Top 250 Melody Beattie Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Do we really have the right to take care of ourselves? Do we really have the right to set boundaries? Do we really have the right to be direct and say what we need to say? You bet we do.”

— Melody Beattie

102. “If we are unhappy without a relationship, we’ll probably be unhappy with one as well. A relationship doesn’t begin our life; a relationship doesn’t become our life. A relationship is a continuation of life.”

— Melody Beattie

103. “Ultimately, too much dependency on a person can kill love. Relationships based on emotional insecurity and need, rather than on love, can become self-destructive. They don’t work. Too much need drives people away and smothers love. It scares people away.”

— Melody Beattie

104. “Today I will practice healthy giving, understanding that caretaking and compulsive giving don’t work. I choose what I want to give, to whom, when, and how much. It takes time to learn how to give in healthy ways. It takes time to learn to receive. Balance will come.”

— Melody Beattie

105. “Do not trust fear. Do not trust panic. We can trust ourselves, stand in our own truth, stand in our own light. We have it now. Already. We have all the light we need for today. And tomorrow’s light shall be given to us then.”

— Melody Beattie

106. “Anger is a warning signal. It points to problems.”

— Melody Beattie

107. “Codependency is normal behavior, plus. There are times we do too much, care too much, feel too little, or overly engage. We forget where the other person’s responsibilities begin and our responsibilities stop. Or we get busy and have so much to do that we neglect ourselves.”

— Melody Beattie

108. “When you let go of fear and the need to control, you’ll experience how mysterious, sacred, and interesting Life can be.”

— Melody Beattie

109. “Detaching does not mean we don’t care. It means we learn to love, care, and be involved without going crazy.”

— Melody Beattie

110. “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. – Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

— Melody Beattie

111. “Change your perspective and enjoy the adventure. Let the child in you come out to play.”

— Melody Beattie

112. “If we want to change what happens, we change what we believe and expect.”

— Melody Beattie

113. “Free others to be who they are. In so doing, you will set yourself free.”

— Melody Beattie

114. “Money is not evil. There is no scarcity, except in our mind and attitudes. And what we believe we deserve will be about what we shall receive.”

— Melody Beattie

115. “According to Earnie Larsen and others, the two deepest desires most people have are: to love and be loved, and to believe they are worthwhile and know someone else believes that also.1.”

— Melody Beattie

116. “Guilt can prevent us from setting the boundaries that would be in our best interests, and in other peoples best interests.”

— Melody Beattie

117. “For each of us, there comes a time to let go. You will know when that time has come. When you have done all that you can do, it is time to detach. Deal with your feelings. Face your fears about losing control. Gain control of yourself and your responsibilities. Free others to be who they are. In so doing, you will set yourself free. ACTIVITY Is there an event or person in your life that you are trying to control? Why? Write a few paragraphs about it.”

— Melody Beattie

118. “People may get angry at us for setting boundaries; they can’t use us anymore. They may try to help us feel guilty so we will remove our boundary and return to the old system of letting them use or abuse us. Don’t feel guilty and don’t back down.”

— Melody Beattie

119. “We need to build downtime into our lives, so that we can have solitude without feeling overcome with guilt.”

— Melody Beattie

120. “Real power comes when we stop holding others responsible for our pain, and we take responsibility for all our feelings.”

— Melody Beattie

121. “You are not responsible for making other people “see the light,” and you do not need to “set them straight.” You are responsible for helping yourself see the light and for setting yourself straight.”

— Melody Beattie

122. “Panic, not the task, is the enemy.”

— Melody Beattie

123. “I still have bad days. But that’s okay. I used to have bad years. – Anonymous.”

— Melody Beattie

124. “No – simple to pronounce, hard to say.”

— Melody Beattie

125. “We are on a very rich emotional and physical journey on this planet.”

— Melody Beattie

126. “Today, I will trust that God will do for me what I cannot do for myself. I will do my part – working the Twelve Steps and letting God do the rest.”

— Melody Beattie

127. “Taking care of myself is a big job. No wonder I avoided it for so long. – ANONYMOUS.”

— Melody Beattie

128. “Stay conscious of who you travel with on this journey. See who you’re attracted to and notice who is attracted to you. See how much better you feel when you surround yourself with the energy of love.”

— Melody Beattie

129. “Like it or not, i was already learning that in the worst and darkest time, I would find specks of light, moments of joy. What I didn’t want to learn was the other, harsher lesson – that in life’s brightest moments there would also be unbearable pain. p 87.”

— Melody Beattie

130. “Surrendering to a Power greater than ourselves is how we become empowered.”

— Melody Beattie

131. “If somebody rejects you or your choices, you are still real, and you are still worth every bit as much as you would be if you had not been rejected.”

— Melody Beattie

132. “We don’t just get our choice; we get the consequence that choice creates.”

— Melody Beattie

133. “We can confuse love with dependency, manipulation, and neediness. None of those are love. Love is when we want other people to be who they are.”

— Melody Beattie

134. “Recovery is not about being right; it’s about allowing ourselves to be who we are and accepting others as they are.”

— Melody Beattie

135. “We can own our power with people. Buy some time. Think about what you want. Consider how responding to another’s needs will affect the course of your life. We live or own life by not letting other people, their expectations, and their demands control the course of our life. We can let them have their demands and expectations; we can allow them to have their feelings. We can own our power to choose the path that is right for us.”

— Melody Beattie

136. “God, help me remember that when I admit and accept the truth, I’ll be given the power and guidance to change.”

— Melody Beattie

137. “God loves me enough to let me go through all the lessons I came here to learn, even the ones that hurt the most. His presence doesn’t deny me. It’s always there to help me see and understand what I came to this planet to learn.”

— Melody Beattie

138. “Self-care isn’t selfish; it’s self-esteem.”

— Melody Beattie

139. “Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?”

— Melody Beattie

140. “Fun is a normal part of being alive. Fun is taking time to celebrate being alive.”

— Melody Beattie

141. “Feeling good about ourselves is a choice. So is feeling guilty.”

— Melody Beattie

142. “I didn’t have to scramble up and down the ladder from despair to euphoria anymore, trying to convince myself that life was either painful and terrible or joyous and wonderful. The simple truth was that life was both. p 214.”

— Melody Beattie

143. “Today, I will wait if the way is not clear. I will trust that out of the chaos will come clarity.”

— Melody Beattie

144. “I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The.”

— Melody Beattie

145. “We have as much time as we need.”

— Melody Beattie

146. “Today, I will watch myself and listen to myself as I go through my day. I will not judge myself for what I’m feeling; I will accept myself.”

— Melody Beattie

147. “Who you are is love. What love does is heal.”

— Melody Beattie

148. “The greatest gift we can bring to any relationship wherever we go is being who we are.”

— Melody Beattie

149. “If we are waiting for guaranteed courses of action, we may spend much of our life waiting.”

— Melody Beattie

150. “The test, the mark, of a person that’s on a spiritual path is whether they can live in harmony.”

— Melody Beattie