Struggle Quotes - Page 26

• Are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all the significance of its life--a significance which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has need of them?

  George Eliot

  Work, Men, Water

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2423, Delphi Classics

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• It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

  George Eliot

  Love Is, Iron, Long

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.1166, Wordsworth Editions

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• If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own?

  Peter Singer

  Survival, Cost, Evolution

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.5, Princeton University Press

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• There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

  Peter Singer

  Indulge In, Luxury, Brotherhood

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.119, Princeton University Press

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• Dada was given the Venus of Milo a clyster and has allowed the Laocoön and his sons to rest awhile, after thousands of years of struggle with the good sausage Python. The philosophers are of less use to Dada than an old toothbrush, and it leaves them on the scrap heap for the great leaders of the world.

  Hans Arp

  Son, Python, Years

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• In the good times of Dada, we detested polished works, the distracted air of spiritual struggle, the titans, and we rejected them with all out being.

  Hans Arp

  Spiritual, Air, Good Times

  "Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs". Book by Hans Arp, p. 307, 1966.

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• A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Needs, Helping, Christianity

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.23

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• A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Dream, Book, Heart

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature”, p.54, New York : Boston : J.C. Derby ; Phillips, Sampson & Company

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• Does it seem to you impossible to imagine anything more inextricable than the social contract, when you think of the frightful number of relations that it must regulate -- something like squaring the circle, or finding perpetual motion? That is the reason why, wearied of the struggle, you fall back on absolutism and force.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Fall, Thinking, Numbers

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (2007). “General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century”, p.131, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Various epochs of the past have had their own characteristic struggles and interests. Each of these great epochs has left behind itself a kind of cultural deposit, like a geologic stratum. These deposits have found their way into educational institutions in the form of studies, distinct courses of study, distinct types of schools.

  John Dewey

  Educational, School, Past

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.187, 谷月社

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• The self must be a tense bow. It must struggle with opposites rather than harmonize them, rather than turn the tension over to the great instruments of last manhood the skilled bow unbenders and Jesuits of our days, the psychiatrists, who, in the same spirit and as part of the same conspiracy of modernity as the peace virtuosos, reduce conflict.

  Allan Bloom

  Self, Opposites, Lasts

  Allan Bloom (1988). “Closing of the American Mind”, Simon & Schuster

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• Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced -- there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Reading, Book, Men

  Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sinclair Lewis (1931). “Why Sinclair Lewis got the Nobel prize”

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• When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket.

  Malcolm X

  Country, Uncles, Men

  "The Ballot or The Bullet (Cleveland Version)". Malcolm X's speech at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964) as quoted in "Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements" edited by George Breitman (pp. 23-44), 1965.

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• The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world.

  John Cheever

  Men, Records, World

  National Book Award, September 1958.

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• I know what it feels like to struggle with your weight, and it makes me understand why women get attached to numbers on a scale or a dress size. It doesn't mean that I have gotten over all of it myself, because I have good days and bad days just like everyone else.

  Stacy London

  Mean, Good Day, Bad Day

  "Stacy London Tells You Why Clothes Can Change The Way You Feel About Yourself". Interview with Holly Corbett, www.sfgate.com. March 12, 2013.

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• Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Dream, Rain, Ocean

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. by mrs. Shelley”, p.259

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• In Paris on a chilling evening late in October of 1985 I first became fully aware that the struggle with the disorder in my mind - a struggle which had engaged me for several months - might have a fatal outcome.

  William Styron

  Paris, Mind, Might

  "Darkness Visible". Book by William Styron, 1990.

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• Devoutly the teachers point out huge fumigated domes; but beneath the statues there's no love, no love beneath the eyes set in crystal. Love is there, in flesh ripped by thirst, in the tiny hut struggling against the flood; love is there, in ditches where snakes of hunger wrestle, in the sad sea that rocks dead gulls, and in the darkest stinging kiss under pillows.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Teacher, Eye, Kissing

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• I'll always be happy if they'd leave me alone in that delightful and unknown furthest corner, apart from struggles, putrefactions and nonsense; the ultimate corner of sugar and toast, where the mermaids catch the branches of the willows and the heart opens to a flute's sharpness.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Heart, Mermaid, Leave Me Alone

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• When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances for waiting and for patience is over. Too many lives have been lost, too many billions of dollars have been spent for us to trust the president on another tired and failed policy that's opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.

  Barack Obama

  Country, War, Iraq

  "Tucker" with Tucker Carlson, www.nbcnews.com. January 31, 2007.

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• America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  Barack Obama

  Commitment, Sacrifice, Justice For All

  Announces the Death of Osama Bin Laden, delivered 1 May 2011

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• Absolutely. I think, I think the American people, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst, but I think that the vast majority of Americans are willing, are willing to judge people on the basis of their ideas and their character. And in the case of the presidency, I think what's most important is whether the American people think that you understand their hopes and dreams and struggles and whether they think you can actually help them achieve those hopes and dreams.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Character, Thinking

  "CNN Newsroom" with Kyra Phillips and Don Lemon, www.cnn.com. December 11, 2006.

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• I believe that we now have a duty to remove the aggressor from our land and to regain the Arab territory occupied by the Israelis. We can then engage in a clandestine struggle to liberate the land of Palestine, to liberate Haifa and Jaffa.

  Gamal Abdel Nasser

  Believe, Land, Territory

  Gamal Abdel Nasser's remarks at a meeting with King Hussein as quoted in Efraim Karsh "Islamic Imperialism: A History" (p. 172), 2006.

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• Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism . ... Dualism is the conceptual division of the world into categories ... human perception is by nature a dualistic phenomenon - which makes the quest for enlightenment an uphill struggle, to say the least.

  Douglas Hofstadter

  Perception, Enlightenment, Would Be

  "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid". Book by Douglas Hofstadter, 1979.

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• What writers do is they tell their own story constantly through other people's stories. They imagine other people, and those other people are carrying the burden of their struggles, their questions about themselves.

  Tobias Wolff

  Writing, People, Stories

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