L.R. Knost Quotes

Don't make yourself small.
Not for anyone.
If someone tells you
you're too much...
too loud, too sensitive,
too fierce, too caring,
too intellectual, too optimistic,
too realistic, too logical, too emotional...
just smile and move on, my friend.
Clearly, they aren't enough for you.

As night falls, let the day's troubles slip away into
the darkness and rest well knowing tomorrow
brings a new day, a new chance to do things better,
a new opportunity to make things right. And when
the new day dawns, awaken a little wiser, a little older,
a little more prepared for the future. That's simply
the pattern of life, my friends, a tapestry of light
threaded with darkness, laughter threaded with tears,
hope threaded with despair, wisdom threaded with
failure, insight threaded with regret. It's just how
we learn and grow as humans, and that's okay.
It's enough to end each day knowing we've done
our best and we'll do our best again tomorrow.

Safety, equality, security, and freedom for me are rooted in safety, equality, security, and freedom for every human. Peaceful coexistence on this beautiful planet we share cannot be achieved by warfare. It cannot be achieved by power. And it cannot be achieved by ignoring each others' suffering. We cannot kill our way to peace, oppress others to create to peace, or close our eyes to achieve peace. Peace is the only path to peace. Our humanity is indelibly linked to our treatment of one another. Humane treatment grows humanity. Inhumane treatment destroys humanity. At its roots, humanity is an elegantly simple equation - input equals output.

Healing is not a straight and narrow road
that leads from darkness to light.
There's no sudden epiphany to take
us from despair to serenity, no orchestrated
steps to move us from hurting to healed.
Healing is a winding mountain road with steep
climbs and sudden descents, breathtaking views
and breath-stealing drop-offs, dark tunnels
and blinding exposures, dead ends and
endless backtracks, rest stops and break downs,
sheer rock walls and panoramic vistas.
Healing is a journey with no destination,
because healing is the journey of every lifetime.

I rise.
Again. And again.
Not as the morning bird
whose song springs
to sudden glorious life
at the dawning of the light,
but as the sun
who touches the horizon
with tender fingertips
before reaching open arms
across the sky
to embrace another day
to weather the storms
to stand tall and breathe fire
and then to descend into rest
until it's time to rise again.
And again
I rise.

You're going to make mistakes as a parent. It's literally inevitable. You're human, and mistakes are just part of being human. It's how you handle your mistakes that matters most. Acknowledge them. Apologize for them. Make them as right as possible. Learn something from them. And then let them go. It's okay. I promise. After all, how else will our little humans learn that it's okay to be human.

Life doesn't always get better.
But you do. You get stronger.
You get wiser. You get softer.
With tattered wings you rise.
And the world watches in wonder
at the breathless beauty of
a human who survived life.

It will take just one generation choosing gentle, compassionate, respectful parenting to change the world for all future generations. This is our time. Our chance is now. Let's do our part to change the world, one little heart at a time.

The job of each generation is to solve more problems than they create and to lift up the next generation to be better than the last. Simply repeating the past does neither.

Forgiving ourselves and learning from our inevitable mistakes transforms failure from a stumbling block into a stepping stone.

Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.

Humanity is so confusing. We cover anguish with a smile, isolate ourselves when we feel lonely, and struggle in silence while insisting we're fine. What would the world be like, I wonder, if we all felt safe enough to share our hurts and fears and battles with others so we didn't feel so alone? The human experience is not so very different at its roots, after all, no matter where we live on this hope-filled, hurting planet. We all suffer. We all love. We're all afraid. We all hope and dream and try and fail and try again...and again. And we all need to be heard and understood and appreciated. What if we tried being honest for a change? What if we shared our deepest pain and hardest battles and darkest fears with each other? What if we shared our dearest hopes and wildest dreams and proudest successes and most crushing defeats? What would life be like if we humans finally accepted our own perfectly imperfect humanity and admitted that we need each other in this wild, wonderful world?

Children are compassionate by nature. Engaging their compassion with communication and connection instead of igniting their self-preservation with threats and punishments is not only more effecting in guiding their behavior, it's also more effective in growing their humanity.

The solution to every parenting problem starts with nine little words:

'I'm here.'
'I hear you.'
'How can I help?'

When needs are met through connection, hearts are opened to gentle, respectful, compassionate correction.

It is when speaking is not safe
that we must speak.
It is when taking a stand hurts
that we must stand.
Whenever freedom is threatened,
we must resist.
When forces oppress us,
we must persist.
And when hope deserts us,
we must rest...
then pick up the torch again
and again
and again
until all are free to do the same.