Rejection quotes

Rejection

539 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

539 quotes
Timothy Keller
Timothy Keller Pastor, Author

"The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture."

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Browse quotes that often appear alongside rejection — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

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Rejection quotes (page 1 of 27)

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist
Rejection

"In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void."

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Warren Adler Author, Screenwriter
Rejection

"The first thing you have to learn when you go into the arts is to learn to cope with rejection. If you can't, you're dead."

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Rejection

"You might look at my CV and see I've had 12 jobs, but I've been to over 450 auditions so I've heard 'no' a lot more than I've heard 'yes'. So if I go in looking only to meet my own standards, then that will make taking that rejection a little bit easier. And when I do get that job it will seem like icing on the cake."

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Billy Graham Evangelist, Author
Rejection

"But those who chose to reject God during their lifetime on earth will be separated from him for eternity. This is not God's desire, but man's own choice. God holds every man accountable for his rejection of Christ."

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist
Rejection

"Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women."

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet
Rejection

"Dear to us are those who love us... but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances."

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Arthur Schopenhauer Philosopher
Rejection

"To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't."

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