Struggle Quotes

It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. ~ Leo Tolstoy

It is a fight and struggle to just be yourself. ~ Brooke Valentine

[I]t seems to me that a lot of the stranger ideas people have about medicine derive from an emotional struggle with the very notion of a pharmaceutical industry. Whatever our political leanings, we all feel nervous about profit taking any role in the caring professions, but that feeling has nowhere to go. Big pharma is evil; I would agree with that premise. But because people don't understand exactly how big pharma is evil, their anger gets diverted away from valid criticisms - its role in distorting data, for example, or withholding lifesaving AIDS drugs from the developing world - and channeled into infantile fantasies. "Big pharma is evil," goes the line of reasoning; "therefore homeopathy works and the MMR vaccine causes autism." This is probably not helpful. ~ Ben Goldacre

Maybe it was easier if you knew your child was dead. It was a thought that stopped him in his tracks sometimes but he knew that it was the truth. If the child was dead then you had to figure out a way forward. It was being locked in this permanent state of limbo that was keeping Sarah in bed.One night he had come home from the day with a story of one of the young lads sliding through some fairly big cow pats. The boy had landed on his butt and there had been laughter all round. Restrained laughter but, still, it was funny. He had sat on the edge of the bed and related the story to Sarah and she had smiled and then released a small giggle. Immediately he could see her regret it and he had watched her bite down hard on her lip. Hard enough to draw some blood.
'It's okay, Sarah,' he had said gently. 'It's okay to laugh.'
'Bullshit, Doug,' she had spat back at him. 'How can you laugh if he's not laughing? How can I laugh knowing that he may be suffering?'
'I . . . I . . .' Doug had started, then he had left the room.
If a child died did it end this struggle? Could you put your faith in God and heaven and know he was in a better place, laughing with other children? Was that how you were able to move on? ~ Nicole Trope

What would you know of struggle, perfect son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything other than tally compliance's and polish your armor? The people of your world named you "Great One". The people of mine called me slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian High Riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue clad wretches yelling courage and honor, courage and honor, courage and honor! Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage! Honor is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honor! ~ Angron, Wahammer 40K

There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world. ~ Pete Seeger

It's the character that is the strongest that God gives the most challenges to. Take your struggles as a compliment. ~ Carroll O'Connor

The struggle doesn't end just because you know the way. That's when it's only beginning. ~ Paullina Simons

But there's quality behind Dustin's eyes when he talks, a dimness, like the slow fade of a dying flashlight. Like someone forgot to replace the batteries in Dustin's face. This kind of emptiness can only be filled with heartache and struggle and I-don't-know-what...the enormity of things. The shit-stink of life. And neither the enormity nor the shit-stink can be found in a pancake breakfast. Pain is what matters. ~ David Arnold

Every man who is not for us in this prolonged struggle for liberty is responsible for the present degradation of the mothers of the race. It is pitiful to see how few men ever have made our cause their own, but while leaving us to fight our battle alone, they have been unsparing in their criticism of every failure. Of all the battles for liberty in the long past, woman only has been left to fight her own, without help and with all the powers of earth and heaven, human and divine, arrayed against her. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Herein lay the rub. The Americans, like all Western armies, defined "winning" as killing the enemy and securing control over the battlefield. Their opponents in previous conflicts had generally accepted the same definition. Not so the Moros. What was important to them was the struggle and how one conducted oneself, personally and as a people, not necessarily a measurable outcome. They knew from the beginning they were no match for American firepower. It was a one-sided contest, what today is termed "asymmetric warfare," but so what? Their measure was how well one did against the odds, the more overwhelmingly they were against one, the greater the glory. And being that life is transitory anyway, what mattered most was how much courage was shown and how well did one die. The Americans and the Moros were using different score cards for the same game. To the Moros, it was they who had "won. ~ Robert A. Fulton

This is a beautiful and hopeful time to be alive. We are at a turning point, and your contribution to the world is needed more than ever. All of your struggles, all the struggles of your ancestors, all the struggles of all life have led to this moment right now. You are the culmination of life's great yearning; you are the hope of the world. ~ Ilchi Lee

We have been helping, trying to help Afghanistan in many ways, even from the beginning of ... the beginnings of the '20s, 1920s, when he we were fighting our own national struggle. ~ Bulent Ecevit

The world is full of horror. Our imaginations struggle to keep up. It would be a poor life without imagining. I'm not sure we can have any salvation, in fact, without imagining. ~ Steve Rasnic Tem

We are living at a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension - huge yachts, jet planes, tens of billions of dollars, more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. But at the same time, millions of people are struggling to feed their families or put a roof over their heads or find the money to go to a doctor. ~ Bernie Sanders

Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings. ~ Edward W. Said

My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people and that leads you into land reform into Black English into Angola leads you back into your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful, or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. And the scale shrinks to the size of a skull: your own interior cage. ~ June Jordan

What you are, and who you are should provide greater clarity about where you have been and where you are headed. Although one distinguishes spiritual from physical nature, the ultimate unification of the two is the consequence of the struggle for internal, external and eternal – peace. ~ T.F. Hodge

Woman's Anthem
Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves.
As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up.
For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.
Our salvation will only come if we stand together ~ Lang Leav

When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789, he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

His large hand closes across around my mouth to stop me from screaming, and he holds me easily in place. The logical part of my brain is expecting this and tries to quell the spike of adrenaline which rushes through my body, but the instinct to fight is stronger than I'd anticipated. Impulsively I struggle to break out of the bonds of his arms, and he tightens his grip on me instantly. ~ Felicity Brandon

Those who march with us will certainly face abuse, misunderstanding, bitter animosity, and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger. In return, we can only offer to them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live. ~ Oswald Mosley

Whenever women struggle with breast cancer and face better care than ever, that's feminism. ~ Bell Hooks

I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at the end of a long struggle. ~ Cheryl Strayed

A lot of the struggle I had with movies is I really loved moments and tones and feelings in a scene, and I loved creating those, but I never really had great stories to string them together. ~ Louis C.K.

At the root of every large struggle in life is the need to be honest about something that we do not feel we can be honest about. We lie to ourselves or other people because the truth might require action on our part, and action requires courage. We say we "don't know" what is wrong, when we do know what is wrong; we just wish we didn't.
Art lets us tell the truth, but even art can be something to hide behind. ~ Deb Caletti

Faces

...I
...don't
...know
...the real
...me ~ Ellen Hopkins

During our glorious year of 1974–5, while I was dithering over gravitational waves, and Stephen was leading our merged group in black hole research, Stephen himself had an insight even more radical than his discovery of Hawking radiation. He gave a compelling, almost airtight proof that, when a black hole forms and then subsequently evaporates away completely by emitting radiation, the information that went into the black hole cannot come back out. Information is inevitably lost.
This is radical because the laws of quantum physics insist unequivocally that information can never get totally lost. So, if Stephen was right, black holes violate a most fundamental quantum mechanical law.
How could this be? The black hole's evaporation is governed by the combined laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity - the ill-understood laws of quantum gravity; and so, Stephen reasoned, the fiery marriage of relativity and quantum physics must lead to information destruction.
The great majority of theoretical physicists find this conclusion abhorrent. They are highly sceptical. And so, for forty-four years they have struggled with this so-called information-loss paradox. It is a struggle well worth the effort and anguish that have gone into it, since this paradox is a powerful key for understanding the quantum gravity laws. Stephen himself, in 2003, found a way that information might escape during the hole's evaporation, but that did not quell theorists' struggles. Stephe ~ Stephen Hawking

Some people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness, to yearn for happiness-"some time in the future"-perhaps next year or the year after that. But not now. Not at this moment. Not here. Here and now is too terrifyingly close, too terrifyingly immediate. They suffer from happiness anxiety. ~ Nathaniel Branden

God wants to help us ... He loves us ... we are His children. But He will not force His help on us at any time. He sees us when we struggle and fight and complain our way through things. And I believe it breaks His heart, when all we have to do is ask Him for help. ~ Joyce Meyer

This power, this black power, originates in a view of the American galaxy taken from a dark and essential planet. Black power is the dungeon-side view of Monticello - which is to say, the view taken in struggle. And black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

You man that tiller day and night. Won't you rest?'
Ereko lightly laughed the suggestion aside. 'No, lad. I am so old now that sleeping and waking have melded together into one and I know not which I inhabit.'
Watching the lad struggle through that, Ereko shifted course slightly to avoid a looming ice-spire.
'Truly? So old? As old as the mountains?'
Ereko raised his brows. 'Goodness, no. Not that old. Only half so old, I should think. ~ Ian C. Esslemont

It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end. ~ Washington Irving

You climb only because the mountain allows it. If it says wait, then you must wait, and when it allows you to go, then you must struggle and strain in the thin air with all your might. Listening to the mountain and having patience on it are the keys to survival. ~ Bear Grylls

I struggle to discover what these silent sons of mine want, but words have always failed me. They are sullen even as they tell me they are okay. I know they are lying but there is nothing I can do. ~ Jinat Rehana Begum

Women should be respected as well! Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn't women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers? ... Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together! ~ Anne Frank

Most people coming out of war feel lost and resentful. What had been a minute-to-minute confrontation with yourself, your struggle with what courage you have against discomfort, at the least, and death at the other end, ties you to the people you have known in the war and makes for a time others seem alien and frivolous. ~ Lillian Hellman

It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below of your country. It breaks too much of what we would like to think about ourselves, our lives, the world we move through and the people who surround us. The struggle to understand is our only advantage over this madness. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Taylor, listen to me. I could tell you that it's okay. That she wasn't a wonderful person, or I didn't love her. I could tell you that she's happier now, and her life would've been sad and filled with pain and longing to see her love again. I could say that I'm not struggling with her death, as well as the death of the hope that she could once again be part of my life. But instead I'll just say that I'm sad, too, sweetheart. That way I can spare you the struggle of detecting the lie in my words. ~ Embee

The truth is that The Wild One -- despite an admittedly fictional treatment -- was an inspired piece of film journalism. Instead of institutionalizing common knowledge, in the style of Time, it told a story that was only beginning to happen and which was inevitably influenced by the film. It gave the outlaws a lasting, romance-glazed image of themselves, a coherent reflection that only a very few had been able to find in a mirror, and it quickly became the bike rider's answer to The Sun Also Rises. The image is not valid, but its wide acceptance can hardly be blamed on the movie. The Wild One was careful to distinguish between "good outlaws" and "bad outlaws," but the people who were most influenced chose to identify with Brando instead of Lee Marvin whose role as the villain was a lot more true to life than Brando's portrayal of the confused hero. They saw themselves as modern Robin Hoods ... virile, inarticulate brutes whose good instincts got warped somewhere in the struggle for self-expression and who spent the rest of their violent lives seeking revenge on a world that done them wrong when they were young and defenseless. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

Every single person. Regardless of their sin struggle. ~ Karen Kingsbury

I had a sense that my mother was struggling, when I was a kid, working twelve hour days, making $12,000 a year with two kids in a trailer park. ~ Cecily McMillan

The struggle between centralization and decentralization is at the core of American history. ~ Anthony Gregory

On any given morning, I might not be able to list for you the facts I know about God. But I can tell you what I wish to commit myself to, what I want for the foundation of my life, how I want to see. When I stand with the faithful at Holy Comforter and declare that we believe in one God . . . I am saying, Let this be my scaffolding. Let this be the place I work, struggle, play, rest. I commit myself to this. ~ Lauren F. Winner

Poets often have a conscious awareness that they are struggling with the daimonic, and that the issue is their working something through from the depths which push the self to a new plane. ~ Rollo May

It is only through such real-life daily struggles and challenges that a genuine sensitivity to human rights can be inculcated. This is a truth that is not limited to school education: it applies to all of us. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

True power is not in trying to gain power; true power is in becoming power. But how to become power? It requires an attempt to make a definite change in oneself, and that change is a kind of struggle with one's false self. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Socialism, Puritanism, Philistinism, Christianity - he saw them all as allotropic forms of democracy, as variations upon the endless struggle of quantity against quality, of the weak and timorous against the strong and enterprising, of the botched against the fit. ~ H.L. Mencken

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. ~ Atul Gawande

There is a Restlessness springing from the consciousness of power not fully utilized, which must be present wherever there is unused power of whatever kind. This is the restlessness of the germ within the seed, struggling upward and downward towards its proper life.it is a striving full of pain, the cutting of tender flesh by the fetters of the captive as he struggles against their pitilessness. ~ Anna Brackett

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda. ~ Martin Buber

Last, but by no means least, courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle_ the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other. ~ Douglas MacArthur

Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

The struggle between Jews and zombies would drag on, itself zombie-like, unless they found a way to pass beyond Jews and Zombies. The future. She was the future. New blood, and a new beginning. Breaking the old wheel of tradition. Helix and double-helix, and the doubling was a necessary part of the helix. She ~ Rebecca Levene

Deaf people are struggling to find their favorite show or something that represents them. It's hard. There are some examples of shows that have a deaf storyline in one episode, like Cold Case, or another show where they are focusing on the cochlear implant or the medical aspect. ~ Sean Berdy

In some sense the text and the translator are locked in struggle - 'I attacked that sentence, it resisted me, I attacked another, it eluded me' - a struggle in which, curiously, when the translator wins, the text wins too ... ~ Lydia Davis

Today's struggle will be tomorrow's strength so welcome it with love and courage. ~ Debasish Mridha

Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains, ~ John Sentamu

The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify Less. Less time alone with parents. Less attention for hurts and disappointments. Less approval for accomplishments ... No wonder children struggle so fiercely to be first or best. No wonder they mobilize all their energy to have more or most. Or better still, all. ~ Adele Faber

Education is our basic right. Not just in the West; Islam too has given us this right. Islam says every girl and every boy should go to school. In the Quran it is written, God wants us to have knowledge. He wants us to know why the sky is blue and about oceans and stars. I know it's a big struggle - around the world there are fifty-seven million children who are not in primary school, thirty-two million of them girls. ~ Malala Yousafzai

We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom. ~ Mohammed Morsi

I relate to what Gov. Romney brings. I know what it means to balance a budget. I know what it means to write a paycheck and not only cash one. I know what it means to create a job, and I know what it means to struggle with my business every day in terms of keeping our doors open any day but definitely in a difficult economy. ~ Sher Valenzuela

Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that. ~ James Brown

Certainly the death of Christ has been understood as expiation for human sin through the whole length of church history, and I defer with all possible sincerity to the central tenets of the Christian tradition, but as for myself, I confess that I struggle to understand the phenomenon of ritual sacrifice, and the Crucifixion when explicated in its terms. The concept is so central to the tradition that I have no desire to take issue with it, and so difficult for me that I leave it for others to interpret. If it answered to a deep human need at other times, and it answers now to other spirits than mine, then it is a great kindness of God toward them, and a great proof of God's attentive grace toward his creatures. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Women's vulnerability around money is hardly exclusive to Africa. Throughout the world, women struggle with financial power. In the West, women's financial literacy is notably lower than men's. That lack of knowledge means that many women slide into poverty when they become widows. ~ Ann Cotton

Years ago, a Muslim woman called my radio show and asked me why I was not a Muslim. She asked this question with complete sincerity, and I answered her with equal sincerity.
The name of her religion, I told her, is Islam, which in Arabic means submission (to God). The name of the Jewish people is Israel, which in Hebrew means struggle with God. I'd rather struggle with God, I said, than only submit to God.
She thanked me and hung up. The answer apparently satisfied her.
Arguing/struggling with God is not only Jewishly permitted, it is central to the Torah and later Judaism. In this regard, as in others, the Torah is unique. In no other foundational religious text of which I am aware is arguing with God a religious expectation. The very first Jew, Abraham, argues with God, as does the greatest Jew, Moses. (It is worth noting that though Muslims consider Abraham their father as well, arguing with God has no place in the Quran or in normative Islam.)
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this Jewish concept. For one thing, it enabled Jews to believe in the importance of reason - God Himself could be challenged on the basis of reason and morality; one does not have to suspend reason to be a believing Jew. Indeed, it assured Jews that belief in God was itself the apotheosis of reason. For another, it had profound psychological benefits to Jews. We do not have to squelch our questioning of, or even our anger at, God. One can be both religious and real ~ Dennis Prager

If you're always thinking thoughts of lack, not enough, and struggle, you're moving toward the wrong things. ~ Joel Osteen

My early self-portraits appeared effortlessly and seemed like equivalents for my deeper emotions. Many critics remarked that the images had an almost other-worldly haunting presence. For me, they were simply my own reality at that point in my life. What I was trying to reveal was my inner soul in all its fragile complexity. Without knowing it, I was trying to peel back the layers that shroud and bind us all as we struggle to reveal our own authentic selves. ~ Joyce Tenneson

Struggles make you stronger and the changes make you wiser and happiness has its own way of taking its sweet time. Life isn't always lovely, but it's a beautiful ride. ~ Gary Allan

There are situations when all answers and explanations fade. When you fully accept that you do not know, you give up struggling to find answers with the limited thinking mind. That is when the greater intelligence can operate though you. Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing. ~ Eckhart Tolle

I really try as hard as I can on the show. If people can't see my face, if they can't see my sweat beads or at least that I'm struggling, that I'm not just pretending or going through the motions, then who can blame them for thinking that it's some kind of ridiculous piss-take? ~ John Maus

Leaders fight for freedom of action. Managers struggle to understand the rules and staying in their parameters. ~ Elena D. Calin

Beauty is not defined by the clothes you wear or the makeup on your face BUT by the way you carry your struggles with smiles, hard work & love ~ Lauren Jauregui

The reason so many believers are struggling is that we have voted in the past asking God to bless our plans rather than casting our votes based on seeking His agenda. We want God to sign off on our decisions rather than us following His. ~ Tony Evans

If you fight you won't always win. But if you don't fight you will always lose ~ Bob Crow

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism. ~ George Orwell

I really struggle to get up in the morning, but I also get my best ideas really late at night, when I'm trying to sleep. ~ Nina Nesbitt

We can deny angels exist, convince ourselves they can't be real. But they show up anyway, at strange places and at strange times. They can speak through any character we can imagine. They'll shout through demons if they have to. Daring us, challenging us to fight. ~ Sucker Punch Movie

Readers have told me that their children have learned to read after years of struggle after starting to read Garfield's comic strip and many people who have moved to the United States have said that they, too, learned English by reading Garfield. ~ Jim Davis

That's the problem of today's generation. You want all the things quickly. You all hate to struggle. You see the life into two extremes, either success or failure, either rich or broke, either victory or defeat. You see the life in all black and white, but there are various shades of gray in-between two extremes of black and white and life happens to be there. ~ HBR Patel

What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures ... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth
an ordinary life. ~ Irena Klepfisz

For the 95 per cent whose only means of schooling is the district or the city school, we must provide what we are not now providing, an education that will better fit them for the struggle of life. ~ Arthur Capper

The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb- time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night. ~ John O'Donohue

By releasing these five top Taliban commanders, the U.S. is demonstrating that it is throwing in the towel in the long struggle against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan. ~ Jonathan S. Tobin

In 1989, my father died after a prolonged struggle with Alzheimer's disease. All four of his siblings followed him into the shadow lands of that fascinating, maddening affliction. ~ Charlie Pierce

Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn't sustain my interest. ~ Aimee Bender

If you make a film normally it's all right, the distributors are helpful and cooperative. But if you make a film that's a little stange, a little bizarre, then all the time it's a struggle with them. ~ Dario Argento

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery - that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are ... This kind of unmasking - speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges - is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. ~ John Welwood

I guess that is what dying must be like; to be finished and to be able to look back at the struggles of life, and know that God was your constant companion. ~ Mother Angelica

Now, as a reader, you shouldn't feel the decisions the writer makes about this DNA, or it would be boring beyond belief. But, as a writer, you're struggling to make these decisions. What should the title be? What's the first line? The point of view? And the struggle with the decisions is because you're trying to figure out WHAT IS THE NOVEL, WHAT IS THE NOVEL? ~ Mary Kay Zuravleff

A study of animal communities has this advantage: they are merely what they are, for anyone to see who will and can look clearly; they cannot complicate the picture by worded idealisms, by saying one thing and being another; here the struggle is unmasked and the beauty is unmasked. ~ John Steinbeck

Curiously, directing my own films have made me more tolerant and patient. I've always been an extremely impatient actor. Waiting around drove me nuts. But now I'm much more sympathetic to a director's struggle. ~ Robert Redford

The character and the play of Hamlet are central to any discussion of Shakespeare's work. Hamlet has been described as melancholic and neurotic, as having an Oedipus complex, as being a failure and indecisive, as well as being a hero, and a perfect Renaissance prince. These judgements serve perhaps only to show how many interpretations of one character may be put forward. 'To be or not to be' is the centre of Hamlet's questioning. Reasons not to go on living outnumber reasons for living. But he goes on living, until he completes his revenge for his father's murder, and becomes 'most royal', the true 'Prince of Denmark' (which is the play's subtitle), in many ways the perfection of Renaissance man.
Hamlet's progress is a 'struggle of becoming' - of coming to terms with life, and learning to accept it, with all its drawbacks and challenges. He discusses the problems he faces directly with the audience, in a series of seven soliloquies - of which 'To be or not to be' is the fourth and central one. These seven steps, from the zero-point of a desire not to live, to complete awareness and acceptance (as he says, 'the readiness is all'), give a structure to the play, making the progress all the more tragic, as Hamlet reaches his aim, the perfection of his life, only to die. ~ Ronald Carter

We all have struggles in life but we have to continue to fight ~ Mike Tyson

The chief characteristics of my childhood were an aching loneliness and the daily struggle to avoid a bleakness of spirit that unrelieved loneliness can foment. ~ Dean Koontz

[P]olitics is always a Kampfplatz. ~ Perry Anderson

Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God. ~ Paul E. Miller

I sat and reflected on the situation I had faced
I needed answers to the questions I still, didnt have the courage to ask ...
But I need to know,
How was this to be apart of my destiny? ~ Nikki Rowe

I work in the field of art, and you know how during a period of Marxist ideology, fewer people are inclined to believe in the power of the culture as a whole: they believe in the revolutionary potential of economics, class struggle theory ... Therefore it's time to show that art means the power of creativity, and it's time to define art in a larger way, to include science and religion too..(1973 ~ Joseph Beuys