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“I haven't any strength, I haven't any character, I'm a born tool. I haven't any destiny. All I have is dreams. And now other people run them.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Lathe of Heaven

Orr
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)

“Heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its glow.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter IV, Sec. 3

“…for the first time he [Philip] began to understand how Macedonia's outdated institutions of feudalism and aristocratic monarchy, so despised by the rest of Greece, might prove a source of strength when dealing with such opponents.”

Peter Green (1924) British historian

Alexander the Great, page 24.

“Whatever is calculated to weaken or impair the strength of Union, whether originating at the North or the South, whether arising from the incendiary violence of abolitionists, or from the coalition of nullifiers, will never meet with my unqualified approval.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

As quoted in Sam Houston (2004), by James Haley, University of Oklahoma Press
1860s

“The art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing the flanks on either side, and then penetrating like lightning, before the enemy has time to react, deep into his rear.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Strategies he promoted which have been called Blitzkrieg (Lightning War), as quoted in Europe Since 1914 (1966) by Gordon Alexander Craig

“When the race is in deepest stress and faced with great problems, it will call upon someone like Christ. It will seek out and indeed from itself produce the very personalities necessary to give it the strength it needs.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 491, Page 335
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 9

“One of our greatest strengths as a democracy is that when we're headed in the wrong direction, we can correct our course. When policies are clearly not working, we, the people, can change them.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, DNC Address (2004)
Context: One of our greatest strengths as a democracy is that when we're headed in the wrong direction, we can correct our course. When policies are clearly not working, we, the people, can change them. If our leaders make mistakes, we can hold them accountable — even if they never admit their mistakes.
I firmly believe America needs new leadership that will make us stronger at home and respected in the world.

“I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

As quoted in Nkrumah, Gamal (1–7 November 2001)
Al-Ahram Weekly interview (2001)

“The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation. The profound modifications in the human frame, which any important alteration in either of these factors would occasion, are strangely unconsidered. It is true there have been questionings as to the effects that might be occasioned by changes in temperature and atmospheric composition, but possible variations in gravitation seem almost to have escaped notice. The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe. So far as has been possible to ascertain, the intensity of gravity has not varied appreciably within those geologic ages covering the existence of animated thinking beings.

“The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What is to be Done http://books.google.com/books?id=P4dGAQAAIAAJ& (1899) p. 262 <br class="br">Context: The workmen's revolution, with the terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already been living upon its verge during the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have been postponing the crisis... The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.

“We cannot have four more years apologizing to [America's] enemies and abandoning our friends. America needs to be strong for the world to be safe, and on the world stage, Donald Trump will lead from strength.”

Mike Pence (1959) 48th Vice President of the United States

Excerpt from his vice presidential acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention — https://fox59.com/2016/07/21/we-like-mike-full-transcript-of-gov-pences-vp-acceptance-speech/ (July 21, 2016) <br class="br">Trump/Pence 2016 Presidential Campaign

“There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

“I know I owe my all to Thee,
O, take this heart I cannot give.
Do Thou my Strength my Saviour be;
And make me to Thy glory live!”

Anne Brontë book Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), A Prayer (1844)

“Out came Ms. Hilton in a Juicy track suit, chattering away like a gibbon on her jewel-encrusted cell phone. It was like magic, if magic were like a extra-strength laxative.”

April Winchell (1960) American voice actor and writer

On Sunday December 5, 2004 at 7:34 pm from aprilwinchell.com http://www.aprilwinchell.com/12/2004/.

“To live one must give one's all,
strength, passion, enthusiasm, the days of one's youth;
be fearless before pain, with tears restrained,
unable to smile, yet still ready to love and to care.”

Shushanik Kurghinian (1876–1927) Armenian poet

Source: SW 339

“Arms of Orlando, paladin',
By this inscription meaning to deter
Whoever saw the splendid trophy shine,
As though to say: 'Hands off, all who pass by,
Unless Orlando's strength you wish to try.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Armatura d'Orlando paladino;
Come volesse dir: nessun la muova,
Che star non possa con Orlando a prova.
Canto XXIV, stanza 57 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“Hockey is an art. It requires speed, precision, and strength like other sports, but it also demands an extraordinary intelligence to develop a logical sequence of movements, a technique which is smooth, graceful and in rhythm with the rest of the game.”

Jacques Plante (1929–1986) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Jacques Plante," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep197802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2005-05-24)

“Briju Maharaj’s Baaz Bahadur displayed both Pathan strength and artistic ecstasy – in fact this last Muslim king of Malwa was a considerable poet and ended his days as a musician in the court of Emperor Akbar.”

Birju Maharaj (1938) Indian dancer

India's Kathak Dance, Past Present, Future

“If I had known that the figures for Russian tank strength which you gave in your book were in fact the true ones, I would not—I believe—ever have started this war.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

1940s
Source: Said to General Heinz Guderian, 4 August 1941, as quoted Panzer Leader (1952) by Heinz Guderian

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"being to timelessness as it's to time" (1958)