Quotes About Struggle

Who can know when his world is going to change?… Picture this now: an all-but-illiterate old man struggling with an enemy tongue, an all-but-exhausted young boy fighting against sleep… Who could suspect that in the morning a different child would wake?… Perhaps I should have at least known something, but maybe not; who can sense revelation in the wind?

Non hai pensato che ho sostenuto grandi sforzi e molte spese, e sono incorso in disagi personali, per arrivare fin qui» osservò l'uomo in nero «e se fallisco ora, potrei arrabbiarmi molto? E se lei dovesse smettere di respirare, tu potresti ammalarti della stessa fatale malattia?»

The wrong people die, some of them, and the reason is this: life is not fair.

It was too unfair. You expected unfairness if you breathed, but this went beyond that.

Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to get him. Is it Fezzik? Who?' 'Nobody kills him. He lives.' 'You mean he wins, Daddy? Jesus, what did you read me this thing for?

All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others.

Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays—yes, above all, he pays.

The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide.

The penalty of ceasing an aggressive behavior toward the hardships of life on the part of mankind is, that we go backward. We

To be a perpetual victim is always to have your life named, claimed, and determined by the victimizer. It is to give the perpetrator of injustice power over who you are and what you mean.

Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.

I did some Twelfth Step work down there once before. They put alcoholics right in with the crazy people. It's horrible—these men all twisted and shaking—eyes all foggy and full of pain. Some guy there with his fists clamped together, so he couldn't kill anyone. There was a young man, just a young man, had scratched his eyes out.

LOLA    I wanted children, too. When I lost my baby and found out I couldn't have any more, I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to get a job, but Doc wouldn't hear of it.

The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. .

In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a young Kennedy appointee in the Labor Department, spoke for most when he said, "I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know the world is going to break your heart eventually." During those four cold, bleak November days, all Americans were Irish.

Perhaps one of my own advisors will grow jealous of my power and try to kill me. Or someone may spread lies about me, to turn the people against me. It may be that a neighboring kingdom will send an army to seize this throne. Or I might make an unwise decision that will bring my downfall. If you want to be a leader, you must be willing to accept these risks. They come with the power, you see.

The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. . . .

It is not for me to declare a winner in this fight," he told them. "Truth and Falsehood are destined to struggle. Sometimes Truth will win, but other times Falsehood will prevail, and then Truth must rise up and fight again. Until the end of the world, Truth must battle Falsehood, and must never rest or let down his guard, or he will be finished once and for all." And so Truth and Falsehood are fighting to this day.

An artist is, of course, entitled to make money, and Brando didn't claim otherwise. What he struggled with was the conflation of art and commerce, a phenomenon he first observed in the 1960s and watched mushroom beyond all expectation into the twenty-first century. "I don't know if there are any artists left now," he said. "They are so degraded and so confused by the mercantile mind.

He wanted to feel as if he were—to play on his famous line from On the Waterfront—a "contender," someone who mattered, someone who had fought the good fight. He wanted to feel as if he had made a difference, left a mark, and not just on acting. What he did not want to be was an "unthinker," the way he described those people who never examined themselves or their place in the world.

If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.