Refuge Quotes

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
― Maya Angelou

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Books and You

“Where does your security lie? Is God your refuge, your hiding place, your stronghold, your shepherd, your counselor, your friend, your redeemer, your saviour, your guide? If He is, you don't need to search any further for security.”
― Elisabeth Elliot

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself. More powerfully and persuasively than from the "shalt nots" of the Ten Commandments, I learned the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. A Wrinkle in Time described that evil, that wrong, existing in a different dimension from our own. But I felt that I, too, existed much of the time in a different dimension from everyone else I knew. There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which anything might happen and frequently did, a universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. My real, true world. My perfect island.”
― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

“Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“The guarantee of safety in a battering relationship can never be based upon a promise from the perpetrator, no matter how heartfelt. Rather, it must be based upon the self-protective capability of the victim. Until the victim has developed a detailed and realistic contingency plan and has demonstrated her ability to carry it out, she remains in danger of repeated abuse.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Don't let the rain drive you to the wrong shelter; the shade can turn out to be your protector and also your destroyer, and sometimes the rain is the perfect protector from the rain.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Ghosts do not haunt, they regress. Just as when you need to go to sleep you think of trees or lawns, you are taking instant symbolic refuge in a ready-made iconography of early safety and satisfaction. That exact place is where ghosts go.”
― Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers

“The road doesn’t seek refuge in any shelter it doesn’t settle at the behest of any command.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“Let all your thoughts be with the Most High, and direct your humble prayers unceasingly to Christ. If you cannot contemplate high and heavenly things, take refuge in the Passion of Christ, and love to dwell within His Sacred Wounds. For if you devoutly seek the Wounds of Jesus and the precious marks of His Passion, you will find great strength in all troubles.”
― Thomas à Kempis, The Inner Life

“If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone. (pg. 125, The Body and the Earth)”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.

For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality.”
― Sara Teasdale

“I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

“If we want to let loose and let reality sink in, silence can be a welcoming partner. It becomes a refuge, a sanctuary for peace and clarity. It helps us reset and provides a canvas on which new thoughts and perspectives can emerge. ("When only silence remains")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“The library had become her solace. Her refuge.Books did not question or judge. They made safe companions.”
― Inglath Cooper, Truths and Roses

“When the world caves in
Still my hope will cling
To Your promise
Where my courage ends
Let my heart find strength
In Your presence”
― Hillsong

“How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“what it is...is a place where I can return to myself. It's enough of a scramble to get to...that the energy expended is significant, and it translates into a change in my body chemistry and my psychological chemistry and my heart chemistry...”
― Anonymous

“Dear refuge of my weary soul,
On thee, when sorrows rise,
On thee, when waves of trouble roll,
My fainting hope relies.”
― Anne Steele

“When we speak of the sangha, we speak of the "arya sangha," which means the "exalted sangha". At the time of the Buddha this referred to the arhats and bodhisattvas, the disciples who studied under him and achieved various levels of realization through their practice. But now who is the arya sangha? It is all of us, all of the practitioners of the present time. The moment we take refuge, which is to begin on the path, we hold the title of "sangha". As such, you should understand that you are one of the Three Jewels. You shouldn't put the Three Jewels outside of yourselves; you should always think of yourselves as being one of the Three Jewels—and that includes your body, your speech, and your mind.”
― Dhomang Yangthang, The Union of Dzogchen and Mahamudra

“The all-victorious Christ is like a great rock in a weary land, to whose shelter we may flee in every time of sorrow or trial, finding quiet refuge and peace in him.”
― J.R. Miller

“I had a number of German and Austrian refugee friends in London and they kept on telephoning in consternation as the news grew more and more disquieting. To them it was incredible that we had not heeded the growing threat from the country from which they had been forced to flee.”
― Frances Faviell, A Chelsea Concerto

“From a refugee's perspective, long-term encampment has described as a 'denial of rights and a waste of humanity'.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“The cooperation problem in the refugee regime can be thought of as what game therorists would describe as a 'suasion game': one in which weaker players are left with little choice but to cooperate and stronger players are left with little incentive to cooperate.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“One way of grounding how we should identify refugees in a changing world is through the concept of force majeure - the absence of a reasonable choice but to leave. More specifically, the threshold for refuge would be: fear of serious physical harm. And the test would be: when would a reasonable person not see her- or himself as having a choice but to flee? In other words, if you were in the same situation, what would you do?”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“A new approach to safe havens that is radically more supportive is urgently needed in order to address this dysfunctional imbalance, and to simultaneously meet the concerns of donors, hosts, and refugees.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“Since the Syrian refugee situation was just one of many, the approach was completely unfeasible. Financially, the only reason it did not break down earlier was itself a devastating critique: refugees overwhelmingly bypassed the camps. Since the Syrian refugee situation was just one of many, the approach was completely unfeasible. Financially, the only reason it did not break down earlier was itself a devastating critique: refugees overwhelmingly bypassed the camps.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“The inability of refugees to earn a living within the standard UNHCR approach was not only psychologically diminishing for the refugees, but also highlighted the lack of viability of the financing model. Paying for 4 million refugees to live without work for ten years was manifestly unsustainable. Even at a cost of only $1,000 per refugee per year, which would have implied a drastic reduction in lifestyle relative to Syrian pre-refugee conditions, the bill would have amounted to $40bn.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“If you are between an ignorant friend and a wise enemy, take refuge to your wise enemy because he will provide you your rights, but the ignorant friend will destroy you.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“Here, the world slows down, takes a pause, offering refuge to hidden and discreet creatures.”
― David Passarelli, Mountain poems: Musings on stone, forest, and snow