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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
8045441 It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice. nightmare struggle Joseph Conrad
13c8135 There is scarcely any passion without struggle. passion struggle Albert Camus
1d9e216 She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an urgent, desperate struggle to justify her life. struggle Jonathan Safran Foer
e5bf4cd A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones inspirational politics revolution struggle freedom Nelson Mandela
ddaff62 He struggled with himself, too. I saw it -- I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. struggle Joseph Conrad
187d1b0 Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. life perseverance struggle Henry James
7305ffa having nothing to struggle against they have nothing to struggle for. bukowski death life love poem poetry strength strength-through-adversity stronger struggle Charles Bukowski
b123905 Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving? happiness life optimism struggle survival Tom Stoppard
e300553 How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top. process struggle Yvon Chouinard
a669134 The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle. class irrationality nirvana reason society struggle utopia Christopher Hitchens
ff0b7f9 All it takes is a second and your whole life can get turned upside down. struggle Jodi Picoult
7d335e6 To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking. letting reject struggle to want Jon Kabat-Zinn
5fae8e9 "Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold? The tree says to the leaf: "That's the cycle of life. You may think you're going to die, but you live on in me. It's thanks to you that I'm alive, because I can breathe. It's also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing." love struggle Paulo Coelho
36bea46 Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: The horror! The horror! morality struggle the-horror Joseph Conrad
2729c8f But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest. goals rest struggle Emily Brontë
7641935 For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. self strength struggle Hermann Hesse
212cfcf "Remember,too,that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start,and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive". The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis,through which they are introduced to their "other selves"." rebirth struggle turning-point Napoleon Hill
48c2d82 "A great battle is a terrible thing," the old knight said, "but in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break your heart." dead george-r-r-martin hardship heartbreak hope hope-for-the-hopeless hopefulness keep-the-faith knights searching strength strength-through-adversity struggle struggling true warriors George R.R. Martin
b4ed666 A choice of pains. That's what living was all about. decisions gender sad struggle women Audre Lorde
cef7e12 I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut out my heart or take every pill that was ever made. health-problems struggle Laurie Halse Anderson
2b5035f I'm tired of having to struggle for what seems to come easily to everyone else. difficulty illness struggle Mercedes Lackey
9416f46 But she had known, better than anyone else, what demons he had faced, had known how hard he had fought to free himself from them. That he had lost the fight in the end made the struggle no less honorable. fight honor struggle Donna Woolfolk Cross
3ccfc3b A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground. life phantom shadow struggle Victor Hugo
1b1e195 After listening to a lot of these stories, I began to think that American loneliness is a completely different creature from anything we experience in this country, and it made me glad I was born Japanese. The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different from the sort you know you'll get through if you just hang in there. japan life loneliness struggle Ryū Murakami
4c3f2aa Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment. life struggle Richard Llewellyn
42658a0 Life is a struggle, from the agonies of birth to the railing against death. Devour or be devoured. The law of the wild. life struggle David Gemmell
6d0706c It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last--into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one's own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into. And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel. agony depression despair fatalism hopelessness inevitabilities shame struggle Fyodor Dostoyevsky
ff39e76 I know you don't love me. But I'm going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for the end. You are worth it. inspirational love struggle survive Paulo Coelho
b2cede1 Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant. endurance south-africa struggle triumph Tahir Shah
8f9e059 The world turns and the world changes, But one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change, However you disguise it, this thing does not change: The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil. changeless disguise evil good struggle world T.S. Eliot
a3d5c36 Many of our problems are broadly similar to those that undermined ... Norse Greenland, and that many other past societies also struggled to solve. Some of those past societies failed (like the Greenland Norse) and others succeeded ... The past offers us a rich database from which we can learn in order that we may keep on succeeding. failure history learning past problems solutions struggle success Jared Diamond
f2fd91b Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore. life soul struggle truth Herman Melville
2f057d7 In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world. (Im Kampf zwischen Dir und der Welt, sekundiere der Welt) bet franz franz-kafka kafka max-brody struggle unpublished world zurau Franz Kafka
fbffa45 I've learned that to be courageous is to feel fear within, every step of the way. Courage does not take over, it fights and struggles through every word you say and every step you take. It's a battle or a dance as to whether to let it pervade. It takes courage to overcome, but it takes extreme fear to be courageous. courage fear overcome struggle time Cecelia Ahern
08050fc By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew--and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. I like to think this, but I can't promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control. blacks life race-relations racism struggle whites Ta-Nehisi Coates
7bd6ddf I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night, and even those spoken words had to struggle their way out of my mouth. It's all very well for words to build bridges, but sometimes I think it's a matter of knowing when to do it. Knowing when the time's right. courage knowing-when-the-time-is-right limit mouth spoken-words struggle Markus Zusak
422b297 "When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: "This is for my benefit." chris-prentiss-quotes passages-malibu philosophy philosophy-of-life quotes struggle wisdom Chris Prentiss
c6a582c The most successful people in the most impossible situations are the ones that are sure they're gonna get out of it, and they go on thinking that, even if they die trying. strength struggle Lori Lansens
b474c51 That paper-- it sits there, open at the employment section. It sits there like a war, and each small advertisement is another trench for a person to dive into. To hope and fight in. fight life struggle unemployment Markus Zusak
90869f1 Concerning this a man once said:Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares. Another said: I bet that is also a parable. The first said: You have won. The second said: But unfortunately only in parable. The first said: No, in reality; in parable you have lost. parables reality struggle Franz Kafka
2f2a344 Since the day I'd left Yoroido, I'd done nothing but worry that every turn of life's wheel would bring yet another obstacle into my path; and of course, it was the worrying and the struggle that had always made life so vividly real to me. obstacle path struggle Arthur Golden
57e9447 That competition and the struggle for existence is the mechanism behind this state of perpetual change. competition struggle Elizabeth Gilbert
f7fdfbb She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much. struggle success Penelope Fitzgerald
235e1af One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions. evil good-and-evil struggle Gregory Maguire
0ef26c6 Life is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as time goes by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow will all come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be. balance belief believe body death decline effort fight health life pain reality strive struggle time tomorrow truth Robin Hobb
d9c8583 I'm tired of being alone, and fighting my battles alone. lonliness struggle Mercedes Lackey
505ac4f She thought about this. She had analyzed it in depth. When you live alone, travel alone, exist solely on the outskirts of other people's lives, you do have time to wonder why what you want most in life is out of reach. You also have the time to tell yourself that you don't want it at all, though whether you can ever be completely convinced is something else. life lost self-awareness self-realization struggle Barbara Delinsky
ca3e257 "I'm using Mao as my inspiration. "Cast away illusions. Prepare for struggle." I'm back in business, baby. You don't know you're stuck until you get moving." struggle Hanif Kureishi
d5408da ...but we have all been branded, even if you can't see it - inside, if not without. struggle Colson Whitehead
0c0a897 And I know that there are black boys and black girls out there lost in a Bermuda triangle of the mind or stranded in the doldrums of America, some of them treading and some of them drowning, never feeling and never forgetting. The most precious thing I had then is the most precious thing I have now--my own curiosity. That is the thing I knew, even in the classroom, they could not take from me. That is the thing that buoyed me and eventually plucked me from the sea. curiosity frustration perseverance resilience struggle Ta-Nehisi Coates
66d6f11 I was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Morrie, who could no longer dance, swim, bathe, or walk; Morrie, who could no longer answer his own door, dry himself after a shower, or even roll over in bed. How could he be so accepting? I watched him struggle with a fork, picking at a piece of tomato, missing it the first two times - a pathetic scene, and yet I could not deny that sitting in his presence was almost magically serene, the same calm breeze that soothed me back in college. dying ill life live past pity presence struggle Mitch Albom
397964a Either Ault was a lot harder than my junior high had been, or I was getting dumber- I suspected both. If I wasn't literally getting dumber, I knew at least that I'd lost the glow that surrounds you when the teachers think you're one of the smart, responsible ones, that glow that shines brighter every time you raise your hand in class to say the perfect thing, or you run out of room in a blue book during an exam and have to ask for a second one. academics classes college dumb intelligence school struggle Curtis Sittenfeld
ca67019 The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate.. headed for New York City, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered, was not all that interested. I wandered around my early twenties, paying rent and reading classifieds and wondering why the lights were not turning green for me. fresh graduate life struggle world young Mitch Albom
42b706f I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer, Many struggles and much pain can clear the way but I am certain that only unceasing prayer can let me enter it. struggle Henri J.M. Nouwen
f7e5f62 ... but in the depths of their hearts, in that true and ultimate depth which is revealed to no one, there remained the memory of what had taken place and the consciousness that was has once been can be again; there remained too hope, a seneless hope, that great asset of the downtrodden. For those who rule and must oppress in order to rule must work according to reason; and if, carried away by their passions or driven by an adversary, they go beyond the limits of reasonable action, they start down the slippery slope and thereby reveal the commencement of their own downfall. Whereas those who are downtrodden and exploited make equal use of their reason and unreason for they are but two different kinds of arms in the continual struggle, now underground, now open, against the oppressor. abused adversary arrogant-men domestic-abuse hope power reason struggle Ivo Andrić
e1aa8fd We thus have three levels of antagonism: the Two are never two, the One is never one, the Nothing is never nothing. Sinthome--the signifier of the barred Other--registers the antagonism of the Two, their non-relationship. The object a registers the antagonism of the One, its inability to be one. $ registers the antagonism of Nothing, its inability to be the Void at peace with itself, to annul all struggles. The position of Wisdom is that the Void brings ultimate peace, a state in which all differences are obliterated; the position of dialectical materialism is that there is no peace even in the Void. lacan philosophy struggle Slavoj Žižek
ccc36d5 The people who had been recognized for making original contributions shared many more stories that started negatively but surged upward: they struggled early and triumphed later. Despite being confronted with more negative events, they reported greater satisfaction with their lives and a stronger sense of purpose. hope improvement patience struggle Adam M. Grant
a37000c Life is swimming to shore with cowboy boots on. life noir-fiction struggle Christopher G. Moore
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