L.R. Knost Quotes

Strength is like the wind
now raging with the fierceness of a hurricane
determined to overcome any obstacle in its path
now vanishing into a breath-stealing stillness
when life hits too hard
and the soul gasps for relief
now stirring softly to whisper that it's okay
to struggle, to fail, to suffer, to rest
because life goes on
and strength will eventually rise again
to carry us through...
just maybe not right now.

Want world peace?
Be peaceful.
Think the world needs more kindness?
Be kind.
Want a better world?
Be a better person.
#wearetheworld

Sometimes life hurts.
We suffer. We heal. We move on.
But sometimes life hits back. Harder.
Lethal in its cruelty.
Shattering us into a million glittering shards
of pain and loss and anguish.
And we suffer, too broken to heal,
to become what we once were.
So we learn to live
with the shards of pain and loss and anguish
forever embedded in our souls,
and with shaking fingers we piece together
the bloody fragments of who we were
into a mosaic grotesque in its stark reality,
exquisite in its sharp-edged story
of the tragic, breathless beauty of a
human who survived life.
And we move on, often unaware
of the light glittering behind us
showing others the way
through the darkness.

It's okay to slow down,
to turn your face to the sun,
to breathe deeply under the stars,
to rest in a warm embrace.
It’s okay to live in the moment
when the moment is worth living in,
to cry tears of joy or pain or both
when life feels too big or too hard,
to twirl with arms wide open
when you want to feel young
and free and invincible again
despite age and time and circumstance.
It’s okay to feel, to fail, to try, to win,
to laugh, to cry, to live, to die,
all on your own terms.
It’s okay to be wholly and imperfectly you.
It’s okay to be human.

Broken children grow into broken adults. To create a more peaceful future, we need to create a more peaceful present for our children. Our world needs more heart-whole adults, not more refugees from childhood.

Listen instead of lecture. Communicate instead of command. Relate instead of retaliate. Be flexible instead of being fixated on getting your own way. Seek to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. In short, behave the way you want your children to learn to behave.

The strength of a nation rests on its future, and its future rests in the hands of its children. True strength is forged in gentleness, guided by wisdom, and steeped in peace. Growing the next generation with gentleness, wisdom, and peace begins by recognizing that we are citizens of the world, that every human matters, and that our children learn how to treat the world by how we treat them. To be a nation at peace, we must treat all humans peacefully and raise peaceful humans. The only path to peace is peace.