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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

“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...”
― Jay Salter

“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

“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

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

“There is no destination other than towards yet another refuge from yet another war. Many generations pass and many deceptions in the sequence in the chronology towards the destination.”
― Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee

“কবিতা, তোমাকে ছেড়ে কতকাল বেঁচে-বর্তে আছি!
তা-ব'লে আমাকে কিন্তু তুমি ছেড়ে থেকো না, আমাকে
তোমার বুকের মধ্যে হেলায়-ফেলায় পুষে রেখো।
তুমি ঘর ছেড়ে গেলে আমি কোন্ বানপ্রস্থে যাবো?”
― Nabaneeta Dev Sen, শ্রেষ্ঠ কবিতা

“Mountains provide safety to the opressed, few were drawn to the peeks for other reasons. What are pyramids if not artificial mountains.

Surpass Zeus in hospitality.”
― Monariatw

“It's interesting that the word for "Budddhist" in Tibetan is nangpa. It means "inside-er": someone who seeks the truth not outside, but within the nature of mind. All the teachings and training in Buddhism are aimed at that one single point: to look into the nature of the mind, and so free
us from the fear of death and help us realize the truth of life.”
― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

“The pool is their sanctuary, their refuge, the one place on earth they can go to escape from their pain, for it is only down below in the waters that their symptoms begin to abate. "The moment I see that painted black line, I feel fine.”
― Julie Otsuka, The Swimmers

“Eighty-four islands in the San Juan chain are wildlife refuges; of those, humans are allowed to visit only three.”
― Timothy Egan, The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest

“Denial is the refuge of those who refuse to believe the truth about their lies. Yet the greater lie is that denial is actually a refuge.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Refugees need havens: where do they find them?”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“Only those who cross the border qualify for the legal designation of 'refugee'. International agencies and the international media tend to focus mainly on those who cross borders. But those people displaced from their homes who seek sanctuary elsewhere in their country should not drop off the international agenda, and their practical needs of sanctuary often go unmet. Since mass violence occurs in states that are fragile, even though much of a country may remain safe the state is unlikley to have the capacity to cope.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“Refugees are not like other migrants: they are not moving for gain but because they have no choice.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“Refugees - as refugees - need and should be entitled to expect three things: rescue, autonomy, and an eventual route out of limbo. Currently, the majority of refugees are not getting any of them.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System