Parker Palmer Quotes

Everybody has a lot of darkness in them because without that you're not a whole person.

A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself - and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?

I decided upon the thought that I can only find myself once I can admit to myself and approve that both sides are sides of myself.

The most enlightened people in the world embrace their full potential of light and dark. When you're with people who recognize and own their negative qualities, you never feel judged by them. It's only when people see good and bad, right and wrong, as qualities outside themselves that judgments occur.

A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.

By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.

I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkness just as much as the light- that in fact the dark parts make the light visible; without them, the light would disappear. But I guess he has to figure other stuff out first, like how to keep his neck from flopping all over the place and how to sit up.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb.

I think that there is a tragic misfit at the core of me, and I've just done a lot of work on myself. I love a good self-help book; I've read a ton of them. I love self-help seminars and therapy and all that.

It's neat to have finally reached a point where I can accept what I was and what I am.

I don't think balance is something you get from someone else; it's something women have to find from within. For me, finding balance is still a work in progress.

I still have moments when I close myself in, but I wouldn't be on the path that I am with the career that I've had if I didn't have a deep understanding of the sense of my inner freedom.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

Imperfection and perfection go so hand in hand, and our dark and our light are so intertwined, that by trying to push the darkness or the so-called negative aspects of our life to the side... we are preventing ourselves from the fullness of life.

I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, 'This is what I am. How do I fix it? How do I live with it?'

I have come to terms with all the complications of my life.

I've learned that it's OK to be flawed, that life can be messy, that some days you glide and some days you fall, but most important, that there are no secret answers out there.

We're all moons. Sometimes our dark sides overshadow our light.

It's like that perfection thing, trying to be that thing you're not. You have to feel that discomfort and not try to get rid of it. Accept that aspect and get into it. Acknowledge those feelings and let them be. You are who you are.

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.

I can’t hate people for making judgment on me, or making a decision of liking me or not liking me. All I can do is try to better as a person. And I’m good with knowing everything isn’t always going to be perfect.

The price that has to be paid for finding truly personal life is a very high one. It is a price in terms of the acceptance of responsibility. And the awareness of responsibility inevitably leads either to despair or to confession and grace.