Quotes About Struggle

Él no tenía autonomía ni capacidad de decisión. El poder de decisión le llega al hombre cuando ya no le hace falta para nada; cuando ni un solo día puede dejar de guiar un carro o picar piedra si no quiere quedarse sin comer. ¿Para qué le valía, entonces, la capacidad de decisión de un hombre, si puede saberse? La vida era el peor tirano conocido. Cuando la vida le agarra a uno, sobra todo poder de decisión.

Para el que no tiene nada, la política es una tentación comprensible, porque es una manera de vivir con bastante facilidad

La vida era el peor tirano conocido. Cuando la vida le agarra a uno, sobra todo poder de decisión.

Entonces Daniel no sabía que los hombres se enfurecen a veces con la vida y contra un orden de cosas que consideran irritante y desigual.

The shadowy side of real life is ignored, and Western Christianity provides us with nothing which can be used to interpret it. Thus the young men of the West are unable to deal with the mixture of light and shadow of which life really consists; they have no way of linking the facts of existence to their preconceived notions of absolutes.

We today live on a planet of "robots" directed and managed by the Jews towards a tragic fatal end, towards the abyss and chaos.

Não sei se sou eu que vencerei as ilhas, ou elas que me vencerão a mim.

A vida no campo é assim: nos anos de abundância, quando chove muito e nas alturas certas, enchem-se os celeiros e as despensas de comida, todos ficam felizes e há festas nas aldeias a todo o tempo para celebrar as colheitas. Nos anos de seca, os prados fica secos, a fruta apodrece nas árvores, a caça foge, e as pessoas andam tristes e às vezes passam fome.

O filme que estamos a fazer vai mostrar como o deserto é bonito, mas temo que tudo o resto não seja visível: este cansaço extremo, o massacre das pistas, a violência de tudo isto e também esta fabulosa, incompreensível, indizível viagem ao fundo de nós mesmos.

Vocês homens têm esse lado de conflito interior, que veneram. Por dever de consciência, suportam inimigos e abandonam amigos.

Agarro o que passa e quando consigo: são as coisas que vem ter comigo e não eu que vou ter com elas. [sobre a triste circunstância de uma personagem que tem poucas oportunidades na vida]

The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone's reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.

The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind.

Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it's dead.

This paradox of rising expectations suggests that improving the quality of life might be an insurmountable task. In fact, there is no inherent problem in our desire to escalate our goals, as long as we enjoy the struggle along the way. The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present. When that happens, they forfeit their chance of contentment.

While we cannot foresee the eventual results of creativity—of the attempt to impose our desires on reality, to become the main power that decides the destiny of every form of life on the planet—at least we can try to understand better what this force is and how it works. Because for better or for worse, our future is now closely tied to human creativity. The result will be determined in large part by our dreams and by the struggle to make them real.

It's exhilarating to come closer and closer to self-discipline. You make your body go and everything hurts; then you look back in awe at the self, at what you've done, it just blows your mind. It leads to ecstasy, to self-fulfillment. If you win these battles enough, that battle against yourself, at least for a moment, it becomes easier to win the battles in the world

Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur. The swimmer's muscles might have ached during his most memorable race, his lungs might have felt like exploding, and he might have been dizzy with fatigue—yet these could have been the best moments of his life.

When do we get to the interesting part—the tortured souls, the impossible dreams, the agony and the ecstasy of creation?

It's exhilarating to come closer and closer to self-discipline. You make your body go and everything hurts; then you look back in awe at the self, at what you've done, it just blows your mind. It leads to ecstasy, to self-fulfillment. If you win these battles enough, that battle against yourself, at least for a moment, it becomes easier to win the battles in the world.

If Diogenes with his lantern twenty-three centuries ago had difficulty finding an honest man, today he would have perhaps an even more troublesome time finding a happy one.

When people start believing that progress is inevitable and life easy, they may quickly lose courage and determination in the face of the first signs of adversity.

the universe was not created to answer our needs. Frustration is deeply woven into the fabric of life. And whenever some of our needs are temporarily met, we immediately start wishing for more.

Nosotros siempre estamos luchando por vivir –solía decir Ralph Waldo Emerson–, pero nunca vivimos.»