c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
An odd thing about perception is that when we identify some new thing with one or more of our five senses, it is not really, immutably real -- it is a passing will o’ the wisp, an artifact of the senses and the translations of the brain until we get used to it and we give it a home in our hearts
— Nigel Hey
We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art--we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.
— Anaïs Nin, In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays
Why is a caterpillar wrapped in silk while it changes into a butterfly? So the other caterpillars can't hear the screams. Change hurts
— Rory Miller
When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you.
— Dorothy Rowe, Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison
Maniacal suicide. —This is due to hallucinations or delirious conceptions. The patient kills himself to escape from an imaginary danger or disgrace, or to obey a mysterious order from on high, etc.
— Émile Durkheim, On Suicide: A Study in Sociology
They thought depression was like bieng 'depressed'. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it.
— Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
After all I've done for you' has alienated more children from their parents than any act of parent cruelty.
— Dorothy Rowe, Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison
Woman's fear of the female Self, of the experience of the numinous archetypal Feminine, becomes comprehensible when we get a glimpse - or even only a hint – of the profound otherness of female selfhood as contrasted to male selfhood. Precisely that element which, in his fear of the Feminine, the male experiences as the hole, abyss, void, and nothingness turns into something positive for the woman without, however, losing these same characteristics. Here the archetypal Feminine is experienced not as illusion and as maya but rather as unfathomable reality and as life in which above and below, spiritual and physical, are not pitted against each other; reality as eternity is creative and, at the same time, is grounded in primeval nothingness. Hence as daughter the woman experiences herself as belonging to the female spiritual figure Sophia, the highest wisdom, while at the same time she is actualizing her connection with the musty, sultry, bloody depths of swamp-mother Earth. However, in this sort of Self-discovery woman necessarily comes to see herself as different from what presents itself to men -as, for example, spirit and father, but often also as the patriarchal godhead and his ethics. The basic phenomenon - that the human being is born of woman and reared by her during the crucial developmental phases - is expressed in woman as a sense of connectedness with all living things, a sense not yet sufficiently realized, and one that men, and especially the patriarchal male, absolutely lack to the extent women have it.To experience herself as so fundamentally different from the dominant patriarchal values understandably fills the woman with fear until she arrives at that point in her own development where, through experience and love that binds the opposites, she can clearly see the totality of humanity as a unity of masculine and feminine aspects of the Self.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
Most of the psychological differences between men and women seem to come from differences in their reproductive system
— Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Love is a kind of symptom that arises through the repression of libido.
— Frank Tallis, A Death in Vienna
On the lowest level, this loss of soul turns the man into the hen-pecked husband who lives with his wife as though she were his mother upon whom he is solely dependent in all things having to do with emotions and the inner life. But even the relatively positive case where the woman is the mistress of the inner domain and mother of the home who simultaneously has the responsibility for dealing with all the man's questions and problems having to do with emotions and the inner life, even this leads to a lack of emotional vitality and sterile one-sidedness in the man. He discharges only the "outer" and "rational" affairs of life, profession, politics, etc. Owing to his loss of soul, the world he has shaped becomes a patriarchal world that, in its soullessness, presents an unprecedented danger for humanity. In this context we cannot delve further into the significance of a full development of the archetypal feminine potential for a new, future society.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
While the Eternal Feminine in Faust II still appears in personalized form as the Madonna, she works her effects in The Magic Flute as an invisible spiritual power, as music. But this music is the expression of divine love itself, which unites law and freedom, above and below, in the wisdom of the heart and of love. As harmony, it grants humankind divine peace and rules the world as the highest divinity.From the earliest times, magic and music have stood under the rule of the Archetypal Feminine, which in myth and fairy tale is also the mistress of transformation, intoxication, and enchanting sound. Thus it is quite understandable that it is precisely this feminine principle that bestows the magical instruments. The Orpheus motif of the magical taming of the animal energies through music belongs to her, for as mistress of the animals the Great Goddess rules the world of wild as well as tame creatures. She can transform things and people into animal form, tame the animal, and enchant it because, like music, she is able to make the tame wild and the wild tame with the power of her magic.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
My own diagnosis of my problem is a simpler one. It’s that I share 50 per cent of my genome with a banana and 98 per cent with a chimpanzee. Banana’s don’t do psychological consistency. And the tiny part of us that’s different - the special Homo sapiens bit - is faulty. It doesn’t work. Sorry about that.
— Sebastian Faulks, Engleby
The archetypal image of the redeemer serpent is certainly placed here in opposition to the serpents of evil that battle with it. But why do they both have the same form if there is only oppositIOn between them? What does it mean that they both dwell in the same place, the depth of the great abyss? Are they not possibly two aspects of the same thing?We know this image of the redeemer serpent not only from Gnosis and from the Sabbataian myth, but we know of the same serpent rising from below, redeeming and to be redeemed, as the Kundalini serpent in India, and finally from alchemy as the serpens Mercurii, the ambiguous serpent whose significance was first made clear to us by Jung's researches.Since Jung's work on alchemy we know two things. The first is that in its "magnum opus" alchemy dealt with a redemption of matter itself. The second is that pari passu with this redemption of matter, a redemption of the individual psyche was not only unconsciously carried out but was also consciously intended. As we know, the serpent is a primeval symbol of the Spirit, as primeval and ambiguous as the Spirit itself. The emergence of the Earth archetype of the Great Mother brings with it the emergence of her companion, the Great Serpent. And, strangely enough, it seems as though modern man is confronted with a curious task, a task which is essentially connected with what mankind, rightly or wrongly, has feared most, namely the Devil.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
However, the natural symbol, without our being sufficiently conscious of the fact, is identical with the reality of the world that appears to us, for every object in the natural world is at the same time a symbolic reality to us. The psyche certainly does not use an "object" of nature as a "symbol," but rather the experience of an "object" itself is always already symbolic experience. The star or tree in us is no less real and no less symbolic than it is in outward experience. For each possibility of experience either presupposes a spiritually forming, that is to say a symbolic activity, or is identical with this. That is, everything spiritual appears to us first not just in nature but as nature; or we could formulate this just as well the other way around: everything natural, whether outward or inward, appears to us as an image, that is to say as formed spirit. We are surrounded by images, inwardly and outwardly, but at the same time formed and determined in all our experiences by the natural symbol as though by a unitary natural-spiritual reality, for our psychic system only grasps that which appears to us as the real world through the world of natural symbolism.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
For if there are (at a venture) seventy-six different times all ticking in the mind at once, how many different people are there not – Heaven help us – all having lodgment at one time or another in the human spirit?
— Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Spending longer thinking about the problem before you dive in is likely to lead to higher levels of creativity in the final product.
— Jeremy  Dean, How to Be Creative: Six Psychological Principles of Creativity
The result of this one-sided patriarchal stance, demonstrable in all areas of life, is an un integrated man who is attacked by his repressed side and often enough overwhelmed by it. This transpires not only in the fate of the individual man as seduction by a "lower" anima, but equally through seduction by a compensatory ideology, for example materialism, to which "spirit" men are especially susceptible.The man wants to remain exclusively masculine and out of fear rejects the transformative contact with a woman of equal status. Negativizing the Feminine in the patriarchate prevents the man from experiencing woman as a thou of equal but different status, and hence from coming to terms with her. The consequence of the patriarchal male's haughtiness toward women leads to the inability to make any genuine contact with the Feminine, i.e., not only in a real woman but also with the Feminine in himself, the unconscious. Whenever an integral relationship to the Feminine remains undeveloped, however, this means that, due to his fear, the male is unable to break through to his own wholeness that also embraces the Feminine. Thus the patriarchal culture's separation from the Feminine and from the unconscious becomes one of the essential causes for the crisis of fear in which the patriarchal world now finds itself.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
There is no religion and no philosophy that can give us a comprehensive answer to the whole of our problems, and the abandonment and isolation of the individual who is given no answer, or only inadequate answers, to his question lead to a situation in which more and more cheap, obvious solutions and answers are sought and provided. As, everywhere and in all departments of life, there are contradictory schools and parties, and an equal number of contradictory answers, one of the most frequent reactions is that modern man ceases to ask questions and takes refuge in a conception that considers only the most obvious, superficial aspects, and becomes skeptical, nihilistic, and egocentric. Or, alternatively, he tries to solve all his problems by plunging headlong into a collective situation and a collective conviction, and seeks to redeem himself in this way.
— Erich Neumann, The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology
If we are enveloped in images, we are also enveloped in forms, in spirit, which is nature, and in nature, which is spirit. Daily and continually we associate with this unified world of nature and spirit without knowing it. But only the person to whom this association has become clear understands what is meant when we talk of Sophia as a heightened and spiritualized earth. But this formulation is already distorted as well. The earth has not changed at all, it is neither heightened and spiritualized: it remains what is always was. Only the person who experiences this Earth Spirit has transformed himself, he alone is changed by it and has, perhaps, been heightened and spiritualized. However, he too remains what he always was and has only become, along with the earth, more transparent to himself in his own total reality.Here also we must differentiate between the reality of our total existence and the differentiating formulations of our consciousness. Certainly, our consciousness makes the attempt to separate a spiritual from a natural world and to set them in opposition, but this mythical division and opposition of heaven and earth proves more and more impracticable. If, in the process of integration, consciousness allies itself with the contents of the unconscious and the mutual interpenetration of both systems leads to a transformation of the personality, a return to the primordial symbolism of the myth ensues. Above and below, heaven and earth, spirit and nature, are experienced again as coniunctio, and the calabash that contains them is the totality of reality itself.
— Erich Neumann
In the first years of our lives we learn how to shit, talk, walk, sleep, eat and, most importantly, how to royally piss off our parents.
— A.G. Phillips
But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.
— Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers
There was no need for a term like ‘magical thinking’ in the Golden Age of Man...there was only genuine everyday magic and mysticism. Children were not mocked or scolded in those days for singing to the rain or talking to the wind.
— Anthon St. Maarten, Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny
This is my life's work. It is a user's manual to the human being, a parenting book ... and how to be the best you can be.
— Faye Snyder
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
— Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections
We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
— Albert Camus
A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.
— Veronica Roth, Divergent
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
— Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook
It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.
— Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.
— Judith Viorst, Love & Guilt & The Meaning Of Life, Etc
And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
— Frederick Douglass
The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
— Mahatma Gandhi
A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don't think you can, hold on.
— James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
— Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
You feel your strength in the experience of pain.
— Jim Morrison
If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.
— Leonardo da Vinci
Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn't need a man; be that girl who never backed down.
— Taylor Swift
My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a b
— Stephen Hawking
God, grant me strength to accept those things I cannot change.
— Dan Brown, Angels & Demons
The weaker you are the louder you bark.-Tenten
— Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Band 11
You can't really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.
— Ken Kesey
In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.
— Drew Barrymore
Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.
— Betty  Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength.
— Chris Bradford, The Way of the Sword
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
— Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven
All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost;The old that is strong does not wither,Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
— Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
I wonder if I will ever have the strength to hold onto something. Or if I will always be someone who destroys.
— Ally Condie, Matched
She was stronger alone…
— Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
The key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today.
— Max Lucado, Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.
— Michael Jordan
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronge
— John F. Kennedy
one thing I don’t needis any more apologiesi got sorry greetin me at my front dooryou can keep yrsi don’t know what to do wit emthey don’t open doorsor bring the sun backthey don’t make me happyor get a mornin paperdidn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash carscuz a sorry.
— Ntozake Shange, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
Take my hands,” Alec said. “And take my strength too. Whatever of it you can use to— to keep yourself going.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes
Strength isn't about bearing a cross of grief or shame. Strength comes from choosing your own path, and living with the consequences.
— Jenny Trout
Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back.
— Eve Ensler, I am an Emotional Creature
I used to think you were weak and just didn't fight back ... but now, honestly, I think you're actually pretty tough. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to not complain and lash out.
— Richelle Mead, Bloodlines
Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.
— Christine de Pizan, Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love
There is a certain strength in being alone.
— Heather Duffy Stone, This Is What I Want to Tell You
Bullying builds character like nuclear waste creates superheroes. It's a rare occurrence and often does much more damage than endowment.
— Zack W. Van
I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There's nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything. I like that. Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready.
— Veronica Roth, Divergent
The moment will arrive when you are comfortable with who you are, and what you are– bald or old or fat or poor, successful or struggling- when you don't feel the need to apologize for anything or to deny anything. To be comfortable in your own skin is the beginning of strength.
— Charles B. Handy
In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants and hold the world in arms grown strong with loveAnd there may be many things we forget in the days to come,But this will not be one of them.
— Brian Andreas, Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind
To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am.
— O.R. Melling
Fall. Stand. Learn. Adapt.
— Mike  Norton, Fighting For Redemption
Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.
— Ralph W. Sockman
Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.
— Billy Graham
Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.
— Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity
My hunger for writing will die when I have bled for the humans that never found the strength to find the words themselves
— Christopher Poindexter
I don't despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit.
— Melina Marchetta, Froi of the Exiles
Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books
Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
— Vincent van Gogh
Strong people alone know how to organize their suffering so as to bear only the most necessary pain.
— Emil Dorian, Quality of Witness: A Romanian Diary, 1937-1944
Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.
— Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Suddenly this is all too hard. I am tired of putting up walls. I want someone with the strength - and the honesty - to break them down.
— Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts
My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.
— Steve Goodier
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Strength of character means the ability to overcome resentment against others, to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly.
— Lawrence G. Lovasik
We're not alone--at least, we're alone only if we choose to be alone. We're alone only if we choose to go through life relying solely on our own strength rather than learning to draw upon the power of God. 
— Sheri Dew, If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths
Beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction
— William James
...Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was...
— Terry Pratchett
Let me tell you about weakness! Killing the strong to prove your strength is foolish weakness. Killing fools is easy weakness. Killing the weak is evil weakness. Accomplishing your ends without killing, mastering your mind when you want to kill--that is strength!
— Victoria Hanley, The Seer and the Sword
Arm yourself, my heart: the thing that you must do is fearful, yet inevitable.
— Euripides, Medea and Other Plays: Medea / Alcestis / The Children of Heracles / Hippolytus
silence is not weakness and decency is not pride
— Arthur Machen
Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.
— Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.
— Thomas Paine
If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now. Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it. Focus only on the moments when you achieved what you desired, and that strength will help you to get what you want.
— Paulo Coelho, The Fifth Mountain
Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
— Bill Cosby
You are never strong enough that you don't need help.
— César Chávez
You are human and mortal
—  we are the sum of our weak moments and our strong.
I might not be ready to pour out my feelings to the world, but I’d had enough of trying to ignore them.
— R.J. Anderson, Ultraviolet
Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.
— Miyamoto Musashi
Never believe for a second that your weak, within all of us we have a reserve of inner hidden strength,
— Victoria Addino
There was a saying that the strength of a man’s steel was only known under the hammer of circumstance. If anyone had asked me a few hours ago, I would have said that nearly five years of boyhood had hammered me into constant fear and excessive caution. But now I realised it had done the opposite. It had shaped me into someone who stepped forwards and reached for what she wanted. It was too late for me to tuck my hands behind my back and wait like a good woman.
— Alison Goodman, Eona: The Last Dragoneye
Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.
— Aberjhani, Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player
...when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.' 
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening
What is it that would make a creature as fierce, majestic and powerful as a lion is, subject itself to the intimidation of a man a whip and a chair? The lion has been taught to forget what it is.
— Iyanla Vanzant, Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through
Getting over what you did to me is not why I get out of bed anymore.
— Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25
Kurogane: For all my life... I've wanted strength. I didn't want those things precious to me to be taken away from me anymore. But, to have strength means to invite disaster to come to you. And strength alone can't really protect you.
— CLAMP, ツバサ-RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- 22
You can’t get a reaction from someone who doesn’t give a shit.
— Emma Chase, Tangled
If there is one thing I refuse to do, it is to drown.
— Hannah Ashworth, A Royal Reborn
If we feel inwardly strong, we will have no need or desire to speak ill of others.
— Sri Chinmoy
The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.
— Melina Marchetta, Quintana of Charyn
In the end you’ll see you won’t stop me.
— Christina Aguilera, Christina Aguilera: Stripped
My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.
— Robin Hobb, Ship of Magic
We know you're strong, but accepting help is its own kind of strength.
— Kiera Cass, Happily Ever After
Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.
— Jane Austen, Persuasion
A lot of what we experience as strength comes from knowing what to do with weakness.
— Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
I hope he doesn't know he just touched my leg.And nothing happened.
— Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
— Rosalynn Carter
You touch me again, you arrogant Ardenine swine, and I swear on the blood of Hanalea the warrior, I will geld you. Do you understand?
— Cinda Williams Chima, The Exiled Queen
I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder--how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take vital interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just said--	"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protegee and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him, so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
When he was kidnapped by the Iron King and taken into the Nevernever, she didn’t hesitate to go after him. And she didn’t stop there. When her magic was sealed by Mab, leaving her defenseless in the Winter Court, she somehow managed to survive, even when she thought you had turned on her. When the Scepter of the Seasons was stolen by the Iron fey, she went after it, despite having no magic and no weapon with which to defend herself. And when the courts asked her to destroy the false king, she accepted, even though the Summer and Iron glamours within her were making her sick, and she couldn’t use either of them effectively. She still went into the Iron Kingdom toface a tyrant she didn’t know if she could overcome.“Now,” Ariella finished, turning toward me, “do you still believe humans are weak?
— Julie Kagawa, The Iron Knight
Happiness does not come in large incomes or the most exotic home, it comes in small doses of a great self esteem which can be built upon the strengths of an individual.
— Nicholas A. McGirr
The crazy creatives are the creatives who never go completely mad. They aren't so easily disheartened by the seemingly endless amounts of scrutiny that creative individuals tend to receive because they, like insanity, are the ones who feed off of opposition and negative feedback and manage to continue along with a healthy ambition. It is the crazy that teaches us to use our gifts wisely and own all the attackers.
— Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality
I want to have the heart and mind of a queen,” she whispered. “I want it more than anything. But I’m only pretending. I can’t find the feeling of it inside 
— Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue
Everything can be taken from you in a second, but the human spirit is so strong. War can teach you so much about evil, and so much about good.
— Zainab Salbi
I say to you all, once again -- in the light of Lord Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I can no longer stay quiet in this world, I have a voice and I feel it reverberate off my internal walls, making its slow climb upward until its melody can be heard all around.
— Elin Stebbins Waldal
But there was nothing else she could be right now except strong.
— Morgan Rhodes, Rebel Spring
Immortals are constrained by ancient rules. But a hero can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as he has the nerve.-Chiron
— Rick Riordan
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” Easy enough to say when you’re a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.
— John Green, Looking for Alaska
You’ll be all right. You’re strong. I know you’ll be okay because I like you and you can’t like someone who doesn’t like themself. The people I fear for are the ones who I don’t like because they hate themselves so much they won’t let anyone else like them either. But I do like you. I’ll miss you. And I know you’ll be okay.
— Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis
My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
George smiles to himself, with entire self-satisfaction. Yes, I am crazy, he thinks. That is my secret; my strength.
— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off.
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Strength is not something you have, it's something you find.
— Emma Smith
Unity is a beast in itself. If a wolf sees two little boys playing in the woods on one side, and a big strong man on the other, he will go to the one who stands alone.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless.
— Alice Hoffman, Here on Earth
He leaned heavily on the desk now, as if danger had strengthened him before and its lack now made him weak.
— Kristin Cashore, Graceling
Listen, babyAin't no mountain highAin't no valley lowAin't no river wide enough, babyIf you need me, call meNo matter where you areNo matter how farJust call my nameI'll be there in a hurryYou don't have to worry'Cause baby,There ain't no mountain high enoughAin't no valley low enoughAin't no river wide enoughTo keep me from getting to youRemember the dayI set you freeI told youYou could always count on meFrom that day on I made a vowI'll be there when you want meSome way,some how'Cause baby,There ain't no mountain high enoughAin't no valley low enoughAin't no river wide enoughTo keep me from getting to youNo wind, no rainMy love is aliveWay down in my heartAlthough we are miles apartIf you ever need a helping handI'll be there on the doubleAs fast as I canDon't you know thatThere ain't no mountain high enoughAin't no valley low enoughAin't no river wide enoughTo keep me from getting to youDon't you know thatThere ain't no mountain high enoughAin't no valley low enoughAin't no river wide enough
— Marvin Gaye
My people sing, we dance, we love. That is our strength. But we also dig. And then we die. Seldom do we get to choose why. That choice is power. That choice has been our only weapon. But it is not enough.
— Pierce Brown, Red Rising
I ran out of strong.
— Ron Hall, Same Kind of Different as Me
What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.
— Jane Austen, Persuasion
Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.
— Michel de Montaigne, Cannibales
Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.
— Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night
But how can they just decide that we're animals? They don't even know us," I said."We know us," said Mother. "They're wrong. And don't ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?
— Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
— Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
Look to your right... It is the path back home. If you choose, you can take it. It is safe, easy, and comfortable. You do not have to work out or fight or do anything else you do not want to...Or you can keep moving forward. I will not lie to you. I cannot predict what may become of you. It will require a lot of training, hard work, study, and danger. But in the very end, you will know strength. I swear it. You might just become someone who will make a difference in the world.
— Wesley Chu, The Lives of Tao
Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough.
— Robert Heller
It came to my house.It sat on my shoulders.Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours.I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.
— Mark Strand
You humble me, Nikki. Don't you see that? It must be clear from my expression that I do not, because he goes on. "If I do all those things for you--soothe you, center you, give you strength--then that is worth more to me than every penny I have earned building Stark International.
— J. Kenner, Claim Me
Give me a strong back, over a soft heart.
— Connie Brockway, The Bridal Season
Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé. [Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.]
— Charles de Gaulle
Mustang...' I rest my hand on her wrist. Despite her strength, it's frail in my hands. Frail as the other girl's was when I held her in the deepmines. I couldn't help that girl. And now I feel like I can't help this woman. Would that my hands were meant to build. I would know what to say. What to do. Maybe in another life I would have been that man. In this one, my words, like my hands, are clumsy. All they can do is cut. All they can do is break.
— Pierce Brown, Golden Son
What though the radiance which was once so bright	Be now for ever taken from my sight,	Though nothing can bring back the hour	Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;	We will grieve not, rather find	Strength in what remains behind.
— William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood
I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
— Leo Rosten, Captain Newman, M. D
Evil is the moment when I lack the strength to be true to the Good that compels me.
— Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil
That's a good attitude. You should hate me more, curse me more, and detest me! Then you should take the power of that hatred and use it to survive this rotten world.
— Hideaki Sorachi
It was time to bring out the world destructive weapons. It was now time to hit him where it would do the biggest damage, his pride.
— Ottilie Weber, Family Ties
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
Broken things can be made whole again. Perhaps not as they were before, but maybe stronger this time.
— Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places
The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when...you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out".'There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight. That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may [the world] be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends. There are only the three positions.
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work
We cannot own each other, Bo. We can only offer what is ours to give.
— Sarah Fine, Of Metal and Wishes
We were all forged in the crucible.
— Gayle Forman, Where She Went
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” Corrie ten Boom
— Corrie ten Boom
One thing is for sure. Nothing in life is easy or certain. You'll be fighting until the end. And when you've overcome all chaos has to offer, those who had it easy will struggle. By fighting through it, you are giving yourself a skill some just do not have. When the world, and the realm, erupt into chaos, you'll be the one standing with a sword still in your hand. Be proud of yourself. You're more of a warrior than you know.
— Lori Goodwin
The hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing.
— William Goldman, The Princess Bride
To see a candle's light one must take it into a dark place.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
But borrowing strength builds weakness.
— Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect his strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to him in whom our strength lies.
— Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
The strong times, the weak times-- they all come in waves. Trust me, none of us has it together.
— Timothy James Beck, When You Don't See Me
That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?
— John Osborne, Look Back in Anger
It's only as bad as you make it.
— Benjamin J. Carey, Barefoot in November
Ultimately, my love saved me, for my love gave me strength. At night, when sleep was sunwilling to rescue me, I gritted my teeth and devoured my fondest memories.
— John Shors, Beneath a Marble Sky
The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard.
— Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training
I was aware of something stable in his nature. Ha game me a feeling of security, as if nothing I said or did would change his opinion of me. I never found his pleasantries irksome, partly, no doubt, because he was a Viscount, but, partly, too, because I respected his self-discipline. He had very little to laugh about, I thought, and yet he laughed. His gaiety had a background of the hospital and the battlefield. I felt he had some inner reserve of strength which no reverse, however serious, would break down.
— L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
Striving to be good is the ultimate struggle of every man. Being bad is easy, but being good requires sincere commitment, discipline and strength. We have to work hard every day just to remain good.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself
— Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
...and that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.
— Audre Lorde
Let others see their own greatness when looking in your eyes.
— Mollie Marti
A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.
— Vernon Howard
You won't," says the Mayor, smiling again. "Everyone knows you aren't a killer, Todd."He pushes Viola forward again -She calls out from the pain of it -Viola, I t
— Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer
There are many ways of getting strong, sometimes talking is the best way.
— Andre Agassi, Open