Quotes About Struggle

We had good years, with no violence, in a sense we were victims of our success.

Success can be wracking and reproachful, to you and those close to you. It can entangle you with legends that are consuming and all but impossible to live up to.

in the very long run any success devours - and perhaps also corrupts.

True success requires sacrifice.

I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I am become passive in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the talons of an eagle.

Si ha sempre fretta di essere felici, signor Danglars, perchè quando uno ha sofferto a lungo, stenta a credere alla felicità.

Those who are born with a silver spoon,' Emmanuel said, 'those who have never needed anything, do not understand what happiness is, any more than those who do not know the blessing of a clear sky and who have never entrusted their lives to four planks tossing on a raging sea.

misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect.

In excessive griefs, as in great tempests, the abyss is found between the tops of the loftiest waves

Man does not appear to me to be intended to enjoy felicity so unmixed; happiness is like the enchanted palaces we read of in our childhood, where fierce, fiery dragons defend the entrance and approach; and monsters of all shapes and kinds, requiring to be overcome ere victory is ours. I own that I am lost in wonder to find myself promoted to an honor of which I feel myself unworthy—

This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity.

Die! No, no!' He cried. 'It was not worth living so long, and suffering so much, to die now. Death was welcome previously when I made a resolution to meet it, many years ago. But now it would truly be conceding too much to my miserable fate. No, I want to live, I want to struggle to the end. No, I want to recover the happiness that has been taken away from me. I am forgetting that, before I die, I have my enemies to punish and, who knows?—perhaps a few friends to reward.

in the shipwreck of life — for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes

Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance. Dantes

He told himself that it was the hatred of men, not the vengeance of God, which had plunged him into the abyss where he now found himself.

We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.

Alas, madame! exclaimed Athos, to-day love is like war--the breastplate is becoming useless.

Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder.

At the end of every prayer introduced the entreaty oftener addressed to man than to God: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Yet in spite of his earnest prayers, Dantes remained a prisoner

If they do not bring peace, we shall give them death.

I cannot think that man is meant to find happiness so easily! Happiness is like one of those palaces on an enchanted island, its gates guarded by dragons. One must fight to gain it; and, in truth, I do not know what I have done to deserve the good fortune of becoming Mercédès, husband.

from Phaedrus, I believe, the other from Bias.1 Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life – for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes – I throw all my useless baggage in the sea, that's all, and remain with my will, prepared to live entirely alone and consequently entirely free.

Death, according to the care we take to be on good or bad terms with it, is either a friend which will rock us as gently as a nursing mother or an enemy which will savagely tear apart body and soul.

Let me struggle like a woman- my strength lies in my weakness. - Milady