Robust And Focused Quotes

In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill on the way which may seem to be the end of the journey, but should a pilgrim of life climb such a mountain with tenacity and courage and gets to its apex, he would not only deeply feel and understand the tenacity and the courage it takes to climb the mountain, but he would also see ahead and have a clearer picture of the way forward better! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

True freedom is in striving through adversities to accomplish all noble things that need to be done so that we may be free from any blame in the end! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The whole journey of life has been broken down into bits: days! Day by day we live life! Day by day we live and leave something behind; something good or something bad! Something mediocre or something noble! Until you know how to use your day, you may end your days and ponder over your days; how you used them and how you wasted them! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We're told that parents push their children too hard to excel (by ghostwriting their homework and hiring tutors, and demanding that they triumph over their peers), but also that parents try to protect kids from competition (by giving trophies to everyone), that expectations have declined, that too much attention is paid to making children happy.
Similarly, young adults are described as self-satisfied twits - more pleased with themselves than their accomplishments merit - but also as being so miserable that they're in therapy. Or there's an epidemic of helicopter parenting, even though parents are so focused on their gadgets that they ignore their children. The assumption seems to be that readers will just nod right along, failing to note any inconsistencies, as long as the tone is derogatory and the perspective is traditionalist. ~ Alfie Kohn

I focused on his eyes and really locked onto them. I could feel myself falling into a world of blue that wiped the chills from my body and filled my heart with warmth. The depths I could see in his eyes were far more than any hallucination could create. I recognized them as the eyes I gave my heart and soul to. They were the same ones that gave me Hunter's whole being and never looked back. There was no doubt in my mind this was the man I fell in love with. I was doing it all over again in that very moment. ~ L.J. Kentowski

I just got another kitten, you know. Found another trademark. It's quite embarrassing I missed it."
"Nine cats? They can send you to prison for that."
He pushed his glasses back on his nose. "I'm calling him Murad, after the cigarettes."
"Never heard of them."
"They're an obsolete Turkish brand, popular in the 1910s and '20s. Murad means 'desire' in Arabic. The only brand that ever appears in a Cordova film is Murad. There's not one Marlboro, Camel, or Virginia Slim. It goes further. If the Murad cigarette is focused upon by the camera in any Cordova film. The very next person who appears on-screen has been devastatingly targeted. In other words, the gods will have drawn a great big X across his shoulder blades and taped an invisible sign there that reads FUCKED. His life will henceforth never be the same. ~ Marisha Pessl

Al Qaeda is very media-savvy and very focused on what goes on in the global media. ~ Michael Chertoff

Don't let your ego put you in a compromising situation. Don't allow your pride to keep you from seeking the help you need. And don't give in to your fears. Stay focused. ~ Amaka Imani Nkosazana

My brothers can be a little out of control sometimes and so somebody has to be able to keep them focused. ~ Keenen Ivory Wayans

Now," he said. "I want to hear about your day. Did you read any new books?"
"I've read all the books we have." She wrinkled her nose. "Armies aren't very good about carrying libraries with them. I can't imagine why. We'd fight so much less if everyone would just sit down and read."
Gifford's laugh rumbled through him, loud against her ear. "A question I often ask myself. Imagine how much money the realm would save if the rulers focused their finances on libraries, rather than wars."
"Not if I were allowed to shop for books."
"England would go bankrupt," he said gravely. "Thank God for wars."
She pushed him away, playful. "You can't switch sides like that."
The corner of his mouth quirked up. "It's too late. I've switched already, and since you've forbidden switching that quickly again, I'm stuck opposing you."
"Congratulations," she said. "You've just described our entire relationship. ~ Cynthia Hand

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Boy band fangirls are a species that are more focused, determined and powerful in large numbers than just about any other group of people I can think of ~ Goldy Moldavsky

I once knew a woman who liked to imagine Love in the guise of a sturdy dog, one that would always chase down the stick after it was thrown and return with his ears flopping around happily. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyeilding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur. ~ Andrew Davidson

In 2006, the global economy was doing well. In India, the political and economic situation was stable. All key macroeconomic indicators reflected an economy that was in robust good health. ~ Baba Kalyani

I did learn from many mistakes. First and foremost, I learned that it is important to create a wide base of support within the LDP. In forming the cabinet this time, I included almost all the members of the LDP whom I ran against during the party election for president. Also, as a result of the lessons I learned, this time my policy priorities have become very clear. This would include first and foremost restoring a robust economy. I believe this has resulted in the strong support that I am getting from the people. ~ Shinzo Abe

Ico thrust out his left hand, shouting to the girl. She had already sunk to her knees.
For the space of a breath, barely long enough to blink, she hesitated. Her eyes focused on Ico, questioning, trying to peer into the bottom of his soul. Where her gaze fell on him, he felt cool, as though clear water washed over him. He gasped with the sensation.
She thrust out her arm and grabbed his hand. ~ Miyuki Miyabe

It is theoretically and practically impossible to build any community apart from love and justice. If only one of these two is focused upon, an inevitable extremism and perversion follow. ~ Ravi Zacharias

It sounds really cheesy, but I've just really been so focused on making sure that I am nice to everyone that I work with and making the effort to get to know the people on set, whether it's the catering crew or the famous photographer. ~ Gigi Hadid

Staying enthused about finding things; discovering new beauty in the world that can translate into music. That's the most precious sort of resource. You have to pull stuff from outside of the musical realm. Whatever muscle it is that it takes to listen to music and stay focused, in me, is really strong. ~ Blake Mills

The automotive X Prize, to a great degree, is focused on addressing petroleum usage and carbon emissions. ~ Peter Diamandis

It's a cliche to say this now, but to me, 'The Sopranos' is like Dickens. It's able to take this very focused look at something but make it epic and profound. ~ Stephen Merchant

In trying to commit my life to finding and participating in some of the purposes of Christ, as I can determine them, my energies and abilities are gradually being focused and are working together. ~ Keith Miller

Working on 'Fresh Off the Boat' has been really enlightening to me because it's made me actually think about the roles that Asians and Asian-American women have played in media. Not because I didn't think it was important before, but because before, I was really focused on just paying my rent. ~ Constance Wu

After working as a producer on many pop, electronica and some soundtrack, incidental music projects, I became more focused on film and TV scores. ~ Paul Wardingham

To dig a straight furrow, the plowman needs to keep his eyes on a fixed point ahead of him. That keeps him on a true course. If, however, he happens to look back to see where he has been, his chances of straying are increased. The results are crooked and irregular furrows ... Fix your attention on your ... goals and never look back on your earlier problems ... If our energies are focused not behind us but ahead of us
on eternal life and the joy of salvation
we assuredly will obtain it. ~ Howard W. Hunter

Every city across the country that has successfully renewed and revitalized itself points to a robust education system as its fundamental key to success. ~ Alan Autry

If you can't live through adversity, you'll never be good at what you do. You have to live through the unfair things, and you have to develop the hide to not let it bother you and keep your eyes focused on what you have to do. ~ Maurice R. Greenberg

So many directors are solely focused on their own success in Hollywood and multimillion dollar budgets and deals. ~ Shirley Knight

I open the toilet door and step out, my internal fire re-stoked, ready to face my demons, fight if need be and win. I'm raging, focused like a jungle warrior after his second bowl of tiger-cock soup. ~ John Bowie

During the so-called Jazz Age, most of the music's key exponents focused their creative energy on soloing not bandleading, on improvisation not orchestration, on an interplay between individual instruments not between sections.
[...] Commercial pressures, rather than artistic prerogatives, stand out as the spur that forced many early jazz players (including Armstrong, Beiderbecke, and Hines) to embrace the big band idiom. But even in the new setting, they remained improvisers, first and foremost, not orchestrators or composers. ~ Ted Gioia

Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay. ~ Isaac Marion

From the perspective of sixties radicals, who regularly watched antiwar demonstrations attacked by nationalist teamsters and construction workers, the reactionary implications of corporatism appeared self-evident. The corporate suits and the well-paid, Archie Bunker elements of the industrial proletariat were clearly on the same side. Unsurprising then that the left-wing critique of bureaucracy at the time focused on the ways that social democracy had more in common with fascism than its proponents cared to admit. Unsurprising, too, that this critique seems utterly irrelevant today.*

What began to happen in the seventies, and paved the way for what we see today, was a kind of strategic pivot of the upper echelons of U.S. corporate bureaucracy - away from the workers, and towards shareholders, and eventually, towards the financial structure as a whole.
__________
*Though it is notable that it is precisely this sixties radical equation of communism, fascism, and the bureaucratic welfare state that has been taken up by right-wing populists in America today. The internet is rife with such rhetoric. One need only consider the way that 'Obamacare' is continually equated with socialism and Nazism, often both at the same time. ~ David Graeber

I think that we live in a very timid age, and a part of our timidity arises from our unwillingness to offend people. And as a result there are whole tribes of people now who define themselves by their offendedness. I mean, who are you if you are not offended by anything? You're kind of nobody or even worse, you are a liberal. And I just think that whole business defining yourself by anger is very problematic. And then the fact that we all kind of bend over backwards not to induce that anger becomes very often also a problem and a kind of cowardice, if you like. And I think we just need to live in a more robust society in which people say things that other people don't like and the answer to that is not to throw a bomb at them, but to say "I don't like that much" and then get on with the next business. ~ Salman Rushdie

If we do nothing, we still get to a post-carbon future, but it will be bleak. However, if we plan the transition, we can have a world that supports robust communities of healthy, creative people and ecosystems with millions of other species. ~ Richard Heinberg

He dragged her to him, and she, being equally focused on attaching her mouth to his, lost her balance. Stepping in for the save, he held her up against the doorjamb with his hard body, mouth rasping hers, tongue deep enough to touch her soul. Could be oxygen deprivation, but she saw stars behind her closed lids. ~ Erin Kellison

I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the English landscape in search of ancient field systems, drove roads, indications of prehistoric settlement. ~ Penelope Lively

The best way to contain China and make it the peaceful rise of China is for us to have an enormously robust navy that is the greatest navy in the world, that can patrol two oceans, that can fight two or three wars, and China will not challenge us because the Chinese are practical. ~ Rudy Giuliani

In the tradition of national income accounting, economic policymakers have typically focused on variables such as income, wealth, and consumption. ~ Ben Bernanke

Perversion is used only to overcome moral prejudices or conformity; the mind and desire must become amoral, focused and made entirely acceptive so that the life-force is free of inhibitions prior to the control. Thus, the Sabbath becomes a deliberate sex-orgy for the purpose of materialization: the Great Reality of 'as if (wishful thinking). Sex is fully exploited: he who injures none, himself does not injure. ~ Anonymous

I've really been very focused on Jessica Jones. Our series was well on its way to being created by the time we even saw scripts from Daredevil, and Luke Cage didn't even have a showrunner hired then. Jeph Loeb [Marvel TV boss] is the master of the connective tissue, but each series exists in its own world. ~ Melissa Rosenberg

A lizard never thinks something is wrong with the world, even as it watches its young get eaten alive. It doesn't tell itself "something is wrong with the world," because it doesn't have enough neurons to imagine the world being other than what it is. It doesn't expect a world in which there is no predators, so it doesn't condemn the world for falling short of expectations. it doesn't condemn itself for failing to keep its offspring alive. Humans expect more, and we do something about it. That's why we end up focused on our disappointments instead of saluting our accomplishments. ~ Loretta Graziano Breuning

Family-centered parents do not have the emotional freedom, the power, to raise their children with their ultimate welfare truly in mind. If they derive their own security from the family, their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a long-term investment in their children's growth and development. Or they may be focused on the proper and correct behavior of the moment. Any behavior that they consider improper threatens their security. They become upset, guided by the emotions of the moment, spontaneously reacting to the immediate concern rather than the long-term growth and development of the child. They may yell or scream. They may overreact and punish out of bad temper. They tend to love their children conditionally, making them emotionally dependent or counterdependent and rebellious. ~ Stephen R. Covey

It is. You need to understand, the people in this room make decisions that affect trillions of people every day. They are captains of industry and leaders of worlds. They need to be sharp, alert, relaxed, and focused, or everyone suffers. So, all of this opulence you turn your nose at, serves a very real purpose. Keeping the elite happy benefits everyone. In a very real sense, it is for the common good. ~ Aaron Lee Yeager

I went to a boys' school, and I didn't realize that most guys join bands because they wanted to get girls. I was not really focused on that the way everybody else was. ~ Thom Yorke

On this thanksgiving, I would like to thank that one girl, who never lost hope despite all odds were against her, who always worked, and moved on, despite losing all friends just after leaving school, a time when you need friends the most! Who had immense strength and will-power and so much inspiration inside her that she ended up being happy, satisfied, and successful, all alone.
That one girl who always smiles in the mirror, and says, 'Bitch, you have a long way to go, and you gotta travel all alone, depending upon anyone will make you weak, so buck up, there's a lot you gotta do!' On this thanksgiving, I thank myself, my soul for being so majestically robust!
I would have thanked other people, but sadly, nobody ever helped me, more than I helped myself ... ~ Mehek Bassi

During the week,I'm really focused on writing and output. Sunday is a day when I really try not to write at all. ~ Rebecca Stead

But Amarantha rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. "Shatter him, Rhysand." She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. "You may do what you want with the body afterward."
The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed - as if he'd been given a gift - and looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready - relieved.
Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.
"I'm growing bored, Rhysand," Amarantha said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn't looked at me once, too focused on her current prey.
Rhysand's fingers curled into a fist.
The faerie male's eyes went wide - then glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor.
That fast - that easily, that irrevocably … he was dead.
"I said shatter his mind, not his brain," Amarantha snapped.
The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it - to crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Tamlin hadn't flinched - not a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn't broken that distant expression, that control?
Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. "Apologies, my queen." He turned away without being dismissed, and didn't look at me as h ~ Sarah J. Maas

There's a very natural tendency (that we've certainly experienced) for adoptive parents to want to become the sole identified parent for their child right away, to the point where you want your child only to acknowledge you and your family as their own and not their birth family. Especially if the adoption process has been a difficult or contentious one, it may be that you as the adoptive parent feel a bit threatened by the continued presence of the birth parent in your child's life, even if it's as infrequent as a once-yearly visit. But as I'm sure you'll read the current thinking is very focused on the overall benefits to the child of having this process no longer cloaked in the shadows, but out in the open. ~ William Gregory

Laurie herself was more focused on the years when her kids were little, when she felt so necessary and purposeful, a battery all charged up with love. Every day she used it up and every night it got miraculously replenished. Nothing had ever been as good as that. ~ Tom Perrotta

Instead of focusing on men and focusing on what we can do to prop them up, people seem really incredibly focused on the fact that women are doing well and maybe that's not such a good thing. ~ Jessica Valenti

Religion is inwardly focused and driven only to sustain itself. ~ Kary Mullis

I'm focused on the next generation, because I think it's very hard to break the habit of adults who've got salt and sugar addictions and just ways of being in this world. It's very hard even for the most enlightened people at famous universities that are very wealthy to spend the money that it takes to feed the students something delicious. ~ Alice Waters