Quotes About Struggle

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature

Unhealed trauma is behind our health, weight, addiction, sleep, and relationship issues.

the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.

She could be affectionate, generous, and optimistic one day; vengeful, depressed, and irritable the next. In the colloquial language of her friends, she was "either in the garret or cellar." In either mood, she needed attention, something the self-contained Lincoln was not always able to provide.

Everything," a journalist observed, "tended to represent the home of a man who has battled hard with the fortunes of life, and whose hard experience had taught him to enjoy whatever of success belongs to him, rather in solid substance than in showy display.

I have plenty of information now, but I can't get it into words. I'm afraid it's too big a task for me. I wonder if I will find everything in life too big for my abilities. Well, time will tell. Theodore Roosevelt, writing in naval history in his spare time while in law school

If the problems created by the industrial age were left unattended, Roosevelt cautioned, America would eventually be "sundered by those dreadful lines of division" that set "the haves" and the "have-nots" against one another.

Until we address unequal history, we cannot overcome unequal opportunity." Until blacks "stand on level and equal ground," we cannot rest. It must be our goal "to assure that all Americans play by the same rules and all Americans play against the same odds.

Johnson insisted, "I don't want this symposium to come here and spend two days talking about what we have done, the progress has been much too small. We haven't done nearly enough. I'm kind of ashamed of myself that I had six years and couldn't do more than I did.

If the continuing problems created by the Industrial Age were not addressed, he warned, the country would eventually be "sundered by those dreadful lines of division" that set "the haves" and the "have-nots" against one another.

I hated to have us take the Philippines, but I don't see how in the world we can give them up.

Even when abolition should come, Tocqueville predicted, Americans would "have still to destroy three prejudices much more intangible and more tenacious than it: the prejudice of

Still, Roosevelt noted, it was "not always easy to strike the just middle," and he inevitably made mistakes.

FDR, even weakened and near the end of his life, opted to allow disabled veterans to see his true condition. This allowed them to understand the life which could still be before them.

Taft generally ate alone. Forever struggling to lose weight, he limited his midday meal to an apple or a glass of water.

If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, anything would seem easy!

I'm giving my whole life to breaking the butterfly of a John Rockefeller upon the wheel of my ponderous articles

At this introductory stage of his career, Roosevelt viewed politics in a puritanical light, as an arena where good battled evil. He had seen his father's dreams of high office undone by corruption; he had absorbed his father's warning that the country could not much longer stand "so corrupt a government.

Roosevelt insisted that politics was not a proper occupation. As a citizen, one might intermittently engage in political activity but it would be a deadfall misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office and all of it puts him under the heavy astrain to barter his conviction for the stake of holding office.

That very afternoon, Taft fell seriously ill with what doctors mistakenly diagnosed as dengue fever. He remained bedridden for ten days, and when he returned to work, severe rectal pain prevented him from sitting. At the same time, a fungal infection developed in his groin.

Perhaps it is not such a bad marriage after all? There are innumerable marriages where two people, both twisted and wrong in their depths, are well matched, making each other miserable in the way they need, in the way the pattern of their life demands.

This is an inevitable and easily recognizable stage in every revolutionary movement: reformers must expect to be disowned by those who are only too happy to enjoy what has been won for them.

So much of my life has been twisted and painful that now when happiness floods right through me like being flooded over with warm glittering blue water, I can't believe it. I say to myself: I am Anna Wulf, this is me, Anna, and I'm happy.

Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long.