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.

    For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.

    The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.

    I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

    Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.

    Those fields of daisies we landed on, and dusty fields and desert stretches. Memories of many skies and earths beneath us - many days, many nights of stars.


    Don't wish me happiness - I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.

    The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.


    Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.


    The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.

    But I want first of all in fact as an end to these other desires to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want in factto borrow from the language of the saints to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.


    Only when a tree has fallen can you take a measure of it. It is the same with a man.

    Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.

    One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life.


    The only real security in a relationship lies neither in looking back in nostalgia, nor forward in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.

    After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.


    America, which has the most glorious present still existing in the world today, hardly stops to enjoy it, in her insatiable appetite for the future.

    When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet, this is exactly what most of us demand.

    It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

    There are no signposts in the sky to show a man has passed that way before. There are no channels marked. The flier breaks each second into new uncharted seas.

    Love is a force. It is not a result it is a cause. It is not a product it produces. It is a power, like money or steam or electricity.


    More Anne Morrow Lindbergh Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Life - Time - Love - Relationship - Woman - Sense & Perception - Man - Liberty & Freedom - Security - World - Beauty - Present - Future - Facts - Joy & Excitement - Hope - Change - Flowers - Education - View All Anne Morrow Lindbergh Quotations

    More Anne Morrow Lindbergh Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - Gift from the Sea

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