Challenges Quotes - Page 25

• Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Positivity, Boredom, Anxiety

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge.

  Sharon Shinn

  Kings, Stupid, Men

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• Well then,' said Femworth as he came to his feet, 'let's go. Sounds like a delightful challenge before supper. Stimulate the appetite, or kill it. Interesting either way.

  Donita K. Paul

  Feet, Interesting, Sound

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• People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as "the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken."... Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence. It sets a high, seemingly impossible, expectation for performance and human behavior.

  Atul Gawande

  People, Accomplishment, Expectations

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• If we are not allowed to deal with small problems, we will be destroyed by slightly larger ones. When we come to understand this, we live our lives not avoiding problems, but welcoming them them as challenges that will strengthen us so that we can be victorious in the future.

  Jim Stovall

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Small Problems

  Jim Stovall (2011). “The Ultimate Journey: A Novel”, p.79, David C Cook

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• A successful villain should have all these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting.

  Daniel Handler

  Kindness, Giving Up, Integrity

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• One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Change, Sleep

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• The habits of a vigorous mind are born in contending with difficulties.

  Abigail Adams

  Mind, Habit, Born

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• The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.

  E. O. Wilson

  Rest Of Life, People, Twenties

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• Everybody gets jolted. You, me, before we die we’ll all get nailed, lots of times. But that doesn’t mean we’ll get turned into witches. You can’t avoid getting zapped, but you can avoid passing the mean energy on. That’s the interesting thing about witches, the challenge of them-- learning not to hit back, or hit somebody else, when they zap you. You can bury the zap, for instance, like the gods buried the Titans in the center of the earth. Or you can be like a river when a forest fire hits it--phshhhhhhhhhhhh! Just drown it, drown all the heat and let it wash away.

  David James Duncan

  Mean, Rivers, Fire

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• A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as a grounds for regret but as a living challenge.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Regret, Warrior, May

  Carlos Castaneda (2013). “Tales of Power”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• I should have known the power-hungry slave drivers at River's Edge would see my five days of freedom only as a challenge to be filled.

  Cate Tiernan

  Should Have, Rivers, Slave

  Cate Tiernan (2011). “Immortal Beloved (Book One): Immortal Beloved: Book One”, p.313, Hachette UK

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• I'll challenge senators and kings for the right to know the truth, but far be it from me to challenge a woman in her own kitchen.

  Mira Grant

  Kings, Kitchen, Senators

  Mira Grant (2010). “Feed: The Newsflesh Trilogy:”, p.57, Hachette UK

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• A surprise trigonometry quiz that everyone in class fails? Must be in the Lord’s plan to give us challenges.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Class, Giving, Surprise

  "A Walk to Remember". Book by Nicholas Sparks, www.beliefnet.com. 1999.

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• Life's biggest rewards come from the biggest challenges

  Greg Behrendt

  Rewards

  Greg Behrendt, Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt (2005). “It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy”, p.12, Harmony

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• The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Moral, Idiot, Happy Place

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• She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Wall, Doorways, Stones

  "The Queen of Attolia". Book by Megan Whalen Turner, 2000.

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• Do you want to make progress? If so, then take each problem not as a challenging rival, but as an encouraging friend of yours, who is helping you to arrive at your ultimate destination.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Progress, Rivals, Want

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• If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when. . . . hard things happen.

  Brené Brown

  Joy, Missing, And Love

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• Why do I always have to be the one who says 'stop'?" I demanded, my voice little more than a moan. "You don't. In fact, at this point I'm considering a petition to that word stricken from the English language." His grin was almost lazy, the gleam in his eyes an effortless challenge. "If I did, would you sign?

  Rachel Vincent

  Eye, Voice, Lazy

  "Before I Wake". Book by Rachel Vincent, June 26, 2012.

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• I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of "divisive" in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ.

  Ann Coulter

  Christian, Jesus, Mean

  Ann Coulter (2007). “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans”, p.77, Crown Forum

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• Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.

  Michel Faber

  Real, Character, Writing

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• Even injustice has it's good points. It gives me the challenge of being as happy as I can in an unfair world.

  Albert Ellis

  Giving, World, Injustice

  Albert Ellis, Debbie Joffe-Ellis (2010). “All Out!: An Autobiography”

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• 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.

  Richard Llewellyn

  Hard Work, People, Effort

  Richard Llewellyn (2009). “How Green Was My Valley”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

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• Some mothers in today's world feel "cumbered" by home duties and are thus attracted by other more "romantic" challenges. Such women could make the same error of perspective that Martha made. The woman, for instance, who deserts the cradle in order to help defend civilization against the barbarians may well later meet, among the barbarians, her own neglected child.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Mother, Children, Home

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