Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

• Perhaps wisdom is simply a matter of waiting, and healing a question of time. And anything good you’ve ever been given is yours forever.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Wisdom

• Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Inspirational

• The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Friendship, Health, Inspirational, Power

  Tags in Connections, Heart, Attention, Silence, Listening, Communication

• To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value. Approval cannot be trusted. It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Time, Like, Seek, Judgment, Matter

• Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain and even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Risk, Suffering

  Tags in Seeking, Greatness, People, Comfort

• It’s a human relationship, not a relationship between an expert and a problem.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem, Relationship, Human

• I was certainly not trained to be a fellow human being.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Certainly, Human

• He realized that he was the first human being she’d ever seen. He was touched in a way that he hadn’t imagined he could be.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Realized, Human

• I did this because the person I loved wanted it.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Wanted, Person

• Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Empathy, Acceptance, Silence

• What if? What if things were different than the way you have seen them in the past?

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Past

  Tags in Things

• In some basic way, it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others close to us.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Tags in Draw

• Those who don’t love themselves as they are rarely love life either.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Topics in Life, Love

Rachel Naomi Remen (13)

Birth:	1938
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Doctor

About

Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the earliest pioneers in the mind/body holistic health movement and the first to recognize the role of the spirit in health and the recovery from illness. She is Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program featured in the Bill Moyers PBS series, Healing and the Mind and has cared for people with cancer and their families for almost 30 years.

Related Authors

• Tim Willocks
• Alfred Doblin
• John Andrew Holmes
• Kevin Patterson
• Kenneth H. Cooper
• Robert Lanza
• Alexander Borodin
• Temple Grandin
• James Grainger
• Rudolf Virchow

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st December

Births

• 1815 - Thomas Couture
• 1957 - Ray Romano
• 1925 - Paul Kurtz
• 1947 - Zoe Lofgren
• 1892 - Walter Hagen

Deaths

• 1889 - Joseph Barber Lightfoot
• 1958 - Lion Feuchtwanger
• 1992 - Stella Adler
• 2001 - David Swift
• 1935 - Kurt Tucholsky