The Struggle Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are our brothers, these freedom fighters ... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong. ~ Ronald Reagan

You grow up with a heightened sense of the Civil Rights Movement, but I think it wasn't until I became of age that I really had a great appreciation for the struggle that took place. ~ Terri Sewell

The present struggle between the South and North is, therefore, nothing but a struggle between two social systems, the system of slavery and the system of free labour. The struggle has broken out because the two systems can no longer live peacefully side by side on the North American continent. It can only be ended by the victory of one system or the other. ~ Karl Marx

The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A 'neutral' position is tantamount to support of imperialism. ~ Leon Trotsky

History, memory - that is what makes us human, that, and our knowledge of death: 'by man came death'. For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power. ~ Saul Bellow

Hesitation, anxiety, the struggle between belief and disbelief - all that is sometimes such a torment for a conscientious man ... that it's better to hang oneself. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I began to study again, and now for the first time really achieved an understanding of the content of the Jew Karl Marx's life effort. Only now did his Capital become really intelligible to me, and also the struggle of the Social Democracy against the national economy, which aims only to prepare the ground for the domination of truly international finance and stock exchange capital. ~ Adolf Hitler

And just when the darkness
became too much to bear
and the struggle too hard,
the light broke through
and the caterpillar emerged
a butterfly
delicate but unbroken,
wild and gentle,
finally free to spread its lovely wings
and fly away on the wind. ~ L.R. Knost

I have never understood why "hard work" is supposed to be pitiable. True, some work is soul destroying when it is done against the grain, but when it is part of "making" how can you grudge it? You get tired, of course, but the struggle, the challenge, the feeling of being extended as you never thought you could be is fulfilling and deeply, deeply satisfying. ~ Rumer Godden

Her room was darkened with the curtains drawn, but he could sense her inside, moving around quietly. Her heartbeat had turned languid; she must be preparing for bed. He cocked his head, listening intently. The closet door opened and shut, and there was the sound of running water. He held the goblet with such tense care his fingers began to ache.
When she had turned the faucet off, he said telepathically, "Tess, come to your window."
Startled, frozen silence. Then the languid pace of her heart exploded into a furious rhythm.
For a moment, when she didn't move, he thought she might disobey and end their tenuous relationship. Then he heard the soft rustle of cloth, and the creak of floorboards. When she appeared in the darkened window, she looked shadowy, like the half-hidden, opaque moon, her skin pale like pearls and hair lustrous with darkness.
She looked down at him but said nothing.
He held the goblet up to show it to her. "Are you sure you want to give this to me?"
Because it mattered. It mattered what she said. While the struggle made the offering sweet, it was the act of the gift itself that was the vital part of the covenant.
She didn't respond for long moments. He stood motionless as he waited, until finally she moved to put her hand to the windowpane.
"Yes."
He inclined his head to her, brought the goblet to his lips and drank.
Pure, undiluted power slid down his throat. Like the delicate skin at her wrist, it was warm ~ Thea Harrison

among a people hurried and busy and preoccupied, some in the pursuit of riches, some in the pursuit of pleasure, and some, the majority, in the struggle for existence, there arise in every generation, here and there, one or two great souls - men who ~ Oliver Lodge

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the struggle for equal rights. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

It has been the struggle between privileged men who have managed to get hold of the levers of power and the people in general withtheir vague and changing aspirations for equality, for justice, for some kind of gentler brotherhood and peace, which has kept that balance of forces we call our system of government in equilibrium. ~ John Dos Passos

The directions weren't written in invisible ink on the back of my diploma. They came ever so slowly for me; and ever so firmly I trusted that they would emerge. All I can say is, it's worth the struggle to discover who you really are. ~ Maxwell King

Just as the world war is no white man's war, but every man's war, so is the struggle for woman suffrage no white woman's struggle, but every woman's struggle. ~ Carrie Chapman Catt

I feel like we're between two great possibilities: we're either going to turn things around, and in this generation see the rising sun of a new moral dedication in America, or we're going to lose the struggle for that moral renewal, throw away the basic principles on which our life and civilization is based, and head toward a new century that will make the 20th century look like a dress rehearsal for evil. ~ Alan Keyes

What whites have rarely had to think about - because being the dominant group, we are so used to having our will done, with a little effort at least - is that maybe the point is not victory, however much we all wish to see justice attained and injustice routed. Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom that we become human. ~ Tim Wise

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind. ~ Sengcan

All good men are cleaved by the struggle between duty and desire ~ Melissa McPhail

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory.
And life doesn't work that way. ~ Mark Manson

The harder the struggle, the bigger the gain. The important thing is to stick with it, repetitively and consistently. ~ Mara Schiavocampo

In the struggle for female equality, Maud reflected, sometimes you had to fight women as well as men. ~ Ken Follett

At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses. ~ Karl Liebknecht

The struggle is what teaches you. ~ Sue Grafton

I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence. ~ Robert Burns

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service. ~ John F. Kerry

The struggle you see in the Republican Party today is the country club Republican versus the bowling alley Republican. Colin Powell brings us back to the country club image. He's an insider. He's a moderate. ~ Pete Du Pont

In the world of the superheroes, everything had value, potential, mystery. Any person, thing, or object could be drafted into service in the struggle against darkness and evil - remade as a weapon or a warrior or a superhero. Even a little bee named Michael - after God's own avenging angel - could pitch in to win the battle against wickedness. ~ Grant Morrison

Truth can be sifted out from falsehood only if the government is vigorously and consistently cross-examined, so that the fundamental issues of the struggle may be clearly defined ~ Zechariah Chafee

Be strong! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift; We have hard work to do and loads to lift; Shun not the struggle-face it; 'tis God's gift. ~ Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Sometimes in history the name of God has been invoked on behalf of actions and movements that have ennobled the human soul and lifted the body politic to a higher plane. Take the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the American civil rights movement, or Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the struggle against South African apartheid, as examples. Other times religious fervor has been employed for the worst kinds of sectarian and violent purposes. The Ku Klux Klan, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and David Koresh's Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas, are frightening examples.

Is there a reliable guide to when we are really hearing the voice of God, or just a self-interested or even quite ungodly voice in the language of heaven? I think there is. Who speaks for God? When the voice of God is invoked on behalf of those who have no voice, it is time to listen. But when the name of God is used to benefit the interests of those who are speaking, it is time to be very careful. ~ Jim Wallis

Dearest - my body is simply crazy with wanting you - If you don't come tomorrow - I don't see how I can wait for you - I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours - the kisses - the hotness - the wetness - all melting together - the being held so tight that it hurts - the strangle and the struggle. ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Saying you just want your kid to be happy puts enormous pressure on the child. They feel if they're not happy, they're failing. Periods of unhappiness are okay and our kids need to know that; it's the struggle that makes you who you are. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

Boredom comes from a boring mind. - "THE STRUGGLE WITHIN," Metallica ~ Anonymous

You will find that there is a struggle to find your dreams. The struggle is to find a way past your fear, your discomfort, anything that makes you hold yourself back, in the pursuit of your dreams. There will always be a struggle in life and through that struggle is success. ~ Avina Celeste

This dual position suggests a basic tension or 'existential dilemma' in human living that each of us seeks to resolve: the search for, and attempt to construct, a way of being that somehow will balance our unique reflections upon our lived experience with the perceived demands and desires of being-with-others. In this sense, the fundamental project of living, for all of us, becomes the struggle to achieve relational balance between or experience of our own self-construct, our experience of others as we have construed them to be, and our experience of that 'between-ness' that emerges through our every encounter with the world. ~ Ernesto Spinelli

That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil
widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower. ~ George Eliot

What one side considers a defense the other considers a threat. In the vortex of the struggle, each is trapped by his own fearful outlook and by his fear of the other; each moves and is moved within a circle both vicious and lethal. ~ C. Wright Mills

The trick is to begin looking for the grace hidden beneath the struggle. ~ Deepak Chopra

There's different ways to be impacted by truth. One is to read the scriptures. Another is to read other works by other people who have read the scriptures, non fiction for example. Another is to do studies. Another is to go to a place of worship. Another thing is to sit and listen to someone who's speaking. There's all kinds of ways. Another way is to write. About the truth. Discover the struggle through your character. ~ Ted Dekker

The struggle is to stay present enough when you're taking your next step forward that you're really making your most honest choices. ~ Sara Bareilles

Understood what the struggle was about. My mother. Couldn't read or write, but she had more sense than many a graduate from Harvard. ~ Al Lewis

There is nobility in the struggle, you don't have to win. ~ Sharon Pollock

A French essayist has said: 'What is terrible when you seek the truth, is that you find it.' You find it, and then you are no longer free to follow the biases of your personal circle, or to accept fashionable clichés. I immediately discerned within the Russian Revolution the seeds of such serious evils as intolerance and the drive towards the persecution of dissent. These evils originated in an absolute sense of possession of the truth, grafted upon doctrinal rigidity. What followed was contempt for the man who was different, of his arguments and way of life. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest problems which each of us has to solve in the realm of practice is that of accepting the necessity to maintain, in the midst of intransigence which comes from steadfast beliefs, a critical spirit towards these same beliefs and a respect for the belief that differs. In the struggle, it is the problem of combining the greatest practical efficiency with respect for the man in the enemy - in a word, of war without hate. ~ Victor Serge

Look ahead to the bright light
Use your hopes to unfold each night
Rejoice in the struggle, stay sane
There's always sunshine after rain ~ Soulla Christodoulou

No man is born a warrior, nor is he born a reasoning being – we choose to become either one or the other. In order to become a warrior, one must be prepared to take one's chances and fight for one's freedom. There is no other way. One cannot become a warrior simply by wishing to do so. To become a warrior is the struggle of a lifetime. ~ Théun Mares

God used it all. He used the hard times to draw her closer. He used the struggle to bring them together. ~ Chris Fabry

The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?". ~ Iain M. Banks

The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve. ~ Simone Weil

The sacredness of the male mind is allied to the struggle for power in that men, claiming objectivity, can also claim universal validity for their values. In this sense the word man, correctly in their view, can encompass women, although the converse is not true and the word woman can never stand for the general but only for the particular. ~ Mary Condren

If religious feeling is put in opposition to social change, then it does become an opium, but if it is joined to the struggle for social change then it is a wonderful medicine. ~ Fidel Castro

The struggle to create a nation and world of economic and social justice and environmental sanity is not an easy one. The struggle to try and create a more peaceful world will be extremely difficult. But this I know: despair is not an option if we care about our kids and grandchildren. Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet. ~ Bernie Sanders

The struggle to be original hates conformity, but the struggle to be better disregards it, or takes advantage of it to build workable conventions. ~ Walter Darby Bannard

One who understands the limits of the good life knows that what eliminates the pains brought on by need and what makes the whole of life perfect is easily obtained, so that there is no need for enterprises that entail the struggle for success.19 ~ Epicurus

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54). ~ Paulo Freire

Notice that the whole story of Eden is the story of the struggle over a woman's relationship to a psychoactive plant. ~ Terence McKenna

Anywhere the struggle is great, the level of ingenuity and inventiveness is high. ~ Eleni Zaude Gabre-Madhin

Success is a dangerous element in any endeavor. Embrace the struggle. Beware the achievement. For it steals your caution even as it leads you down the next unknown pathway. ~ Laurence Gonzales

It seemed that there was no time to catch up with all the things that were happening. I would be at the construction workers' demonstration one day and then marching with the welfare mothers the next. We got down with everything - the rent strikes, the sit-ins, the takeover of the Harlem state office building, whatever it was. If we agreed with it, we would try to give active support in some way. The more active i became, the more i liked it. It was like medicine, making me well, making me whole ...
My energy just couldn't stop dancing. I was caught up in the music of the struggle and i wanted to dance. I was never bored and never lonely, and the brothers and sisters who became my friends were so beautiful to me. ~ Assata Shakur

The problems of a retired schoolteacher in Duluth are OUR problems. That the future of the child in Buffalo is OUR future. That the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is OUR struggle. That The hunger of a woman in Little Rock is OUR hunger. That the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might to avoid pain is OUR failure. ~ Mario Cuomo

From youth to middle, and often to past middle, age, most men are apt to be too closely engaged in the struggle of life to pay due attention to the strength of the body. They may take daily what they consider a sufficient amount of exercise; but the exercise is not calculated to keep the various limbs and muscles, still less the internal organs, in proper working order. Amid the ordinary concerns of life the man may appear strong, even stalwart. But when occasion arises for some special muscular exercise, or taxing the action of some organ, he finds out his weakness. ~ Richard A. Proctor

Struggle! To struggle is to live, and the fiercer the struggle the intenser the life. Then you will have lived; and a few hours of such life are worth years spent vegetating. ~ Pyotr Kropotkin

The comic, more than the tragic, because it ignites hope, leads to more, not less, participation in the struggle for a just world. ~ Harvey Cox

I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear. ~ Robert Dallek

It hardly needs saying that such mutualistic communities will also be plagued by conflict. Conflict is at the very heart of life, resulting not simply from the malevolence of others in the struggle for place or portion, but also from the fact that men of the best will in the world seem to suffer incurably, so far as one can tell, from what William Jame called "a certain blindness" in perceiving the vitalities of others. ~ Benjamin Nelson

The struggle which is not joyous is the wrong struggle. The joy of the struggle is not hedonism and hilarity, but the sense of purpose, achievement and dignity. ~ Germaine Greer

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

...we have chosen to speak of spirituality ultimately as the way in which we live out our response to God. Unless we find this personal, transformational meaning in its fullest sense, the struggle for wholeness will remain unresolved. As Augustine put it in the first paragraph of his Confessions, 'God created us for a relationship with him and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. ~ Janet O. Hagberg

Xinxin Ming or Trust in the Heart


The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want the truth [of nonduality] to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.
When the Way is not understood, the mind chatters endlessly to no avail.

The Perfect Way is vastness without holiness.
Like infinite space it contains all and lacks nothing.
Because you pick and choose, cling and reject, you can't see its Suchness.

Neither be entangled in the world, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things,
And dualism vanishes of its own accord.

Craving the passivity of Oneness you are filled with activity.
As long as you tarry in dualism,
You will never know Oneness.

If you don't trust in the Heart, you fall into assertion or denial.
In this world of Suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To be in accord with the Way, let go of all self-centered striving.

Denying the world [of duality] is the asserting of it;
Asserting emptiness [oneness] is the denying of it.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you go.

To return to the root [the One] is to ~ Sengcan

The core predicament of medicine - the thing that makes being a patient so wrenching, being a doctor so difficult, and being a part of society that pays the bills they run up so vexing - is uncertainty. With all that we know nowadays about people and diseases and how to diagnose and treat them, it can be hard to see this, hard to grasp how deeply uncertainty runs. As a doctor, you come to find, however, that the struggle in caring for people is more often with what you do not know than what you do. Medicine's ground state is uncertainty. And wisdom - for both the patients and doctors - is defined by how one copes with it. ~ Atul Gawande

The search for justice and security, the struggle for equality of opportunity, the quest for tolerance and harmony, the pursuit of human dignity - these are moral imperatives which we must work towards and think about on a daily basis. ~ Aga Khan IV

All those beings who revealed truths to me and who were no longer there, seemed to me to have lived a life from which I alone profited and as though they had died for me. It was sad for me to think that in my book, my love which was once everything to me, would be so detached from a being that various readers would apply it textually to the love they experienced for other women. But why should I be horrified by this posthumous infidelity, that this man or that should offer unknown women as the object of my sentiment, when that infidelity, that division of love between several beings began with my life and long before I began writing? I had indeed suffered successively through Gilberte, through Mme de Guermantes, through Albertine. Successively also I had forgotten them and only my love, dedicated at different times to different beings, had lasted. I had anticipated the profanation of my memories by unknown readers. I was not far from being horrified with myself as, perhaps, some nationalist party might be in whose name hostilities had been provoked and who alone had benefited from a war in which many noble victims had suffered and died without even knowing the issue of the struggle which, for my grandmother, would have been such a complete reward. And the single consolation she never knew, that at last I had set to work, was, such being the fate of the dead, that though she could not rejoice in my progress she had at least been spared consciousness of my long inactivity, of t ~ Marcel Proust

People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. ~ S.I. Hayakawa

In times of adversity, you will realize who is there for you. The struggle is real and those who walk with you with love, are honorable true friends. Be thankful for the friends and loved ones you've got. ~ Angie Karan

Black anti-semitism is a form of underdog resentment and envy, directed at another underdog who has made it in American society. The remarkable upward mobility of American Jews--rooted chiefly in a history and culture that places a premium on higher education and self-organization--easily lends itself to myths of Jewish unity and homogeneity that have gained currency among other groups, especially among relatively unorganized groups like black Americans. The high visibility of Jews in the upper reaches of the academy, journalism, the entertainment industry, and the professions--though less so percentage-wise in corporate America and national political office--is viewed less as a result of hard work and success fairly won and more as a matter of favoritism and nepotism among Jews. Ironically, calls for black solidarity and achievement are often modeled on myths of Jewish unity--as both groups respond to American xenophobia and racism. But in times such as these, some blacks view Jews as obstacles rather than allies in the struggle for racial justice. ~ Cornel West

In the various stages of development which the struggle of working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. ~ Karl Marx

Through the years I have received my share of recognition for efforts in the fields of sports, the arts, the struggle for full citizenship for the Negro people, labor's rights and the fight for peace. ~ Paul Robeson

The struggle to maintain peace is immeasurably more difficult than any military operation. ~ Anne O'Hare McCormick

Community, a place of healing and growth ...
There are more and more groups today oriented towards issues and causes ... They can become very aggressive and divide the world between oppressors and the oppressed, the good and the bad. There seems to be a need in human beings to see evil and combat it outside oneself, in order not to see it inside oneself.
The difference between a community and a group that is only issue-oriented, is that the latter see the enemy outside the group. The struggle is an external one; and there will be a winner and a loser. The group knows it is right and has the truth, and wants to impose it. The members of a community know that the struggle is inside of each person and inside the community; it is against all the powers of pride, elitism, hate and depression that are there and which hurt and crush others, and which cause division and war of all sorts. The enemy is inside, not outside. ~ Jean Vanier

Dear Jean, I have seen a deer. I have petted a pony. I helped plant a garden. I have smelled earth and felt it in my hands. You watched the sun rise. These things are worth the struggle to live outside. ~ Anne Bishop

I am deeply moved by the warmth and courage of the Canadian people which I felt so strongly during my recent visit to your country. Your support of the struggle against apartheid restored me in my journey home and reassured me that many just people around the world are with us. ~ Desmond Tutu