Cheryl Strayed Quotes

I think I'm still figuring out how to be a little less selfish.

I'm very very happy for my hardships and misfortunes: they build character and make you a better person. Even if I think it's something you have to carry with you, it's definitely something that makes you more empathic towards other people, makes you understand people and relationships so much better.

As athletes, we're defined by what we've accomplished. Those are what most people remember and what you get paid for. But I learned more from my failures than from all of my successes put together - failures as an athlete and as a person.

Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.

If I want to be a better person for whoever is in my life, I have to learn.

In my mind, as long as I did what was right for me, I was cool. But that's not the way it works. You have to think about other people and take their feelings into account.

I think probably the qualities that I look for in a man are somewhat different than they were before I became a public person, but not that much different. I think that, sort of, the element of trust is certainly much bigger for me, but the other things that - the other qualities, intelligence and kindness and sense of humor, those things.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Compassion is the ultimate expression of your highest self

Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.

It is easy to be proud & harsh & selfish - so easy. But we have been created for better things.

Loving-kindness and compassion are the basis for wise, powerful, sometimes gentle, and sometimes fierce actions that can really make a difference - in our own lives and those of others.

I take the greatest lesson from compassion - it takes away all the conceit out of my life.

...learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.

I made all my mistakes playing with people.

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.

You should think about the world and feel about your heart.

Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.

He who doesn't consider himself is seldom considerate of others.

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.

My concern is how we learn to be genuine human beings.

Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.

I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can't be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people.

When you overcome a profound loss, or there's some catalyst in your life that shifts everything, if you're able to take it in stride and heal, it can make for much more three-dimensional and empathetic people.

You'll be a good parent when you're ready to no longer be selfish. Until I was about 35, it was all about me. I look back and I'm astonished at how I lived my life - it was totally self-involved.