10 Quotes to Open your Heart

Brilliant Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an American author, aviator, and the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights.

Following the kidnap and murder of their eldest child, they lived in Europe, where Charles was impressed by Germany’s new air power. When they returned to America, he led the isolationist America First Committee. Anne’s supporting booklet The Wave of the Future declared that fascism was the inevitable way forward; she had also written a letter praising Hitler in unequivocal terms.

After the war, she moved away from politics, writing extensive poetry and nonfiction books, including the uber popular book, Gift from the Sea published in 1955. It earned her place as “one of the leading advocates of the nascent environmental movement” and became an international bestseller.

The series of meditative essays on the struggle, especially by women, to achieve balance and serenity in life—sold more than five million copies in its first 20 years in print. As of 2020, more than 3 million copies have been sold, and the book has been translated into 45 languages.

This perfect 130-page tome has been an Inkandescent favorite for decades, and one that we featured in the Welcome note of our November 2020 issue of Inkandescent Women magazine just before the presidential election was decided.

We wanted to share some of our favorite quotes from Anne’s book with you here, because no matter what you might be struggling with her wisdom is sure to open your heart. Enjoy! — The Inkandescent™ Team


10 Quotes by Anne Murrow Lindberg from Gift from the Sea

  1. One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.
  2. The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.
  3. The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.
  4. I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.
  5. It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.
  6. Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
  7. I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
  8. Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.
  9. The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.
  10. When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits and feel just as pleased.

Click here to buy the book!