Struggling To Survive Quotes

Relieved of moral pretense and stripped of folk costumes, the raw masculinity that all men know in their gut has to do with being good at being a man within a small, embattled gang of men struggling to survive. ~ Jack Donovan

Just as legendary rivers were used to represent the flow of life, so Mount Athos is a handy image to show human vulnerability. Its minerals themselves reminding us that ours is a planet constituted around Nature's awesome violence! Struggling to survive then, is integral to our existence. Literature on these issues, transforming rock and boulder into a subjective mountain, where fleshly mountaineers set forth, in the blinding brilliance of an alpine dawn, to ascend their own transgressions, remains telling. Breathing in, when nearing the top, to smell the pure air of spiritual comprehension: of heady intrinsic freedom, only to descend, once more, into the obscure and the pedestrian; albeit existentially transformed! In this way, indeed, Mount Athos transfigures many a man. ~ David William Parry

[…] I began to see Algiers as one of the most fascinating and dramatic places on earth. In the small space of this beautiful but congested city intersected two great conflicts of the contemporary world. The first was the one between Christianity and Islam (expressed here in the clash between colonizing France and colonized Algeria). The second, which acquired a sharpness of focus immediately after the independence and departure of the French, was a conflict at the very heart of Islam, between its open, dialectical - I would even say "Mediterranean" - current and its other, inward-looking one, born of a sense of uncertainty and confusion vis-à-vis the contemporary world, guided by fundamentalists who take advantage of modern technology and organizational principles yet at the same time deem the defense of faith and custom against modernity as the condition of their own existence, their sole identity.

[…] In Algiers one speaks simply of the existence of two varieties of Islam - one, which is called the Islam of the desert, and a second, which is defined as the Islam of the river (or of the sea). The first is the religion practiced by warlike nomadic tribes struggling to survive in one of the world's most hostile environments, the Sahara. The second Islam is the faith of merchants, itinerant peddlers, people of the road and of the bazaar, for whom openness, compromise, and exchange are not only beneficial to trade, but necessary to life itself. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

In Tanzania, the chimps are isolated in a very tiny patch of forest. I flew over it 13 years ago and realized that, basically, all the trees had gone, that people all around the park are struggling to survive. It became very clear that there was no way to protect the chimps while the people were in this dire circumstance. ~ Jane Goodall

The image Miisi had constructed in Britain of the noble African rooted in his cultural values shunning westernization was a myth. What he returned to were people struggling to survive, who in the process had lost the ability to discern the vivid colours of right and wrong. Anything that gave them a chance to survive was moral. ~ Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Someone recently told me that there are no winners in a tragedy, only people struggling to survive the aftermath." "Can't ~ Ruth Cardello

I think great businessmen are more likely made than born. I don't know if it's from your upbringing, your parental background, the struggles you go through. In my own particular situation, I left school at 15 and I was struggling to survive in the jungle and that was a great education. So I think just getting out there, hands on, learning to survive teaches you a lot. ~ Richard Branson

There were times when I would suddenly realize making music is a crazy pipe dream. I would see bands that did super well in South Africa still struggling to survive, or even people on the international level who are doing well but financially can't really support themselves. ~ St. Lucia

My lowest self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk!"
My slightly higher self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk right now only because he's going through a really hard time in life, and his parents never taught him how to behave better, and he might have some sort of mild mental illness, and also he has a drinking problem ... so I should try to be more compassionate and generous toward sad, tragic, miserable people like that."
My even higher self says: "We are all just flawed and frightened human beings in an uncertain world, struggling to survive."
Then finally my VERY highest self says: "Lord, please help me stop acting like a total jerk."
... and that's when it finally stops being about the other person at all. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

When you sever ties with the unit purely for self-serving intentions, you are likely to find yourself stranded and struggling to survive; fighting to keep your head above water. What's more, there is no one to save you because you've turned your back on your comrades and snubbed your support system. ~ Carlos Wallace

I feel profoundly alone, cut off, unattractive…I feel unloveable. But I respect that unloveable solider - struggling to survive, struggling to be honest, just, honourable. I respect myself. ~ Susan Sontag

The full extent of the problem of hunger is not obvious to most of us. We see the homeless, but there are a great number of working poor, struggling to survive, who don't have enough money to put adequate food on the table. We must find a solution to this ever-increasing problem - and quickly. ~ Scott Glenn

Many with the mindset of survival will end up struggling to survive. Aim for the stars, if you'll land you will among the clouds. ~ Onawale Stephen

Freedom means more than just struggling to survive. ~ Lisa M

There's no moral issue for me. I did the best science I could. I was struggling to survive and didn't have the luxury of being a moral creature. ~ Howard Moskowitz

When you're struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts. ~ Sara Paretsky

War is too messy to produce easy heroes and villains; there are always brave people on the wrong side, and evil men among the victors, and a mass of perfectly ordinary people struggling to survive and understand in between. Away from the battlefields, war forces individuals to make impossible choices in circumstances they did not create, and could never have expected. Most accommodate, some collaborate, and a very few find an internal compass they never knew they had, pointing to the right path. ~ Ben Macintyre

The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in the face of great odds and difficulties. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

For the first time I realized that my life was just full of brokenness. I worked in a broken system of justice. My clients were broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism. They were torn apart by disease, drugs and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger. I thought of Joe Sullivan and of Trina, Antonio, Ian, and dozens of other broken children we worked with, struggling to survive in prison. I thought of people broken by war, like Herbert Richardson; people broken by poverty, like Marsha Colbey; people broken by disability, like Avery Jenkins. In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice. ~ Bryan Stevenson

I don't put any pressure on myself in terms of what people or fans do or don't want. It really just doesn't occur to me. I honestly just want to make the films I want to see as a fan. The film will survive or fail in my mind by how much I like it. Having said that, everyone wants their films to do well and to be well-received. ~ Neill Blomkamp

If you want to get an education in how to get a story and how to survive, then get a street reporter job in New York City. ~ John Tesh

Glacier blue plasma rippled and sparked across the interior of the portal. "It seems keeping secrets is what you do."

"Secrets are merely the necessary means. Survival is the end goal. Survival of ourselves, survival of species who do not deserve to be eradicated from the universe. Survival of the universe itself."

"Survival's noble and all, but what good is it without the freedom to live as you choose?"

"A question you have the luxury to ask because you survive. ~ G.S. Jennsen

He hadn't forgotten about her defiance, her willfulness, but he didn't find it as charming as he once had. In fact, it was aggravating the hell out of him right now. She should be cowering, trembling with fear. She had to know that she would not survive this meeting, and yet she didn't show one ounce of trepidation. ~ Erica Stevens

All striving comes from lack, from a dissatisfaction with one's condition, and is thus suffering as long as it is not satisfied; but no satisfaction is lasting; instead, it is only the beginning of a new striving. We see striving everywhere inhibited in many ways, struggling everywhere; and thus always suffering; there is no final goal of striving, and therefore no bounds or end to suffering. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger
frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it. ~ Keith Ablow

I don't wear a red cape.
I can't scale buildings like a salamander or leap across canyons
twenty miles wide. I don't have a huge S emblazoned across my chest.
My superpowers come from teaching myself how to survive
when all I wanted to do was be one of the people
that heroes are supposed to save. ~ Meggie Royer

People in that robotic, drone-like state, walking the earth with no set mission other than to survive another day. Missing the glory of the day, missing the potential for beauty and magic that each moment brings. Missing the gift of life, to walk in the footsteps of the mundane. ~ Tony Curl

Customers are wrestling with mission-critical decisions, evaluating solutions that all sound the same, and struggling to achieve the value they expect, when experience has shown them that far too many solutions come packaged with a high degree of risk and a low probability of success. ~ Jeff Thull

My father would go to work and try to survive every day just to get home to my mother so they could be at each other's side. That's what I want. ~ Johnathon Schaech

What really amazes me is that survivors can be out in the world completely functional using maybe 20 percent of their capacity. Can you imagine what we'll be able to do when we let the other 80 percent out? If we were able to recover, stop the abuse, and heal everyone, the world we live in would be so phenomenal.

If you think of all the ways in which you have been stunted, all the energy you have consumed simply to keep hanging on by your fingernails, all that you might have created or accomplished or simply enjoyed had you not had to stagger under the burden of abuse, you may have a formidable list.

If you multiply that times the number of other women similarly struggling - not only now but also back through the decades and centuries - the result is awesome.

Now, imagine all the women healed - and all that energy no longer used for mere survival but made available for creativity, nurturing relationships, working for peace and equality. The effect on the world would be monumental.

We have never in recorded history lived in a time when women were, as a whole, empowered. We can only begin to imagine the riches. ~ Ellen Bass And Laura Davis

I saw a road," I blurted as Daniel rounded a bend in the path, Sam right behind him. "There's a road down there. I think there's a cabin, too."
"What?" Corey brushed past Daniel and Sam. "A house? You saw a house?"
Hayley barreled forward. "There's a house? Where?"
I took a deep breath. "I think I saw a cabin. Whether there's anyone in it or not--"
"Who cares?" Corey said. "It's civilization. Let's go."
He broke into a jog, and his knee gave way. I managed to catch him before he fell.
"The only place you're going is flat on your ass," Daniel said. "Slow down. Even if it is a cabin, it's not going anywhere." He turned to me and I could tell he was struggling to play it cool. "You said there's a road?"
"I did. That part I'm sure of. And where there's a road, there are people. In theory."
The grin burst through. "In theory. ~ Kelley Armstrong

That's one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing's real, it just lives. All the attendant hoopla about it, the success over it or the critical rejection - none of that really matters. In the end, the thing will survive or not on its own merits. Not that immortality via art is any big deal. Truffaut died, and we all felt awful about it, and there were the appropriate eulogies, and his wonderful films live on. But it's not much help to Truffaut. ~ Woody Allen

It's gripping me again, this time the pull feels stronger, it's darker now the hole's lonelier and getting deeper maybe one day it will swallow me but tonight, tonight I will survive to live another day. ~ Tilicia Haridat

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up. ~ Mark Twain

What is a man! What is a man but mended cloth, hastily worn and discarded? ... What makes a man? What makes a hero, Shomer? Is it simply to live when there is nothing left to live for, when all you knew and loved is gone? Is it, simply, to survive? For like the threads of an intricate shawl, we have been pulled at and torn, Shomer. We have been unravelled. ~ Lavie Tidhar

Dear Judy Blume, why didn't you write a book about how to survive talking to your centuries-old, super-duper experienced, smoking-hot soul mate about sex for the first time ever? That book would have been extremely helpful in preparing me for this incredibly awkward situation. ~ Karen Amanda Hooper

Modern US consumers now get to taste less than 1 percent of the vegetable varieties that were grown here a century ago. Those old-timers now lurk only in backyard gardens and on farms that specialize in direct sales
if they survive at all. Many heirlooms have been lost entirely. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and bossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back. ~ Katharine Hepburn

And you know, when it comes to a long-term, committed relationship: Love is not enough. There are issues of honor, respect, mutuality, sacrifice, acceptance, supportiveness, similarity of life values and morality, to name only a few. They, too, don't come without struggling and striving, but, oh, are they worth it! ~ Laura C. Schlessinger

I couldn't chance failing in New York yet, letting the city fail me. It was the only place I knew I belonged. If I couldn't survive there, I would have no place else to go. ~ Hope Edelman

Tinys do not deserve safety. If they are to prove themselves, they must suffer and die or suffer and survive. ~ Francesca Lia Block

But you should know that love sometimes wears away under the stress of being married. Someone you think you love now, you might start to hate when he couldn't provide for you. And if you couldn't take care of your children, it'd be even worse. Love doesn't always survive under those types of circumstances ~ Kiera Cass

As much as I am a huge soccer fan, music just kills it when it comes to importance. I could go to a desert island without a football and survive happily, but if I had to go without music, I think I'd end up killing myself. It fuels my soul. It always has. ~ Joe Elliott

I am struggling to understand you. ~ Rose Harris

If a young person is surviving by trading sex for the thing they need, what useful purpose is served by criminalizing that activity? Doesn't everybody have the right to try and survive? it might cost more to create shelters or group homes, drug treatment programs, schools for emancipated minors, counseling services, medical care and job training. But such programs can salvage human lives that are otherwise going to be cut short or wasted.
If we can afford massive kiddy porn stings, why can't we afford to do this? Is it because, as a society,we obtain more pleasure out of trying to control young people, and punishing the minors who escape our control, than we would out of taking good care of kids who are in trouble? ~ Patrick Califia-Rice

But truth is like the coyote. No matter how much society is bent on its destruction, it somehow always manages to survive, usually sneaking around the edges of civilization to avoid detection. ~ Kirk Mustard

It was Dolana, at the salt farm, who first told me about the gaze of men: that look of temporary possession that some men pressed against female flesh. About its dangers and possibilities. It can be used to survive, Dolana had said softly, showing me the power that lay in reflecting a man's desire. And even at twelve years old, the knowledge of it was already in the way I moved my head, my hands, my shoulders. But Dolana had whispered her secrets to a girl. And I had to become a boy. I had to stop being alert to the turn of a man's head towards me. Stop glancing up to meet his gaze in fleeting connection. Stop falsely veiling my eyes from his momentary interest. It was hard to train out of my body, but I practised and learned to cloak myself in the skin and gaze of a boy. ~ Alison Goodman

The poor are so busy trying to survive from one day to the next, they haven't the time or energy to keep score. ~ Studs Terkel

It's important in any organization that if visions have any reality at all, it's because the organization believes that the vision is right and that they share in it. Otherwise, it becomes the good idea of one person, and that even more importantly contributes to the sense that it will not survive the departure of that individual. ~ Eric Shinseki

The planet will survive. Whether we get to be here and enjoy it, or enjoy life as we've known it, is what's questionable. ~ Ted Danson

- so much more opportunity now." Her voice trails off.

"Hurrah for women's lib, eh?"

"The lib?" Impatiently she leans forward and tugs the serape straight. "Oh, that's doomed."

The apocalyptic word jars my attention.

"What do you mean, doomed?"

She glances at me as if I weren't hanging straight either and says vaguely, "Oh …"

"Come on, why doomed? Didn't they get that equal rights bill?"

Long hesitation. When she speaks again her voice is different.

"Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like - like that smoke. We'll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You'll see."

Now all this is delivered in a gray tone of total conviction. The last time I heard that tone, the speaker was explaining why he had to keep his file drawers full of dead pigeons.

"Oh, come on. You and your friends are the backbone of the system; if you quit, the country would come to a screeching halt before lunch."

No answering smile.

"That's fantasy." Her voice is still quiet. "Women don't work that way. We're a - a toothless world." She looks around as if she wanted to stop talking. "What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chink ~ James Tiptree Jr.

After so many years struggling to keep up with you, I finally realized we're not even running the same race. ~ Scott Stabile

The best way [to survive] the red carpet is by wearing Ugg boots. But unfortunately, I have not yet managed to persuade the people who style me at these times to let me do that. ~ Emma Thompson

Assume that a surgeon has discovered how to do brain surgery, that he can do only one a month, that 1,000 persons a year need such an operation if they are to survive. How is the surgeon's scarce resource to be allocated? Charge whatever price is necessary to adjust supply and demand, say $50,000! 'For shame,' some will cry. 'Your market system will save only wealthy people.' For the moment, yes. But soon there will be hundreds of surgeons who will acquire the same skill; and, as in the case of the once scarce and expensive 'miracle drugs,' the price then will be within reach of all. ~ Leonard Read

In the end we must be merciful to the fallen, show grace to struggling, and be patient with the doubting. But when God's Word is clear we must not-and we cannot-back up, back off, back down, back out, or backslide from the truth. ~ Rick Warren

The poor are so common they're invisible, just part of the ambience of this place. I tuck a few soles under them as they sleep and walk off, feeling like a guilty tourist here for thrillseeking in a culture that's trying desperately to survive. Can shamanism help them? I wonder, as I make my way back to the hostel by moonlight. ~ Rak Razam

When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolution ~ Alexander McQueen

therapist who is able to think and connect while struggling with feelings that are vicariously linked to the patient's internal states. Returning ~ Duncan Cartwright

Struggling, despairing, Klein fought with his demon. All the new understanding and sense of redemption this fateful time had yielded had surged, in the course of this past day, to such a wave of thought and clarity that he had felt he would remain forever on the crest even while he was beginning to drop down. Now he was in the trough again, still fighting, still secretly hoping, but gravely injured. For one brief, glowing day he had succeeded in practicing the simple art known to every blade of grass. For one scant day he had loved himself, felt himself to be unified and whole, not split into hostile parts; he had loved himself and the world and God in himself, and everywhere he went he had met nothing but love, approval, and joy. If a robber had attacked him yesterday, or a policeman had arrested him, that too would have been approval, harmony, the smile of fate. And now, in the midst of happiness, he had reversed course and was cutting himself down again. He sat in judgment on himself while his deepest self knew that all judgment was wrong and foolish. The world, which for the span of one day had been crystal clear and wholly filled with divinity, once more presented a harsh and painful face; every object had its own meaning and every meaning contradicted every other."

"He already knew that the choking feeling of dread would pass only if he stopped condemning and admonishing himself, if he stopped poking around in the old wounds. He knew that all pain, all stupid ~ Hermann Hesse

I'm not taking a chance. I feel like I can't breathe without you. I'm just doing what I need to do to survive. It's as simple as that."
"Then let me be your air," he says quietly. ~ M. Leighton

I know that you'll survive the upcoming battle," he said, "because I'll be fighting right beside you and I'll lay down my own life to protect yours."
"I ... oh," she said. It took her some moments to understand. "You ... will come with me?"
"Your fight is my fight," he said. Stark and direct, his words filled her with unsparing joy. "Your cause is mine. And more than that. Your heart is my heart. I love you, Astrid. My place is with you. Always with you. ~ Zoe Archer

Controls is about fear, see. If you're afraid enough of the reprisals, you don't say no, you don't fight back, you don't run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. Horrible, but normal. Horrible, because it's normal. Now, lucky you can say 'Not standing up to him is giving him permission,' but if you've been fed this diet since the year dot, there is no standing up. Victims aren't cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a clue how brave you have to be just to carry on. ~ David Mitchell