Unyielding Quotes - Page 2

• I encounter really tough men and women who are just so harsh, you can't bend them. You do come across these kinds of people in every profession-just unyielding.

  Catherine Keener

  Men, People, Tough Man

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• Some questions cannot be answered. They become familiar weights in the hand, round stones pulled from the pocket, unyielding and cool.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Hands, Stones, Pockets

  Jane Hirshfield (2011). “Of Gravity & Angels”, p.13, Wesleyan University Press

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• The great affair, the love affair with life,
  is to live as variously as possible,
  to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred,
  climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.
  Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding,
  and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours,
  life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length.
  It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery,
  but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Beautiful, Country

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• When characters have different goals and are intent on achieving them, conflict results. If the stakes are high and both sides are unyielding, you have the makings of high drama.

  James N. Frey

  Drama, Character, Goal

  James N. Frey (2010). “How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling”, p.31, Macmillan

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• The major and almost only theme of all my work is the struggle of man with "God": the unyielding, inextinguishable struggle of the naked worm called "man" against the terrifying power and darkness of the forces within him and around him.

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Struggle, Men, Darkness

  "Nikos Kazantzakis" by Helen Kazantzakis, (p. 507), 1968.

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• I write because I must. It's not a choice or a pastime, it's an unyielding calling and my passion.

  Elizabeth Reyes

  Passion, Writing, Choices

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• Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more — and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith — that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Odds, Our Generation

  Official Announcement of Candidacy for US President, Delivered 10 February 2007, Springfield, Illinois

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• I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.

  Criss Jami

  Fear, Fire, People

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.57, Criss Jami

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• A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences.

  Toni Morrison

  Ideas, Silence, Desire

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

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• Now, my friend, I beg you to consider that this blindness and unyielding hardness is the very core of your iniquity, and to be convinced that you are thus blind and stupid is true conviction of sin.

  Archibald Alexander

  Stupid, Sin, Blind

  Archibald Alexander (1857). “Practical Truths”

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• Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Religious, Philosophical, Hands

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• The time has come when we must take an unyielding stand. We must shore up our spiritual underpinnings, listen to the prophets of God, and follow their counsel.Said Paul to Timothy: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.” (2 Timothy 1:7-8.)It requires courage to make good choices, even when others around us choose differently. As we make righteous choices day by day in little things, the Lord will strengthen us and help us choose the right during more difficult times.

  W. Craig Zwick

  Spiritual, Choices, Mind

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• With lines that show an unyielding dedication to craft, these poems are not afraid of meaning or the meaningful. More and more every day, the thinking American asks how she is to believe in love when there is war all about her, and in each of her deeply felt lyrics, Elyse Fenton confronts this question with the kind of tenderness one lover reserves for another. If every poem is indeed a love poem,Clamor is indeed a debut worth reading and about which we must make noise.

  Jericho Brown

  Meaningful, War, Reading

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• For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Men, Glasses, Outsiders

  H. P. Lovecraft (2016). “The Outsider, Pickman’s Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Silver Key”, p.10, H. P. Lovecraft

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• No, I'm too tired to run, and you're too fast. You'd only catch me." "That's right, luv." Softly, but with unyielding resonance. "if you run from me, I'll chase you. And I'll find you. Bones said.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Running, Tired, Bones

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• It was at first almost as if he hadn't wanted to kiss her. His mouth was hard on hers, unyielding; then he put both arms around her and pulled her against him. His lips softened. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, taste the sweetness of apples still on his mouth. She wound her hands into his hair, as she'd wanted to do since the first time she'd seen him. His hair curled around her fingers, silky and fine. Her heart was hammering, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, like beating wings

  Cassandra Clare

  Heart, Kissing, Hair

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

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• Will’s eyes met Tessa’s as she came closer, almost tripping again over the torn hem of her gown. For a moment, they were in perfect understanding. Jem was what they could still look each other straight in the eye about. On the topic of Jem, they were both fierce and unyielding. Tessa saw Will’s hand tighten on Jem’s sleeve. “She’s here,” he said. Jem’s eyes opened slowly. Tessa fought to keep the look of shock from her face. His pupils were blown out, his irises a thin ring of silver around the black. “Ni shou shang le ma, quin ai de?” he whispered.

  Cassandra Clare

  Eye, Hands, Perfect

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• I think there's a lot that the larger society could have been taught or can be taught, but I'm not sure - given how unyielding the larger society has been - that much has been learned.

  Harry Belafonte

  Thinking, Taught, Given

  Source: www.yesmagazine.org

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• The harsh, unyielding reality of having to compromise your ideals bit by bit, day by day, just to achieve a few little victories in the face of the world’s malice, or indifference. Until sometimes you wonder if there’s nothing left of you but the shell of the man you intended to be, just going through the motions because you’ve nothing better to do.

  Simon R. Green

  Reality, Men, Victory

  Simon R. Green (2003). “Something from the Nightside”, p.124, Penguin

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• Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it’s about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding.

  Dan Ariely

  Sports, Letting Go, Loss

  "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions". Book by Dan Ariely, February 19, 2008.

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• The unyielding army will not win.

  Laozi

  Army, Winning, Taoism

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• When life begins we are tender and weak When life ends we are stiff and rigid All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life and dry in brittle in death So the soft and supple are the companion of life While the stiff and unyielding are the companions of death An army that cannot yield will be defeated A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind Thus by Nature's own decree the hard and strong are defeated while the soft and gentle are triumphant

  Laozi

  Life, Strong, Army

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• ...I believe deeply that we canot solve the challenges of your time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have differnt stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people.

  Barack Obama

  Hope, Children, Believe

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• In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.

  Alan Lightman

  Time, Swings, Two

  Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.19, Vintage

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• The equipment and weaponry will continually change and improve, and the size of the military will expand as needed, decreasing during times of peace. But the unyielding will of the soldier and the dedication of professional military leaders will not change. Our soldiers can do a great deal more under pressure than people think. You'd have to see them perform in combat to believe it.

  George W. Dunaway

  Military, Believe, Army

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