Resisting Quotes - Page 5

• Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Temptation, Merit

  Samuel Johnson (1966). “Johnsonian miscellanies”, Constable

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• There is not a great sense that the Americans know what they are doing, or are making much progress in Iraq. And there is satisfaction in seeing that the Iraqis are successful in resisting the United States.

  Walter Russell Mead

  Successful, Iraq, Progress

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• You can't change anything by fighting or resisting it. You change something by making it obsolete through superior methods.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Fighting, Obsolete, Method

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• One... gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature of civilization itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed.

  Sigmund Freud

  Mean, Civilization, Imperfection

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting. It is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Moving, Suffering, Flow

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• A belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with truth. The falseness of a judgment is not for us necessarily an objection to a judgment. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species preserving, perhaps even species cultivating. To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Mean, Evil

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• Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad.

  Norman O. Brown

  Mad, Way, Madness

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• Pain is physical; suffering is mental. Beyond the mind there is no suffering. Pain is essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer. Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Pain, Moving, Inspiration

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• Everywhere the Salafi are pushing by saying, "We are the guardian, and we are resisting any kind of relationship to the West or provocation coming from the West." And internally, it's unsettling the whole situation. Now in Tunisian, in Libya, in Syria, in Egypt, the clash between the literalists and - the Islamists or the reformists is something which is going to be part of what we have to deal with as to the future of America.

  Tariq Ramadan

  America, Egypt, West

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• A being without an aim in life, or not possessing the requisite concentration of purpose to assist him in resisting temptation, is like a cork floating upon the water, driven hither and thither by every wind that blows.

  Karl G. Maeser

  Life, Blow, Wind

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• Worthiness, in very simple terms, means I have found a way to let the Energy reach me, the Energy that is natural, reach me. Worthiness, or unworthiness, is something that is pronounced upon you by you. You are the only one that can deem yourself worthy or unworthy. You are the only one who can love yourself into a state of allowing, or hate yourself in a state of disallowing. There is not something wrong with you, nor is there something wrong with one who is not loving you. You are all just, in the moment, practicing the art of not allowing, or the art of resisting

  Esther Hicks

  Art, Hate, Self Esteem

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• Defeat I shall not know. It shall not touch me. I will meet it with true thinking. Resisting it will be my strengthening. But if, perchance, the day shall give to me the bitter cup, it shall sweeten in the drinking.

  Walter Russell

  Drinking, Thinking, Giving

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• Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life-by denying the Now.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Mind, Inward

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.77, New World Library

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• The only way I have ever understood, broken free, emerged, healed, forgiven, flourished, and grown powerful is by asking the hardest questions and then living into the answers through opening up to my own terror and transmuting it into creativity. I have gotten nowhere by retreating into hand-me-down sureties or resisting the tensions that truth ignited.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Powerful, Creativity, Hands

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• Instead of resisting to changes, surrender. Let life be with you, not against you. If you think ‘My life will be upside down’ don’t worry. How do you know down is not better than upside?

  Shams Tabrizi

  Thinking, Worry, Upside Down

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• Strength doesn't necessarily come from resisting fear, weakness, or any other feeling and overcoming it. Strength comes from looking at those things straight on--and accepting them as they really are.

  Kat Von D

  Feelings, Weakness, Overcoming

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• At any moment, whatever we are experiencing, only one of two things is ever happening: either we are being with what is, or else we are resisting what is. Being with what is means letting ourselves have and feel our experience, just as it is right now. ... This is where genuine creativity, health, and communication, as well as spiritual power, arise from.

  John Welwood

  Spiritual, Communication, Mean

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• Most of our suffering comes from resisting what is already here, particularly our feelings. All any feeling wants is to be welcomed, touched, allowed. It wants attention. It wants kindness. If you treated your feelings with as much love as you treated your dog or your cat or your child, you'd feel as if you were living in heaven every day of your sweet life.

  Geneen Roth

  Dog, Sweet, Children

  FaceBook post by Geneen Roth from Nov 20, 2012

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• Compromise built upon compromise equals failure. Instead, resisting temptation allowed promise upon promise to be built up in my heart, and that creates empowerment.

  Lysa TerKeurst

  Heart, Temptation, Empowerment

  Lysa TerKeurst (2010). “Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food”, p.104, Thomas Nelson

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• The tragedy is that in the name of resisting the internal deterioration of faith and the corruption of the world around them, many Christians - and Christian conservatives most significantly -unwittingly embrace some of the most corrosive aspects of the cultural disintegration they decry. By nurturing its resentments, sustaining them through a discourse of negation toward outsiders, and in cases, pursuing their will to power, they become functional Nietzscheans, participating in the very cultural breakdown they so ardently strive resist.

  James Davison Hunter

  Christian, Names, Tragedy

  "To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World". Book by James Davison Hunter, 2010.

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• The Buddha taught that flexibility and openness bring strength and that running from groundlessness weakens us and brings pain. But do we understand that becoming familiar with the running away is the key? Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well

  Pema Chodron

  Running, Pain, Keys

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• The amount of stress in your life is determined by how much energy you expend resisting your life.

  Gary Zukav

  Stress, Energy, Determined

  FaceBook post by Gary Zukav from Feb 11, 2016

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• Every aspect of life is pre-programmed to rise to its highest creative possibility. We don't have to make that happen, but we have to allow it to happen. And that itself is the struggle of life: resisting the resistant mind.

  Marianne Williamson

  Inspirational, Struggle, Creative

  FaceBook post by Marianne Williamson from Feb 21, 2013

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• It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called...it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you...When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces.

  Douglas MacArthur

  War, Fighting, Enemy

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• I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

  Harry S. Truman

  War, Believe, Destiny

  Address to joint session of Congress, 12 Mar. 1947

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