A-Z blogging challenge: Q is for Quotations

I have a feeling a lot of people will do Quotations for Q day... just a hunch. I thought about Quinoa, I really did. And Questions. But I settled on Quotations, and went scrounging for some of my favorites. You may have seen some of these on the blog before, but I find repeating is helpful--I can put a quote aside for a period of time... a month... a year... and when I see it again, it can have a different connotation for me, come at me from a different angle, and I nod my head, again.

Here are a few quotations that are meaningful to me:

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished? -Rumi

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend ... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present--love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure--the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Deliver me from all evildoers that talk nothing but sickness and failure. Grant me the companionship of men who think success and men who work for it. Loan me associates who cheerfully face the problems of a day and try hard to overcome them. Relieve me of all cynics and critics. Give me good health and the strength to be of real service to the world, and I'll get all that's good for me, and will give what's left to those who want it.
-William Feather

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” -Anais Nin

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose.
-Alan Redpath

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing. -Theodore Roosevelt

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
-Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.
-Etty Hillesum

Do you enjoy/appreciate quotations, or do you find them just regurgitated words passed around like leftovers? I'm curious--I know people in both camps.

And if you have a favorite quotation, I'd love to hear it!

What's this A-Z business about? Check out my kick-off post. And stay tuned for the random joy and nonsense I concoct during the month of April!