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“At Weimar [ the Bauhaus art school I have radically overturned everything. This is the famous academy, which now has the most modern teachers! I have talked to the pupils every evening and I have infused the poison of the new spirit everywhere. De Stijl will soon be published again and more radically. I have mountains of strength, and I know now that our notions will be victorious over everyone and everything.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote of Van Doesburg, in a letter to B. Kok, 7 January, 1921; as cited in the Stijl Catalogue, 1951, p. 45
1920 – 1926

“Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Preface to Translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, in Sylvæ: or, The second part of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Mr. Dryden, third edition (London, 1702).

“So often we need a whole lifetime in order to change our life, we think a great deal, weigh things up and vacillate, then we go back to the beginning, we think and think, we displace ourselves on the tracks of time with a circular movement, like those clouds of dust, dead leaves, debris, that have no strength for anything more, better by far that we should live in a land of hurricanes.”

José Saramago book The Stone Raft

The Stone Raft (1994)

“With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth,
In active games of nimbleness and strength,
Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth,
Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length.
The secret groves, which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise;
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl

Source: Prisoned in Windsor, He Recounteth his Pleasure there Passed, Line 21

“If only the wind could reach inside me, wipe clean my heartache, my guilt, my confusion. If only the waves could wash away this heartache, this jealousy and rage, this guilt and sadness. If only the rocks could lend me their stability, their strength, so I might choose wisely. If only the sun could burn away my past, so I would not have to live with any regrets.”

Valya Dudycz Lupescu (1974) American writer

The Silence of Trees (2010)

“But a class of structures fraught with much greater evils exist in great abundance throughout the country—namely, those in which the faults of an unscientific design have been so far counteracted by massive strength, good materials, and careful workmanship, that a temporary stability has been produced, but which contain within themselves sources of weakness, obvious to a scientific examination… that must inevitably cause their destruction within a limited number of years.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

p, 125
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)

“In 2000 Fiji experienced the greatest crisis in its contemporary history … Fiji came close to complete collapse and anarchy; some form of civil war was a real possibility. This would not only have pitted Fijians against Indians but Fijians against Fijians, and Province against Province. But the country did not fall. It stepped back from the brink. It drew on its inner strength and a vein of tolerance and restraint and began the task of remaking Fiji.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

“Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary, smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused foreign aid program.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

“The Emperor by the divine guidance, had always in view to extirpate all the rebels in his dominions, to destroy all infidels root and branch, and to raze all Pagan temples level to the ground. Endowed with a heavenly power, he devoted all his exertions to the promulgation of the Muhammadan religion; and through the aid of the Almighty God, and by the strength of his sword, he used all his endeavours to enlarge his dominions and promote the religion of Muhammad…”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Nagarkot Kangra (Himachal Pradesh). Shash Fath-i-Kañgra Elliot and Dowson. History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. VI, p. 528.

“The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience. 'The will,' says Francis Thompson, 'is the lynch-pin of the faculties.' We stand or fall by its strength or its infirmity. Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue. Parental legislation for the benefit of the weak leaves them as weak as ever… They may go to heaven in leading-strings, but they cannot conquer Apollyon on the way.”

Agnes Repplier (1855–1950) American essayist

in "Consolations of the Conservative" from Points of Friction (1920)

“To the Führer. This is the truth which bound me to thee: I looked for thee and found my Fatherland. I was a leaf floating in limitless space. Now thou art my homeland and my tree. How far would I be carried by the wind, wert thou not the strength that flows up from the roots. I believe in thee, for thou art the nation. I believe in Germany. For thou art Germany's son.”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

A poem written by Schirach about Hitler. Quoted in "Dem Führer: Gedichte für Adolf Hitler" - Page 7 - by Karl Hans Bühner - German poetry - 1939

“I think God leaves me alone to let me find my own strength because no one else can give it to me. Sometimes it is very lonely. But I know the lonely times teach me the most. I must let go in order to let anything in. No one can love me, for me. Take a big walk protected in the trees. I miss the time before today.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself (2000)

“To the "masculists" of both sexes, "femininity" implies all that men have built into the female image in the past few centuries: weakness, imbecility, dependence, masochism, unreliability, and a certain "babydoll" sexuality that is actually only a projection of male dreams. To the "feminist" of both sexes, femininity is synonymous with the eternal female principle, connoting strength, integrity, wisdom, justice, dependability, and a psychic power foreign and therefore dangerous to the plodding masculists of both sexes.”

Elizabeth Gould Davis book The First Sex

The First Sex, ch. 22 - Woman in the Aquarian Age (1971). "Masculist" is a coined word meant to correlate grammatically with "feminist."

“I need say hardly anything in the Unintelligence of the Negroes, They show capacities of Providence and they are most likely always having low self-esteem But needless to say my Virtue, Power, And Strength have helped them to become strong most upcoming individuals in the nation they show pride and interest in education and learning new things And Just know What lies with you once lies with you more until change is done.”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

“As a country, we have not started to see how much we can achieve as a nation and we will not have any idea of our strength if we continue to deny ourselves the opportunity to come together as one people. We have not been able to pool the resources and talent of our people and exploit them for our common good. It will continue to evade us if we continue to stress our ethnicity and group differences.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Guest speech to the conference of the Fiji Labour Party, Lautoka, 30 July 2005

“One of the important functions of prayer, I believe, is to act as a stimulus to creative ideas. Within the mind are all the resources required for successful living. Ideas are present in the consciousness, which when released and given scope to grow and take shape, can lead to successful events. God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps to tap and develop these powers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 32.

“He's a hope to Latin America and I would like if that philosophy came to Brazil. I think he's unique. I intend to go to Venezuela and to try to meet him. I want to pass a week there and to try to schedule an audience. I think he'll do what the militaries did in Brazil in 1964, with much more strength. I just hope the opposition doesn't go into a guerrilla warfare like they did here.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About Hugo Chávez. "É uma esperança para a AL" http://acervo.estadao.com.br/pagina/#!/19990904-38672-nac-0007-pol-a7-not/busca/Bolsonaro. O Estado de S. Paulo (4 September 1999).

“The integrity, beauty and fragrance of future society should be expressed through mothers. The mother is the first teacher. As such, she is the one who can influence a child the most. Whatever the mother does, the child will imbibe. A mother’s breast milk does more than nourish just the baby’s body. It also develops the baby’s mind, intellect and heart. Similarly, the life values a mother transmits to her child give it strength and courage in the future.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Infinite Potential of Women (2008)

“Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Till I Collapse"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

“I had reasoned dis out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when de time came for me to go, de Lord would let dem take me.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Modernized rendition: I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.
The phrase "Liberty or Death" is a slogan made famous during the independence struggle of several countries.
1880s, Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)