Quotes about Perseverance

I wish I had a stone for the knife," the old man said after he had checked the lashing on the oar butt. "I should have brought a stone." You should have brought many things, he thought. But you did not bring them, old man. Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Night is always darker before the dawn and life is the same, the hard times will pass, every thing will get better and sun will shine brighter then ever.

The very beginning was written and all he had to do was go on. That's all, he said. You see how simple what you cannot do is?

The one who is doing the work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one poverty is hard on. Heminway talking about his wife Hadley

Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish.

Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish, he thought.

The man isn't born for defeats.He can fall from grace,but he cannot be defeated.

Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs. He ate the white eggs to give himself strength. He ate them all through May to be strong in September and October for the truly big fish.

Perhaps wars weren't won any more. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years' War.

Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.

I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this, he said. Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I'll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now.

YOU DO NOT know how long you are in a river when the current moves swiftly.