Quotes about Struggle

The pain was on the surface, so it took all his will to reach upward. But maybe that's what God asked of man. To reach upward even when it's hard.

Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture.

The adversary she found herself forced to fight was not worth matching or beating; it was not a superior ability which she would have found honor in challenging; it was ineptitude—a gray spread of cotton that 'seemed soft and shapeless, that could offer no resistance to anything or anybody, yet managed to be a barrier in her way.

He looked at the paper before him. He wondered why ineptitude should exist and have its say.

When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say.

She tried to demonstrate her power over him. She stayed away from his house; she waited for him to come to her. He spoiled it by coming too soon; by refusing her the satisfaction of knowing that he waited and struggled against his desire; by surrendering at once.

Feeling quiet and empty, he told himself that he would be all right tomorrow. He would forgive himself the weakness of this night, it was like the tears one is permitted at a funeral, and then one learns how to live with an open wound or with a crippled factory.

She did not listen to the voices of the men behind her. She did not know for how long the broken snatches of their struggle kept rolling past her—the sounds that nudged and prodded one another, trying to edge back and leave someone pushed forward — a struggle, not to assert one's own will, but to squeeze an assertion from some unwilling victim - a battle in which the decision was to be pronounced, not by the winner, but by the loser.

only gesture of protest open to me. What else could I offer you? The things people sacrifice are so little. I'll give you my marriage to Peter Keating. I'll refuse to permit myself happiness in their world. I'll take suffering. That will be my answer to them, and my gift to you. I shall probably never see you again. I shall try not to. But I will live for you, through every minute and every shameful act I take, I will live for you in my own way, in the only way I can.

You know, I'm not any kind of a great man. I couldn't have built that railroad. If it goes, I won't be able to bring it back. I'll have to go with it. . . .

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive?

Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. But observe that most people are creatures cut in half who keep swinging desperately to one side or to the other.