Here are some of my favorite quotes that help me get through any hard time. Sometimes I just need a reminder everything is okay. Verses from the Quran help ground me in situations I am experiencing. Quotes from other books remind me of the stories I have read and learned from. Sayings by people inspire me and remind me to achieve greatness. Sometimes, we all need a pocketbook of reminders of who we are and who we aim to be.
- Quran, Chapter 94 verse 7
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“Verily with hardship comes ease.”
- Reclaim Your Heart by Yasemine Mogahed
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“This world cannot break you — unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys — unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while — take them back. This isn’t the End. You don’t have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner: God.”
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
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“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end…”
- Nelson Mandela
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“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
- I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
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“Let us pick up our books and our pens,” I said. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
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“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
- Nadine Gordimer
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“Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.”
- Marvels and Oddities by S.K. Ali.
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Maybe that’s what life is – recognizing the marvels and oddities around you.”
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
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“But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.”
- Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam by A. Helwa
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“Love. It is the reason there is something instead of nothing. It is from the soil of love that all of existence blossoms into being.”
- Tawakkol Karman, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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“Man in early times was almost naked, and as his intellect evolved he started wearing clothes. What I am today and what I’m wearing represents the highest level of thought and civilization that man has achieved, and is not regressive. It’s the removal of clothes again that is regressive back to ancient times.”
- Rumi
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“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”