struggle Quotes

“Hope is a function of struggle. If we’re never allowed to fall or face adversity as children, we are denied the opportunity to develop the tenacity and sense of agency we need to be hopeful.”

“I’ve done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by ‘the joy of strife’. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”

“He who would live must fight. He who doesn’t wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.”

“Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult—at least I have found it so—than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.”

“He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.”

“It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.”

“We were learning how to struggle. And we were learning how powerful we are when we speak.”

“Mom frowned at me. ‘You’d be destroying what makes it special’ she said, ‘It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty’.”

“It’s a rule of ecology,” Kynes said, “that the young Master appears to understand quite well. The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system. Blood’s an efficient energy source.”

“Look at them; as much money as they make, every last one of them is broke! They spend every dime they have, trying to keep up with my lifestyle. But they can’t, because they don’t make enough. So they end up living paycheck to paycheck on a million bucks a year. It’s hard to imagine, considering how you grew up, but, nevertheless, it is what it is.”

“If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.”

“By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him.”

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

“The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.”

“I am the chosen of the Lord, for who He love, so doeth He chastiseth. But I be firm if He dont take some curious ways to show it, seems like.”

“Come to think of it, Idgie and Ruth bought the café in 1929, right in the height of the Depression…but at the café, those Depression years come back to me now as the happy times, even though we were all struggling. We were happy and didn’t know it.”

“Over the years I have found that one of the greatest struggles in the Christian life is the effort to make adequate time for daily waiting on God, weekly inventory and monthly planning. Yet this is the path to escaping the tyranny of the urgent. ”

“These giants of the forest are something to behold. Some have been growing for a thousand years, and each tree contains its own story of the centuries’ long struggle for survival. Looking at the annular rings of the wood, you can tell what seasons they have been through. In some drought years they almost perished, as growth is barely perceptible. In others, the growth was far greater.”

“The kind of hope I’m talking about is the belief that something good will come. That everything you’re going through and everything you’ve gone through will be worth the struggles and frustrations. The kind of hope I’m talking about is a deep belief that the world can be changed, that the impossible is possible.”

“Away from my mother, away from my grandparents, I was engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant.”

“George: We got a telegram; there was a car accident, and he’s dead. POUF! … Martha: (A howl which weakens into a moan) NOOOOOOoooooo.”

“But also because the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...”

“The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all-and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.”

“I can’t remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can’t remember the worst of it. But my point is, doesn’t it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn’t it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly?”

“Many nations were plagued with bankruptcy, inflation, and a flood of shell-shocked war veterans. A spell of innocence and calm had been broken - an indefinable something was lost, never to be recovered. Everyone struggled to make sense of the new world and, if possible, extract meaning from the violence of the war.”

“Mama: Oh—So now it’s life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life—now it’s money. I guess the world really do change . . . Walter: No—it was always money, Mama. We just didn’t know about it. Mama: No . . . something has changed. You something new, boy. In my time we was worried about not being lynched . . . You ain’t satisfied or proud of nothing we done. I mean that you had a home; that we kept you out of trouble till you was grown; that you don’t have to ride to work on the back of nobody’s streetcar—You my children—but how different we done become.”

“Mama: Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses. I did the best I could.”

“There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.”

“All symbols were in Smith’s vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard rightly.”

“Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

“The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains.”

“The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at a later hour.”

“Every struggle is a victory.”

“I’ve lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse. But you see them living anyway. When they’re more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they’re burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children - they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don’t know if that’s just the animal. I don’t know if it’s not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. So we live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that’s it, that’s the best I can do. It’s so much not enough. It’s so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life.”

“God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.”

“God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.”

“Am I scared of the horrible things I know will happen to my kid to hurt him? Absolutely. But would I stop those things at the risk of taking away joy and growth and the absolute embracing of life? Never. Because I love this child for being mine, but I also love him for being who he will be, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to watch him discover that for himself.”

“somebody/ anybody sing a black girl’s song bring her out to know herself to know you but sing her rhythms carin/ struggle/ hard times sing her song of life she’s been dead so long closed in silence so long she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice her infinite beauty she’s half-notes scattered without rhythm/ no tune sing her sighs sing the song of her possibilities sing a righteous gospel let her be born let her be born & handled warmly.”

“Fear wears many different outfits — and none of them are cute.”

“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”

“God is there to give us strength for every hill we have to climb.”

“I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can’t go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world.”

“All struggles are essentially power struggles...two rams knocking their heads together.”

“You know how I always seem to be struggling, even when the situation doesn’t call for it?”

“There is scarcely any passion without struggle.”

“Lord Jesus, You know the struggle that Tony has. You know the indecision, the shame, the pain of his choices. I pray You would remind him right now of whose child he is. And that when You look at him, You see the perfection of Your Son, Jesus. Thank You that You have conquered sin. Thank You that the evil one is not in control. Give Tony the courage to do what You’re asking him to do, in Your timing.”

″ I say to you that we do not seek the struggle.”

“I’m reminded that, often, God allows us to wrestle for long periods of time as we reach out for him.”

“When your back is up against the wall and you pray and seek his help, God will make a way through the trial.”

“It’s all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for ... it’s all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can’t you see the funny side? Why aren’t you laughing?”

“Doctor I’ve wrestled with reality for 40 years and I’m happy to say that I’ve finally won out over it.”

“Man might carve his mark on the earth, but unless he’s vigilant, Nature will take it all back.”

“Still, even now, I’m fighting my way through. Perhaps it’s a bit dramatic to say, but I’m struggling against life. Wasn’t that what I decided once? To struggle. To live. To breathe and walk. To run. To eat. To bind, musubi. To live an ordinary life so I shed tears over the sights of a perfectly ordinary town.”

People who’ve lost precious loved ones or places, and who’ve privately decided to “struggle and fight,” even so. People who believe that they’re sure to find something someday, even though it hasn’t happened yet, and who keep reaching out for it. I felt that those feelings needed to be related with an immediacy that differed from the glamour of the movie, and I think that’s why I wrote this book.”

“To die, it’s easy. But you have to struggle for life!”

“We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.”

“her mother walked slowly through the bushes, picking blueberries as she went and putting them in her pail. Little Sal struggled along behind, picking blueberries and eating every single one.”

We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.

“Gwendolen put out her hand at the same moment. She did not say anything. Neither did Mrs. Sharp. Both their hands stood still in the air. There was a feeling of fierce invisible struggle.”

“He was putting on his smart shirt which he always wore when they went out. It was dark blue, and Mrs Pig liked him to wear it because she thought it made him look thinner. Unfortunately, the buttons would keep coming undone. So that that everyone always noticed how very tight the shirt had become. Mrs Pig struggled to get it done up.”

“In childhood we see the struggle for self-esteem at its least disguised. The child is unashamed about what he needs and wants most.”

“A small group of mud huts -a tiny village - was in ruins. Parvana recognized the sort of damage that came from bombs. There had been a war going on in Afghanistan for more than twenty years. Someone was always bombing someone else.”

“the reason there are so many struggling women is because there were so many wounded girls.”

“When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent, but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.”

“He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible - more than impossible- to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle.”

The theme of this story, the struggle that every colony has had to go through to gain their independence from the corporation making the rules through government lobbies.

“A tightly - written and engaging story about the importance of non-violence in the struggle for equal rights.”

“With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human heart—this struggle for self-expression.”

“Only rocks considered sitting still a virtue. Demons take me before I called it one of mine.”

“He was too scrupulous always,” she said. “The duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed.”

She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.

Evidently she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not wanted her.

She was lost on the street all night, and I’ve only just succeeded in getting her quiet.

How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!”

“And I!—how am I to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy?”

“I am powerless to go! Wretched and sinful as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me.

Lost as my own soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls!

Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life!—that have made thee feeble to will and to do!—that will leave thee powerless even to repent!

“And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?”

“Hester Prynne,” cried he, with a piercing earnestness, “in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me!”

Surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe!

Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them.

I had a hard time, Jo, and shed a good many bitter tears over my failures, for in spite of my efforts I never seemed to get on.

“Oh, me! It does seem as if all the troubles came in a heap, and I got the heaviest part on my shoulders,” sighed Jo, spreading her wet handkerchief over her knees to dry.

“Die? oh, no,” he exclaimed—“not die now, after having lived and suffered so long and so much! Die? yes, had I died years ago; but now to die would be, indeed, to give way to the sarcasm of destiny. No, I want to live; I shall struggle to the very last; I will yet win back the happiness of which I have been deprived.”

“Courage!” The word reached his ear as a wave which he no longer had the strength to surmount passed over his head.

Why, they had put their very souls into their payments on that house, they had paid for it with their sweat and tears—yes, more, with their very lifeblood.

“We had no money—we have scarcely been able to keep alive.”

Suppose that the Supreme Being, after having created the world and fertilized chaos, had paused in the work to spare an angel the tears that might one day flow for mortal sins from her immortal eyes; suppose that when everything was in readiness and the moment had come for God to look upon his work and see that it was good—suppose he had snuffed out the sun and tossed the world back into eternal night—then—even then, Mercédès, you could not imagine what I lose in sacrificing my life at this moment.

“I—that is—I had difficulty in getting a place,”

Poor Jurgis was now an outcast and a tramp once more.

He was crippled—he was as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out of its shell.

He would wake up in the night, shuddering, and bathed in perspiration, and start up and flee.

Emmanuel received him; this young man was alarmed by the appearance of every new face, for every new face might be that of a new creditor, come in anxiety to question the head of the house.

“Oh, second father,” he exclaimed, “thou who hast given me liberty, knowledge, riches; thou who, like beings of a superior order to ourselves, couldst understand the science of good and evil; if in the depths of the tomb there still remain something within us which can respond to the voice of those who are left on earth; if after death the soul ever revisit the places where we have lived and suffered,—then, noble heart, sublime soul, then I conjure thee by the paternal love thou didst bear me, by the filial obedience I vowed to thee, grant me some sign, some revelation! Remove from me the remains of doubt, which, if it change not to conviction, must become remorse!”

“You’d be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!”

I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.

We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits.

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.

“I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood!”

It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my view.

The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the night.

It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing peace and order to this chaos.

“Gregor”, somebody called—it was his mother—“it’s quarter to seven. Didn’t you want to go somewhere?” That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying: “Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I’m getting up now.”

When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed—the new method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forth—it occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him. Two strong people—he had his father and the maid in mind—would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? Despite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile at this thought.

Would Gregor’s elderly mother now have to go and earn money? She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her just to move about the home, every other day would be spent struggling for breath on the sofa by the open window. Would his sister have to go and earn money? She was still a child of seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting of wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business, joining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the violin.

Some of the time he passed in a light sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of his hunger, and some of the time was spent in worries and vague hopes which, however, always led to the same conclusion: for the time being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them.

The household budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; an enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work; everything else was looked after by Gregor’s mother on top of the large amount of sewing work she did.

He was amazed at the great distance that separated him from his room, and could not understand how he had covered that distance in his weak state a little while before and almost without noticing it. He concentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that there was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him.

They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor people, Gregor’s father brought bank employees their breakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but they just did not have the strength to do any more.

“How can I ever be anything but sick, at this life?”

“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms’ length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest.”

“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been trudging about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”

“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all, and take the suffering on oneself.