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“Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.”

Eric Greitens (1974) American politician, author, and former Navy SEAL

Eric Greitens: How To Became A Resilient Leader https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2015/03/10/eric-greitens-how-to-became-a-resilient-leader/#1ee8d8762e54 (March 10, 2015)

“It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character... So much the better if it is painful for you to take even the first step, the more toilsome the work, the stronger you will emerge from it... I repeat, guard against facility.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote in a letter to his son Lucien (1894); as quoted in Painting Outside the lines, Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 30 Jun 2009, p. 84
1890's

“I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism. I absolutely believe that. … I will campaign for her if it's McCain.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

To Sean Hannity on the possibility of on John McCain being the 2008 Republican Party nominee for President, on Hannity & Colmes (31 January 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=HuTqgqhxVMc. <br class="br">2008 <br class="br">Context: If you're looking at substance rather than whether it's an R or D after his name, manifestly, if he's our candidate, then Hillary's gonna be our girl, Sean, because she's more conservative than he is. I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism. I absolutely believe that. … I will campaign for her if it's McCain.

“There are two kinds of pain: the pain of change and the pain of never changing and remaining the same.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

“I need someone physically stronger than me…. I am always on top. It's really unfortunate. I am begging for the man that can put me on the bottom. Or the woman. Anybody that can take me down.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

“The vast majority of Europeans always believed that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was more tolerable than the risk of removing him. But Americans, being stronger, developed a lower threshold of tolerance for Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction.”

Robert Kagan book Of Paradise and Power

Of Paradise and Power, p. 31

“I could never fear a God who kept a hell prison-house. No, not though he flung me there because I refused. There is a power stronger than such a one; and it is possible to walk unscathed even in the burning furnace.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter II
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

“Moria and stultitia are both rendered nowadays as 'folly', but both have far stronger senses than folly has now. They imply derangement of mind, madness, mania. Such are the defects attributed to Christians by the worldly-wise. And vice-versa.”

Michael Andrew Screech (1926–2018)

Source: Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1998), p. 73

“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.”

Edna O'Brien (1930) Novelist, memoirist, biographer, playwright, poet and short story writer

Source: Saints and Sinners

“A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 41

“Pain is pain. It needs no description.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

“You're facing your demons. You'll come out stronger.”

Jennifer McMahon (1968) American writer

The One I Left Behind

“Love didn't make you weak, it made you stronger.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Impulses we attempt to strangle only develop stronger muscles.”

Yahia Lababidi (1973)

Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

“.. the elimination of other things which are not essential will make for a stronger result.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s - 1950s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)

“For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act.”

Gustave Flaubert book Sentimental Education

Pt. 2, Ch. 3
Sentimental Education (1869)
Context: For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act. They are hampered by mistrust of themselves, daunted by the fear of giving offence; besides, deep feelings of affection are like respectable women; they are afraid of being found out and they go through life with downcast eyes.

“I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Letter from prison (19 December 1953)
Context: I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger. I despise the kind of existence that clings to the miserly trifles of comfort and self-interest. I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

“The fact is he outplayed me. He just proved to be stronger.”

Viswanathan Anand (1969) Indian chess player

2013 World Chess Championship

“Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer