Hard Things Quotes

I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.
I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'
'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?
'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach ... I couldn't read music.
'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft ... 'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you. ~ Abraham Verghese

It's the hard things that break; soft things don't break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it's the soft things that can't break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces! ~ C. JoyBell C.

You have to always continue to strive no matter how hard things get, no matter how troubled you feel. No matter how tough things get, no matter how many times you lose, you keep trying to win. ~ LL Cool J

The man (or woman) who can make hard things easy is the educator. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can quit if you want. If you hate it. If it isn't fun anymore. I'll back you with Dad. But you can't quit just because it's hard. Things are hard for most people. Life is hard. ~ Catherine McKenzie

We can either see our circumstances as a set of random cruelties and then allow those hardships to turn us into bitter victims; or we can recognize the fact that, though we may never comprehend why hard things happen, they do, and when they do, we can reach for a larger purpose beyond the pain. ~ Amy Purdy

We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is a hard thing for intellectuals to acknowledge benefits from their rich moral inferiors who never so intended it. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

I do think that people yearn for connection and intimacy, and that they're hard things to achieve. ~ Chelsea Martin

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong - in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art ... Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before: make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn't even matter. Do what only you can do best: make good art. ~ Neil Gaiman

When someone is missing the really hard thing is that you never really do give up hope, even though the inquest says that she is dead, even though right from the beginning we already knew that we wouldn't see her again. ~ Jackie French

First, the idea of the multiverse is essentially the fantasy of preserving perfect information. One of the hard things to deal with in life is the fact that you destroy potential information whenever you make a decision. You could even say that's essentially what regret is: a profound problem of incomplete information. If you select one thing on a diner's menu, you can't know what it would have been like to taste other things on it, right then, right there. When you marry one person, you give up the possibility of knowing what it would have been like to have married any number of others. But if the multiverse exists, you can at least imagine there's another version of you who's eating that other thing you thought about ordering, or who's married to that other man you only went on two dates with. Even if you'll never see all the information for yourself, at least you'll be able to tell yourself that it's there.

'The second reason the multiverse seems like such a neat idea is that it gives human beings just an incredible amount of agency, which they can exercise with the least effort. Why, Carson here created an entire alternate universe when he ordered hash browns on the side of his French toast instead of bacon - '

'Ah, I should have gotten bacon, how could I forget,' Carson said, and attempted to hail the waitress.

'But the history of science shows that any theory that covertly panders to the human ego like that, that puts humans at the cente ~ Dexter Palmer

If hard things ultimately have a purpose, then they aren't so hard anymore. Therefore, I listed what I had learned: 1. It's easy to forget that people can think you think what you don't think. 2. Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't. 3. A writer's greatest reward is naming something unnamed that many people are feeling. A writer's greatest punishment is being misunderstood. The same words can do both. ~ Gloria Steinem

Worry is a complete circle of inefficient thought whirling about a pivot of fear. To avoid it, consider whether the problem in hand is your business. If it is not, turn to something that is. If it is your business, decide if it is your business now. If so, decide what is best to be done about it. If you know, get busy. If you don't know, find out promptly. Do these things; then rest your case on the determination that, no matter how hard things may turn out to be, you will amek the best of them - and more than that no man can do. Dr. Austen Fox Riggs ~ John Sedgwick

Life is strange sometimes. It throws things at us that, at
the moment the events are happening, we can't possibly believe or
understand they could be good in any way, we can't believe it's
what's supposed to happen to us. But sometimes really hard things
that make us hurt, that make us struggle, that make us fight for
what we want, are blessings in disguise. Sometimes we have to
live through them in order to have a better appreciation of our lives
and the good things that happen. ~ M.L Rhodes

It maketh God man, and man God; things temporal, eternal; mortal, immortal; it maketh an enemy a friend, a servant a son, vile things glorious, cold hearts fiery, and hard thing liquid. ~ Bonaventure

I think the hard thing about this job [stand-up] I mean, I think this part is great but that the traveling is y'know, 'cause 'cause I'm gone a lot from home and this time I'm out for three-and-a-half weeks without going home, and that's hard, to be gone three-and-a-half weeks 'cause then I have to ask my friends, Would you mind going to the house and watering the plants, and turn some lights on and make it look like somebody's home, and make sure that the mobile over the crib isn't tangled or the baby's gonna get bored ... ~ Ellen DeGeneres

Life is hard, but I can do hard things ~ Adolescent Rehabilitation

What if I promise to keep my pants on?" The smile in his voice had butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
She stared up at the ceiling. "Fine. But you'll have to leave mine on, too."
"Well, shit." His laughter warmed her all over. "You drive a hard bargain."
"I'm all about hard things." She ran her tongue along her teeth.
"You do have that effect on me. ~ Lisa Kessler

Unfortunately Women these days, complain A LOT about "wanting" to be equal to men, and insist that they "are" equal to men. However, when it comes to paying the check at the restaurant, paying for the wedding, or handling any other expenses, suddenly they forget the whole equality phenomenon. If you ask women why, they will just tell you that "I was with a MAN, a real man doesn't let a woman touch her purse, a real man takes care of his lady"...
((So they know the difference between a "Man" and a "Woman"... ))

- Man spends, man takes responsibility, man has control...
- Woman gets taken care of, women expects man to take responsibility, woman is under control!

If you are a woman who "WANTS" to be equal to men, if you are a woman who wants to be "IN CONTROL" rather than being "UNDER CONTROL", start by being equal in doing the hard things first, don't let your boyfriend pay when you go out with him for a year or two, just like he did for you, don't let him pick you up at your home, drive everyday and pick him up to go out for a year or two, if you think it's so hard to do so, keep quite about it... you're not ready to be equal... You're just adequate enough to be taken care of... to be spent for... ~ Hamidreza Bagheri

Always do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing ~ Bryan Stevenson

As quietly as possible he sought around for something, anything, that could be turned into a weapon. Regrettably, they had, when choosing toys for Young Sam, completely neglected the whole area of hard things with sharp edges. ~ Terry Pratchett

God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and that knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard. ~ Francis Chan

Advice and support are hard things to give. It can be particularly difficult thing to do when you know (or not "know," but strongly believe with good reason) your good friend's relationship is going nowhere, but she continues to believe she and her boyfriend are soul mates anyway, even though she cries at least three times a week about something he's done. ~ Katie Heaney

Sometimes blessings come in ugly wrapping paper. ~ Richie Norton

It is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo for deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. Yet now wisps of cheese tell me gentle that this is the first secret step into euchaisteo's miracle. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant - a seed - this plants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of life - even the hard - is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. (Page 57) ~ Ann Voskamp

Sibyl, what do you want?"
"I want to live," the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. "I want to keep on living forever and watching heroes and fools and knights go up and down, into the world and out. I want to keep being myself and mind the work that minds me. Work is not always a hard thing that looms over your years. Sometimes, work is the gift of the world to the wanting. ~ Catherynne M Valente

What you need to do, is to put your will over completely into the hands of your Lord, surrendering to Him the entire control of it. Say, "Yes, Lord, YES!" to everything, and trust Him to work in you to will, as to bring your whole wishes and affections into conformity with His own sweet, and lovable, and most lovely will. It is wonderful what miracles God works in wills that are utterly surrendered to Him. He turns hard things into easy, and bitter things into sweet. It is not that He puts easy things in the place of the hard, but He actually changes the hard thing into an easy one. ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

Let the hard things in life break you. Let them effect you. Let them change you. Let these hard moments inform you. Let this pain be your teacher. The experiences of your life are trying to tell you something about yourself. Don't cop out on that. Don't run away and hide under your covers. Lean into it. ~ Pema Chodron

I feel like humans are a disease. It's a hard thing to communicate in a pop song. I mean, who wants to hear that? ~ Zola Jesus

I wish we may learn from all our changes, to be sober and watchful, not to rest in grace received, in experience or comforts, but still to be pressing forward, and never think ourselves either safe or happy, but when we are beholding the glory of Christ by the light of faith in the glass of the Gospel. To view him as God manifest in the flesh, as all in all in himself, and all in all for us; this is cheering, this is strengthening, this makes hard things easy, and bitter things sweet. This includes all I can wish for my dear friends, that you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus. To know him, is the shortest description of true grace; to know him better, is the surest mark of growth in grace; to know him perfectly, is eternal life. This is the prize of our high calling; the sum and substance of all we can desire or hope for is, to see him as he is, and to be like him: and to this honor and happiness he will surely bring all that love his name.81 ~ Tony Reinke

I think the hard thing for young comedians is that the majority of the young people in the audience out there don't have the wide range of references. ~ John Cleese

Counting one thousand gifts means counting the hard things - otherwise I've miscounted. ~ Ann Voskamp

I'm used to feeling like I'm the only one sees the hard things coming, and I'm always angling to skew the odds in my favor. It's nice to know somebody else is preparing, too. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes. THAT is cyberpunk. ~ Bruce Sterling

A great teacher makes hard things easy. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

She was the living, breathing proof that the hard things in life didn't have to defeat you - or even define you. ~ Susan Wiggs

It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't like that. This is by the way. ~ H. Rider Haggard

I think love is a really hard thing to define. I think it's multifaceted. ~ Sienna Miller

It is a tremendously hard thing to pray aright, yea, it is verily the science of all sciences. ~ Martin Luther

It may not maek sense to you, now, but when you get older you'll udnerstnad that some times things have t o be done. Hard things. But everyone will hate the person who finally does them. But if they do them anyway, that's the mark of true honor. -Silver ~ Rhiannon Held

I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard. I've gone through things in my life. People say it must be so hard to do it in the public eye, but the truth is, when you go through hard things, it's just hard. ~ Helen Hunt

To be in Jesus' easy yoke is an easy way of doing hard things." (p. 202) ~ Bill Gaultiere

I was raised in a reform synagogue. I think we all bring with us a sense of when hard things happen to us, we find ourselves asking questions of why are these things happening to me at this time in my life. I think in that sense, there's a certain resonance that I carry. It's more of a spiritual resonance as opposed to particularly of Judaism. ~ Michael Stuhlbarg

In creating the only hard thing's to begin ~ James Russell Lowell

In whatever you choose to do, do it because it's hard, not because it's easy. Math and physics and astrophysics are hard. For every hard thing you accomplish, fewer other people are out there doing the same thing as you. That's what doing something hard means. And in the limit of this, everyone beats a path to your door because you're the only one around who understands the impossible concept or who solves the unsolvable problem. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. ~ Mason Cooley

They were made of small hard things - aunts and uncles, smoke breaks after sex, girls on stoops drinking from mason jars. These truths carried the black body beyond slogans and gave it color and texture and thus reflected the spectrum I saw out on the Yard more than all of my alliterative talk of guns or revolutions or paeans to the lost dynasties of African antiquity. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

There are a couple hard things. One, getting a funny idea that people can relate to; a funny idea or a funny script; there's a million pitches. ~ David Spade

When he thought he was doing something that made a difference to people, he could bear any burden [Moses]. When he lost that sense of achievement, he became too discouraged to keep on doing the hard things. ~ Harold S. Kushner

I think there are hard-liners inside of Iran that think it is the right thing to do to oppose us, to seek to destroy Israel, to cause havoc in places like Syria or Yemen or Lebanon, if they don't change at all, we're still better off having the deal. ~ Barack Obama

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things. ~ Herman Melville

All my life I have been able to tell Ma everything. No matter how hard things got, I was always comforted by the fact that she was there for me, at our old home, keeping the fire burning in all of us, with love and advice, and meals that lasted late into the night. We didn't always get along. But she had our best interests at heart. Now I will never be able to sit with her and talk again. So I have written her this one last letter to tell her all of the things I never said when I had the chance. The most important things that I should have told her every day. ~ Genevieve Gannon

Yes, genuine pain and loss coexisted with the deliverance, but it did not have the last word. Its power to hurt him was weakened because he could see the bigger things God was doing in, for, and through him. You can probably find similar events in your life. Hard things persisted, there was no apparent deliverance, but, with closer inspection, you notice a deliverance that went much deeper. And these are eleventh-hour deliverances on this side of death and eternity. Imagine if you gradually developed the spiritual skill to see beyond the immediate moment and catch a glimpse of the glories to come. The basic outline is clear: if you have thrown your lot in with Jesus, everything he has is yours, even the kingdom itself. It would be impossible to ask for more. Those who imitate Abraham's faith are always pushing the last minute farther out until it comes even after physical death. Such a person is fearless. A ~ Edward T. Welch

But kids also make the hard things harder, and the painful things more painful, because you have to see them hurting too. Of course, they also give you a reason, a compelling one, to make it through." "I guess I hadn't ~ Leta Blake

I want to live like a kid,
Away from bothering about others,
Smile without reason but true from heart,
Cry little harder instead of keeping hard things inside,
Stand up again with more determination when i fall,
And enjoy the gift of life by sharing gift of smile with others. ~ Nitish Sharma

I see all these people talking about acting as a great spiritual thing. It's not. There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do, but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination. ~ Eddie Marsan

Secrets are such hard things to manage whwn you're not the only one who knows. ~ Mel Odom

Any privacy in public is a hard thing to negotiate. ~ Benedict Cumberbatch

Hard things don't always make life harder. It takes something hard to sharpen steel. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out. ~ William James

As humans, we often let our egos rule our decisions. We let fear stop us from reaching our true potential. We forget about love. But the heart, it never forgets. No matter what happens, no matter how hard things get, it always remembers. ~ Liz Fenton

It's just this sense that you got something to say. ~ Jonah

The hard things got easier the more you did them. ~ Hugh Howey

God's role is not to make our lives easier, to make the hard things go away, or to do them for us. God's role is to give us the vision to know what we need to do, to bless us with the qualities of soul that we will need in order to do them ourselves, no matter how hard they may be, and to accompany us on that journey. ~ Harold S. Kushner

To fill the shoes of rock 'n' roll, because of the family I have, is a really hard thing. ~ Kelly Osbourne

Fact is, knowing what you want and knowing who you are ... those are two separate things. One is complicated. The other isn't. You're trying to take something simple and make it hard, and there's enough hard things in life without you adding more for yourself. ~ Cora Carmack

We've got to learn hard things in our lifetime, but it's love that gives you the strength. It's being nice to people and having a lot of fun and laughing harder than anything, hopefully every single day of your life. ~ Dag Hammarskjold

People need to hear hard things sometimes to push them to be better. ~ Kasie West

There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while. ~ Nick Hornby

The most romantic thing is to look someone straight in the eyes and say and mean, "I love you", that's a lot. It's a really hard thing because you can never be certain of yourself, but at that particular moment, you feel like that. Its magic ~ Ville Valo

Love God and follow Him. Really, nothing else matters. If you are ever unsure what to do, remember how Jesus loved people. He was the best at it. You can trust Him because anywhere He asks you to go, He has been there too. This is not an easy path, Lovies. Jesus went to hard places and did hard things; He loved folks everyone else hated or despised. But if you trust us at all, believe me: this is the life you want, this Jesus life. ~ Jen Hatmaker

Here's the thing: No matter where I go, sad things will happen to me, hard things. People I love will die, and sometimes I'll have to tell friends good-bye. I'll meet people who won't like me, and I'll know loneliness. I don't like it, but that's the way it is. ~ Jennifer Archer

There are only two hard things in photography; which way to point the camera and when to release the shutter. ~ Ralph Steiner

Be brave and do not pray for the hard thing to go away, but pray for a bravery that's bigger than the hard thing. ~ Ann Voskamp

'Sesame Street's' genius lies in finding gentle ways to talk about hard things - death, divorce, danger - in terms that children understand and accept. ~ Nancy Gibbs

Not all things will be easy for you, Bailey. It's the hard things that grow us. If you need to get stronger as a performer, then you'll get stronger. ~ Karen Kingsbury

When people go to the theater, people say they want something different, but what they really want is something the same with slight permutations. To really not know what is going to happen next is a hard thing. ~ James Gunn

Maybe we need to look at them and say 'I see your pain. It's real. I feel it too. We can handle it. We can do hard things. Because we are warriors. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

Abortion is a hard thing for Hollywood to deal with because it is so controversial and you don't want to alienate half your audience by sending one message or the other. ~ Cynthia Nixon

Something happened that night; somehow you escaped Purgatory. I can't explain it, but…." Maggie took a deep breath and plunged on. He deserved to know how she felt. "I think you made a choice. You chose life and all the ugly hard things that go with it, even though Heaven would have been easier. ~ Amy Harmon

Just a beginner, but he learned so fast. Everything came so damn easy to him. Not true. The hard things cam easy. But the easy things he found impossibly hard. ~ Janet Fitch

True courage is not the absence of fear; it is refusing to let fear control your actions.

~ from the book "Do Hard Things ~ Alex Brett Harris

The hard things in life, the things you really learn from, happen with a clear mind. ~ Caroline Knapp

The word psyche means two things in Greek, his aunt said. Two very different but interesting things. Butterfly and soul. But when you stop and think about it carefully, butterfly and soul aren't so different, after all, are they? A butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, an ugly sort of earthbound, wormy nothing, and then one day the caterpillar builds a cocoon, and after a certain amount of time the cocoon opens and out comes the butterfly, the most beautiful creature in the world. That's what happens to souls as well, Archie. They struggle in the depths of darkness and ignorance, they suffer through trials and misfortunes, and bit by bit they become purified by those sufferings, strengthened by the hard things that happen to them, and one day, if the soul in question is a worthy soul, it will break out of its cocoon and soar through the air like a magnificent butterfly. ~ Paul Auster

When you are really in love, when it's the right guy, it's not this hard. Things fall into place; they work. If it's meant to be, it'll work itself out. ~ Karyn Bosnak

Overcoming panic attacks has left me humbled. It's taught me how to be brave. It's left me compassionate to the fears and sufferings of other people. It's given me the wisdom that my thoughts and feelings are simply subjective responses, and don't need to be taken as true reflections of reality.
But the most important thing I've learnt from coping with panic is this: No matter what happens in life, no matter how hard things seem, no matter how painful things are, moments always pass like fluffy clouds in a blue sky, and I will be fine. ~ Julie Farrell

At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.The hard thing is finding the courage to do it. ~ Suzanne Collins

There's always a point where you get knocked down. But I draw on what I've learned on the track: If you work hard, things will work out. ~ Lolo Jones

But here's the point: at times you may feel the hard things you're doing can't make a difference
just like a solitary finger snap seems so quiet and one raindrop seems so insignificant. But when you have an entire generation snapping their fingers, when you have an entire generation being faithful in their spheres with their own gifts and opportunities ...
Without any cue, the audience starts snapping their fingers, then patting their legs, then clapping, then stomping ...
... and the single raindrops become a flood. ~ Alex Harris

When life is good and we have no problems, we can almost let ourselves believe we have no need for God. But in my experience, sometimes the richest blessings come through pain and hard things. ~ Anne Graham Lotz

It's a hard thing to hold a civil conversation after recalling that one party has used a Taser on the other, so both of them finished the walk in silence. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

A poor man is not disposed to quick and high resentment when he is among the rich: he is apt to yield to others, for he knows others are above him: he is not stiff and self-willed; he is patient with hard fare; he expects no other than to be despised, and takes it patiently; he does not take it heinously that he overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in a lowly place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him, but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian. ~ Jonathan Edwards

All hard things are temporary.
Time is changing constantly.
Keep faith. ~ Purvi Raniga

Taking in the good is not about putting a happy shiny face on everything, nor is it about turning away from the hard things in life. It's about nourishing well-being, contentment, and peace inside that are refuges you can always come from and return to. ~ Rick Hanson

It's a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it. ~ John Steinbeck

I suspect the soviets never did want to use those bombs. The most Stalinist of Soviet hard-liners - Stalin, for example - must have realized a nuclear war would be a hard thing to clean up after. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The key to teaching anything is to remember what it was like not to understand that thing. That's a very hard thing to do. Every time you come to understand something you didn't understand before, you are transformed. You become a different person from who you were before. The key to teaching someone else to understand that same thing is to remember your former, untransformed self. If you can do that, I think you can teach anything, even physics. ~ David Goodstein

Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible. ~ Larry Wall

I was willing to do it. was determined to do it. By the end of the day, that had become my reaction to all of the signs of hard things ahead - a new purposefulness, hardy resolve. Everything I'd encountered so far - the law, my classmates, the great piece of discovery - had left me in deep thrall and I was bent on making sure that continued. I would have the best of it, I decided, whatever the obstacles. ~ Scott Turow