Quotes about strength (2379 quotes, page 17)

“As much as I value a union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

June 17
Addresses to the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)

“So far, America has beaten the odds and remained multiracial rather than multicultural, thereby becoming the most powerful nation in the world. We should remember that diversity is an ornament, but unity is our strength.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, America: History's Exception (2016)

World

“Man is the animal with a soul who thinks and builds; his penetrating insights into the laws of nature are there for any child to learn, and his impressive mastery of the materials of the earth stands ready to be imitated by anyone, but the home he has built for his own kind is still a lonely and impoverished place for many people. There is nothing about that loneliness that wisdom cannot change; there is nothing in that poverty that strength cannot overcome. Separated from each other, the thinker is a stranger in his own house, and the builder is a beggar at his own door. Together, they can bring the warmth of love and the helpfulness of power into the daily market place of living, taking a human position that is eternal and without compromise. In the midst of the obvious and the commonplace, and only in this birthplace of human contentment and happiness, the thinker and builder can leave the monastic cell and relinquish barracks mobility to claim the world in the name of human beings. When they do so, man can expect a human harvest equal to his dreams, and measured to the nobility of his posture.”

Paul Rosenfels (1909–1985) American sociologist

Psychoanalysis and Civilization

Love , Wisdom , People , World

“Against the teachings of eternal torture, of the vicarious influence theory of atonement, of the infallibility of the Bible, I leveled all the strength of my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of the Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions, its religious wars, its cruelties, its oppressions.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

In, Annie Besant Quotes http://www.biographyonline.net/women/quotes/annie-besant-quotes.html

War , History

“When last comes to last,
I have little power:
I am merely an urn. I hold the bone-sap of myself,
and watch the marrow burn.
When last comes to last,
I have little strength:
I am only a tool. I work its work; and in its hands
I am the fool.
When last comes to last,
I have little life.
I am simply a deed: an action done while courage holds:
a seed.”

Stephen R. Donaldson book The Power that Preserves

Healer, The Power that Preserves, the third book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever

Life , Fools , Courage

“We may be a small island. We're not a small people…For the last six years the Government of this country…have let us be treated as second rate. They even plan for us to stay second rate. Because that's what Labour policies mean…Now I don't intend to stand by and see this happen…Do you want a better tomorrow? …That's what I will work for with all my strength and with all my heart. I give you my word and I will keep my word.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Television broadcast (15 June 1970), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 278.
Leader of the Opposition

People , Heart , Country

“I am late with the new Doris Lessing [The Golden Notebook]. I make no apology: it has taken me a long time to read (568 pages of close print) and at the end of it all I feel cheated. This talented writer has attempted an experiment which has failed, essayed a scale which is beyond her…. This is a book of revolt – political, social, sexual. Anna [the heroine] became a Communist in South Africa, seeing in Communism a "moral energy" not to be found in other creeds or in the long-entrenched privileged class. Anna is also concerned with being a "free woman" – rebelling against traditional male dominance – and with achieving maximal erotic fulfilment…. There is no doubt about the great moral virtues here – intelligence, honesty, integrity – but it is the aesthetic virtues that seem to be lacking. The characters do not really interest us: when we have dialogue it is strangely unnatural … Mrs Lessing’s old singleness of vision, her strength as a writer, is not to be found here. [Review in the English provincial newspaper the Yorkshire Post, 1962]”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

People, Joseph Conrad, Doris Lessing

Books , Feeling , Intelligence , Communication

“When [Nelson Mandela] was in prison I admired him for his moral strength…
Of his period in power I can see few results. Apartheid no longer exists, at least to all appearances, but no one understands what the new government in South Africa is doing.”

Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937) Former dictator of Ethiopia

As quoted in Riccardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, (Walker and Company, 2003), p. 148

Understanding , Appearance

“The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.”

David Hare (1947) British writer

Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare Guesses at Truth (London: Macmillan, ([1827-48] 1867) p. 1.
Misattributed

“The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us. They were brought here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly found by a cruel slave code. Happily for both races, they are now free. They have from a standpoint of ignorance and poverty—which was our shame, not theirs—made remarkable advances in education and in the acquisition of property. They have as a people shown themselves to be friendly and faithful toward the white race under temptations of tremendous strength. They have their representatives in the national cemeteries, where a grateful Government has gathered the ashes of those who died in its defense. They have furnished to our Regular Army regiments that have won high praise from their commanding officers for courage and soldierly qualities and for fidelity to the enlistment oath. In civil life they are now the toilers of their communities, making their full contribution to the widening streams of prosperity which these communities are receiving. Their sudden withdrawal would stop production and bring disorder into the household as well as the shop. Generally they do not desire to quit their homes, and their employers resent the interference of the emigration agents who seek to stimulate such a desire.”

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American politician, 23rd President of the United States (in office from 1889 to 1893)

First State of the Union Address (1889)

Life , People , Education , Faith

“Croton River was the only place I could find suitable to the purpose, all circumstances being taken into consideration. I wrote your Excellency what I had done, and where I was, that if you had any thing in charge I might receive your orders. I wrote you the reasons for my not waiting upon you in person were, I had many letters to answer, and many matters to regulate in my department, which prevented me from returning. Besides which, it was almost half a day's ride, the weather exceeding hot, and myself not a little fatigued. And here I must observe, that neither my constitution nor strength is equal to constant exercise.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (July 1778)

Exercises , Waiting , Personality , Weather

“We all of us made our mistakes, but the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title-deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form. I wish to give my hearty thanks to men of all Parties, to everyone in every part of the House wherever they sit, for the way in which the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions has been maintained under the fire of the enemy, and for the way in which we have been able to persevere—and we could have persevered much longer if need had been—till all the objectives which we set before us for the procuring of the unlimited and unconditional surrender of the enemy had been achieved.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons (8 May 1945), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1346
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Men , War , Way , Democracy

“When you are working, you are so far away and so absorbed, it's inevitable that you fall into a vacuum when you stop.... every time when I finish a painting, I always have to wait to get my strength back before I can begin another.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

3 April 1972; p. 90
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

Time , Waiting , Painting

“… this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

Source: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Ch. 7

Men , Dreams

“The product of movement and counter-movement is tension. When tension — working strength — is expressed, it endows the work of art with the living effect of coordinated, though opposing, forces.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

"Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann", p. 66
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

Art

“Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

As interviewed by Richard, Olive, "Our Women are Our Future": Sylvia Family Circle, (Aug 14, 1944) 14-17, 19 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.32.

Women , Men , War , World

“It is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLII : A Reformation; Helen to Ralph

Sense

“The passive strength of materials of all kinds has been very fully investigated, and many new conclusions have been formed respecting it, which are of immediate importance to the architect and to the engineer, and which appear to contradict the results of some very elaborate calculations.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Appearance

“Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Pain , Suffering

“In the “stealth era,” battlefield strength might just be dictated by the level of stealth or invisibility technology at the disposal of combatants. This is likely to trigger a scientific and technological race, as well as provide new platforms for countries to enhance their prestige domestically and internationally.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Cloaks of Invisibility: The Latest Frontier in Military Technology http://journal.georgetown.edu/2014/03/06/cloaks-of-invisibility-the-latest-frontier-in-military-technology-by-nayef-al-rodhan/ - Georgetown Journal, March 2014

Country

“When a Man's exhausted, wine will build his strength.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 261 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Wine

“The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Secret , World

“Brethren: I advise you to avoid attacking any of your brothers even if he harms you or surpasses the limits of ingratitude. The strength of any one amongst you is the strength of the other.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

“The tragedy of tragedies is that man continues to live in poverty when he might have riches, in weakness when he might have strength, in sorrow when he might have joy, in despair when he might have hope.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 75

Hope , Joy , Despair

“There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possible suited to its condition that its kind, or organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers to their highest perfection and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles. As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing — either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence.”

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) British scientist

On naval timber and arboriculture (1831), Appendix B

Life , Disease , Law , Nature

““My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child.Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.””

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Bessie's song (Ch. 3)
Jane Eyre (1847)

Men , God , Hope , Angels

“Atheists and the unchurched undervalue the extent to which they are getting a free ride on the social strength that religious-based virtue provides.”

Dan Henninger

Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2006, p. A12, "Wonder Land" column.

“Brethren, whatever the temptation is, our safety is not in habits of virtue. It is not in sturdy resolution and strength of character. It is not even in the timely thought of sin's consequences; but our safety is in the Saviour. Christ ever lives and ever intercedes; and it is our strength, our triumph, to rush into His arms of omnipotent protection.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 100.

Time , Christ

“.. the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like... But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence… That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith... To give you an example: someone loves Rembrandt, but seriously, - that man will know that there is a God, he will surely believe it... To try to understand the real significance, of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God..”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Cuesmes, Belgium July 1880; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 133) p. 39
1880s, 1880

Love , God , Faith , Way

“I tell you what: I give you all of my strength - I seal it inside a little green envelope and mail it to you with hope and peace and much much love. Take all you need and take it quickly.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Shampoo Planet (1992)

Love , Peace , Hope

“When a people like ours, who struggle with feelings of inferiority, have to face the facts of inadequate national strength, or of less than full respect from others, one way we try to feel better is to grab onto any piece of historical material that can make us proud.”

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

"Bellicose and Thuggish: The Roots of Chinese "Patriotism" at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century" (2002)
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems

People , Way , Feeling

“A democratic government can gain strength and vitality only by constant scrutiny and the genuine fear that it may be thrown out of a vigilant public opinion.”

V. V. Giri (1894–1980) Indian politician and 4th president of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.83

Fear

“I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun
Brilliance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Lorica of Patrick

“"Arise, take up thy bed and walk." You are on your bed now. You put yourself there by your own sin. You have kept yourself there by your own choice. Every sinner is a sinner because he chooses to be; and you are no exception. Jesus commands you to repent and trust Him and follow Him. The moment you are willing to obey, He gives you strength to obey.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 435.

“We try to transform our spirits using nonviolent means towards everybody; and this love and sacrifice gives us the guarantee that what we cannot change with our own human strength will be changed by the future, by the infinite, by nature, by God (according to the various faiths, it doesn’t matter; what matters is this opening beyond our actual forces, in the name of love for everybody, of the honesty, of the purity of the values on which conscience feeds).”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Love , God , Faith , Nature

“You have power, rank, command, influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half so much as your slightest wish.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 44, Rebecca speaking to Rowena.

Time , Wealth

“This great principle does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bodied person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts. We believe [that] seldom [do circumstances arise in which] men of rigorous faith, genuine courage, and unfaltering determination, with the love of independence burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths. We know that through humble, prayerful, industrious, God-fearing lives, a faith can be developed within us by the strength of which we can call down the blessings of a kind and merciful Heavenly Father and literally see our handicaps vanish and our independence and freedom established and maintained.”

Henry D. Moyle (1889–1963) Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Conference Report, Apr. 1948, p. 5, and quoted in The Celestial Nature of Self-reliance http://lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=0b3ac5e8b4b6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1|
Quotes as an apostle

Love , Men , God , Lie

“Indeed, we can find no more instructive lesson on the whole question of suffrage than the history of its development in the British empire. For more than four centuries, royal prerogative and the rights of the people of England have waged perpetual warfare. Often the result has appeared doubtful, often the people have been driven to the wall, but they have always renewed the struggle with unfaltering courage. Often have they lost the battle, but they have always won the campaign. Amidst all their reverses, each generation has found them stronger, each half-century has brought them its year of jubilee, and has added strength to the bulwark of law and breadth to the basis of liberty. This contest has illustrated again and again the saying that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty'. The growth of a city, the decay of a borough, the establishment of a new manufacture, the enlargement of commerce, the recognition of a new power, have, each in its turn, added new and peculiar elements to the contest. Hallam says: 'It would be difficult, probably, to name any town of the least consideration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which did not, at some time or other, return members to Parliament. This is so much the case, that if, in running our eyes along the map, we find any seaport, as Sunderland or Falmouth, or any inland town, as Leeds or Birmingham, which has never enjoyed the elective franchise, we may conclude at once that it has emerged from obscurity since the reign of Henry VIII.'”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Constitutional History of England, Chap. XIII
1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People , Law , History , Courage

“Many things are linked to being able to live with uncertainty, …with paradoxes. But this can be a strength of an organisation and a situation.”

John Elkann (1976) Italian businessman

"Unlikely heir who saved the family jewels" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0693507a-4830-11e0-b323-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GZU7VVRA, Financial Times, 03-06-11

“As ages roll on there is doubtless a progression in human nature. The intellectual comes to rule the physical, and the moral claims to subordinate both. It is no longer strength of body that prevails, but strength of mind; while the law of God proclaims itself superior to both.”

James McCosh (1811–1894) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 216.

God , Age , Law , Nature

“The measure of a man's estimate of your strength is the kind of weapons he feels that he must use in order to hold you fast in a prescribed place.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

Explaining Jim Crow laws to his daughters, in The Luminous Darkness : A Personal Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground of Hope (1989), p. 71

Feeling

“The wise have declared that a Kshatriya must be endued with physical strength, otherwise he is no Kshatriya.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Pandu addressing Kunti for begetting more children.
The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXIII

“As the trend in the ballots slowly made me realize that — in a manner of speaking the guillotine would fall on me — I started to feel quite dizzy. I thought that I had done my life's work and could now hope to live out my days in peace. I told the Lord with deep conviction, 'Don't do this to me. You have younger and better (candidates) who could take up this great task with a totally different energy and with different strength.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me.
Comments on his election during his first audience with German pilgrims, original comments given in German.
2005

Life , Peace , Hope , Feeling

“I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia from a position of strength only is possible.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)

“If you go back a couple of hundred years to when the European cities really started to grow and peasants left the land to seek their future in the cities there was a saying that “city air makes you free” and the people who have come to London all races, creeds and colours have come for that. This is a city that you can be yourself as long as you don’t harm anyone else. You can live your life as you chose to do rather than as somebody else tells you to do. It is a city in which you can achieve your potential. That, I think, is our strength and that is what the bombers seek to destroy. They fear that freedom, they fear a world in which the individual makes their own life choices and their own moral value judgements and that is what they seek to snuff out. But they will fail.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Press conference (8 July 2005)

Life , People , World , Fear

“The third and intermediate kind of instruction, which connects the first two… relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes. It qualifies the student to plan a structure or a machine for a given purpose, without the necessity of copying some existing example, and to adapt his designs to situations to which no existing example affords a parallel. It enables him to compute the theoretical limit of the strength or stability of a structure, or the efficiency of a machine of a particular kind—to ascertain how far an actual structure or machine fails to attain that limit—to discover the cause of such shortcomings—and to devise improvements for obviating such causes; and it enables him to judge how far an established practical rule is founded on reason, how far on mere custom, and how far on error.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

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

Error

“There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (1897), ch. XII: The Essentials in the Struggle, paragraph 93: "The Moral Movement" http://web.archive.org/20000818045142/members.tripod.com/~DuBois/supp.html

Life , Idea , Evil

“I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent demonstration. In so far as I represent in my heart and life the great doctrines for which you fought, I accept this demonstration as a tribute to my representative character. [Applause. ] In the strength of your hands, in the fervor of your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, in all that betokens greatness of manhood and nobleness of character, the Republic finds its security and glory. [Applause. ] I do not enter upon controverted questions. The time, the place, the situation forbid it. I respect the traditions that require me to speak only of those themes which elevate us all. Again I thank you for the kindness and enthusiasm of your greeting.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Tremendous cheering.
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Faith , Question , Time

“For a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against this Western paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim greatness. The Muslim has suffered successive stages of defeat. The first was his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the West. The second was the undermining of his authority in his own country, through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim elements. The third—the last straw—was the challenge to his mastery in his own house, from emancipated women and rebellious children. It was too much to endure, and the outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel, and incomprehensible forces that had subverted his dominance, disrupted his society, and finally violated the sanctuary of his home was inevitable. It was also natural that this rage should be directed primarily against the millennial enemy and should draw its strength from ancient beliefs and loyalties.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

Life , Women , Children , World

“They could see the rapids on their right. The swaying of the bus made her sick and weak, and her willpower was failing with her strength. She was afraid of falling into a torpor in which everything would become immaterial to her, and she tensed in an effort to seem gay and even attentive to Emmanuel.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 330

Effort

“What is needed then? Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve? It would suffice to establish society on new bases where everything would be in common and each, producing according to their aptitudes and strengths, could consume according to their needs. Then we would no longer see people like the hermit of Notre-Dame-de-Grace and others crave a metal of which they become the slaves and the victims! We would no longer see women flaunt their charms, like a vulgar merchandise, in exchange for this same metal that so often prevents us from recognising if the affection is truly sincere.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

Que faut-il alors ? Détruire la misère, ce germe de crime, en assurant à chacun la satisfaction de tous les besoins ! Et combien cela est difficile à réaliser ! Il suffirait d'établir la société sur de nouvelles bases où tout serait en commun, et où chacun, produisant selon ses aptitudes et ses forces, pourrait consommer selon ses besoins. Alors on ne verra plus des gens comme l'ermite de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce et autres mendier un métal dont ils deviennent les esclaves et les victimes ! On ne verra plus les femmes céder leurs appâts, comme une vulgaire marchandise, en échange de ce même métal qui nous empêche bien souvent de reconnaître si l'affection est vraiment sincère.
Trial statement

Women , People , Sincerity

“The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 20 (p. 555)

“Such subjects are the very strength of kings,
And are thus above the law.”

Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) French tragedian

De pareils serviteurs sont les forces des rois,
Et de pareils aussi sont au-dessus des lois.
Tulle, act V, scene iii
King Tullus forgives the hero, Horace, who has saved the state but killed his sister.
Horace (1639)

Law

“Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll,
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing.
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight,
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night,
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Chimes of Freedom

Freedom , Fight , Night

“As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Courage , Support , Effort , Waiting

“What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure. It is to prevent that that I have tried my best to urge the maintenance of every bulwark of defence—first the timely creation of an Air Force superior to anything within striking distance of our shores; secondly, the gathering together of the collective strength of many nations; and thirdly, the making of alliances and military conventions, all within the Covenant, in order to gather together forces at any rate to restrain the onward movement of this Power. It has all been in vain. Every position has been successively undermined and abandoned on specious and plausible excuses.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_370 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement
The 1930s

Pleasure , Sense , Time , Success

“Thus each by his fears adds strength to rumour, and all dread the unconfirmed dangers invented by themselves.”
Sic quisque pavendo dat vires famae, nulloque auctore malorum quae finxere timent.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia

Book I, line 484 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia

Fear

“"It cannot be said that we are lacking in faith. Even the simple fact of our life is of a faith-value that can never be exhausted.” “You suggest there is some faith-value in this? One cannot not-live, after all.” “It is precisely in this ‘Cannot, after all’ that the mad strength of faith lies; it is in this negation that it takes on form.”
There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

109
Variant translations:
It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

Life , World , Faith , Waiting

“Easily seen is the strength that is given from Zeus to mortals.”

Homér Iliad

XV. 490 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Give, and thou shalt receive. Give thoughts of cheer,
Of courage and success, to friend and stranger.
And from a thousand sources, far and near,
Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Give
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Courage , Success

“Unless we act anew, with dispatch and resolution, we shall sanction a sad and sorrowful course for the future. For if the Fifteenth Amendment is successfully flouted today, tomorrow the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment-the Sixth, the Eighth, indeed, all the provisions of the Constitution on which our system stands — will be subject to disregard and erosion. Our essential strength as a society governed by the rule of law will be crippled and corrupted and the unity of our system hollowed out and left meaningless.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

Sadness , Law , Future

“The issue before us is whether the 21st century belongs to China. And I would say that China will be preoccupied with enormous problems internally, domestically with its immediate environment, and that I have enormous difficulty imagining it will be dominated by China, and indeed, as I will conclude, I believe that the concept that some country will dominate the world, is in itself a misunderstanding of the world in which we now live… In the geopolitical situation, China historically has been surrounded by a group of smaller countries, which themselves were not individually able to threathen China, but which united, could cause a threat to China, and therefore historically, Chinese foreign policy can be described as "barbarian management". So China had never had to deal in a world of countries of approximately equal strength, and so to adjust to such a world, is in itself a profound challenge to China, which now has 14 countries on its borders, some of which are small, but can project their nationality into China, some of which are large, and historically significant, so that any attempt by Chinese to dominate the world, would evoke a counter-reaction that would be disastrous for the peace of the world.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Munk debates – “21st Century will belong to China” – Kissinger, Zakaria, Ferguson, Li http://www.livestream.com/munkdebates/video?clipId=pla_937b4cf4-e0ea-4ed5-a458-6a3ba43769b8
2000s

World , Peace , Imagination , Problem

“I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to Alexei Pleshcheev (October 4, 1888)
Letters

God

“I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced, and such has been its progress in the minds of the many, that this truth gradually gains ground. This government has for its object public strength and individual security. It is said with us to be unattainable. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, v. 1, p. 299. (June 19, 1787)
Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)

God , People , Truth , World

“Assurance of hope is more than life. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 16.

Life , Health , Beauty , Hope

“… some parties think that only the rules laid down by their doctrines are the right ones. Our strength resides in the fact that our revolution does not desire the triumph of one class or of one ideology over another…. Ours is a White Revolution: we adopt no slogan but we embrace everything which seems good to us, whether it be labelled communism, socialism or capitalism….
My final aim is to bring Iran, within twenty years, to the same level of civilization and progress as will be enjoyed by the most highly developed countries. During the last ten years the degree of our backwardness has been halved, but it is this remaining backwardness which will be the most difficult to combat.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

January 27, 1963, as quoted in The Shah's Story, page 76
Speeches, 1963

Communication , Thinking , Country

“Good actions give strength to ourselves, and inspire good actions in others.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

Duty: With Illustrations of Courage, Patience, and Endurance (1880), Ch. 2, p. 49

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Carmichael and William Short (1793)
1790s

Fear , Confidence

“While it is true that we are paying out far more money and maintaining a much stronger Military Establishment than ever before, because of the conditions stated, we have been able to pursue a moderate course. Our people have had all the war, all the taxation, and all the military service that they want. They have therefore wished to emphasize their attachment to our ancient policy of peace. They have insisted upon economy. They have supported the principle of limitation of armaments. They have been able to do this because of their position and their strength in numbers and in resources. We have a tremendous natural power which supplements our arms. We are conscious that no other nation harbors any design to put us in jeopardy.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Money , War , People , Peace

“Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.”

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss poet

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 246

God , Courage , Suffering , Heart

“Show me what I have to do,
Every hour my strength renew;
Let me live a life of faith,
Let me die Thy people's death.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 266.

Life , Death , People , Faith

“God’s signs are not always the ones we look for, yet the private prayers of people, whether in our homes or in this place, are known, heard, and understood. There are prayers that help us last through the day, or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own.”

Josefa Iloilo (1920–2011) President of Fiji

Opening address to the National Day of Prayer in Suva, 15 May 2005 (excerpts) http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_4607.shtml

God , People , Home , Help

“Summers’s outlook on economic policy can be summarized by the remark that he gave me some years ago: “If I had your views on economics, I would find another profession.” He meant that if free markets usually worked well and the government ought usually to stay out, then he would find economics to be an uninteresting occupation. Fortunately for Summers, he has always believed in the potential benefits from governmental activism, although the strength of this belief may have diminished over time.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Source: Nothing Is Sacred (2002), p. 33

Time , Summer

“I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which "man" is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Credo (1965)

Life , World , Way , Motivation

“It requires strength of character to act upon one's ideas; it requires no less strength of character to resist being seduced by them.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

New Leader, April 1, 1963.
1960s

Idea

“The three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, aided by the highest and most sublime gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as understanding, wisdom, knowledge, and counsel, unite the creature, the human spirit, with his God, the souls with the Word of God. It is this sacred union that you must seek, hold and possess; in it lie the spiritual life, health and strength, and from it originate all the other virtues.”

Francisco Palau (1811–1872) Beatified Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest

Letter to Juana Gratia (1857)

Life , Wisdom , God , Health

“Any act often repeated soon forms a habit : and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. — At first it may be but as the spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 212.

“Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think,—to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds as with the mace of Bhima. (…) When there is destruction, it is the form that perishes, not the spirit—for the world and its ways are forms of one Truth which appears in this material world in ever new bodies…. In India, the chosen land, [that Truth] is preserved; in the soul of India it sleeps expectant on that soul's awakening, the soul of India leonine, luminous, locked in the closed petals of the ancient lotus of love, strength and wisdom, not in her weak, soiled, transient and miserable externals. India alone can build the future of mankind. (…) Ancient or pre-Buddhistic Hinduism sought Him both in the world and outside it; it took its stand on the strength and beauty and joy of the Veda, unlike modern or post-Buddhistic Hinduism which is oppressed with Buddha's sense of universal sorrow and Shankara's sense of universal illusion,—Shankara who was the better able to destroy Buddhism because he was himself half a Buddhist. Ancient Hinduism aimed socially at our fulfilment in God in life, modern Hinduism at the escape from life to God. The more modern ideal is fruitful of a noble and ascetic spirituality, but has a chilling and hostile effect on social soundness and development; social life under its shadow stagnates for want of belief and delight, sraddha and ananda. If we are to make our society perfect and the nation is to live again, then we must revert to the earlier and fuller truth.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1910-1912
India's Rebirth

Love , Life , Wisdom , God

“The essence of these tactics is some voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice. They rest on the paradox that the power to constrain an adversary may depend on the power to bind oneself; that, in bargaining, weakness is often strength, freedom may be freedom to capitulate, and to burn bridges behind one may suffice to undo an opponent.”

Thomas C. Schelling (1921–2016) American economist

An essay on bargaining (The strategy of conflict)

Freedom , Dependency

“Japan gets the most of ordinary people by organizing them to adapt and succeed. America, by getting out of their way so that they can adjust individually, allows them to succeed. It is not that Japan has no individualists and America no organizations, but the thrusts of the societies are different. Japan has distorted its economy and depressed its living standard in order to keep its job structure and social values as steady as possible. At the government's direction, the entire economy has tried to flex almost as one, in response to the ever-changing world. The country often seems like a family that becomes more tightly bound together when it must withstand war, emigration, or some other upheaval. America's strength is the opposite: it opens its doors and brings the world's disorder in. It tolerates social change that would tear most other countries apart. The openness encourages Americans to adapt as individuals rather than as a group.”

James Fallows (1949) American journalist

More Like Us : Making America Great Again (1989), ch. 3

War , People , World , Family

“"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

Source: Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859), Ch. I : Self-Help — National and Individual; earlier variant of the proverb quoted: God helps them who help themselves; recorded in Jacula Prudentum (1651) by George Herbert

Men , Help

“The greatest hero of Greece was Hercules. He was a personage of quite another order from the great hero of Athens, Theseus. He was what all Greece, except Athens, most admired. The Athenians were different from the other Greeks, and their hero therefore was different. Theseus was, of course, bravest of the brave, as all heroes are; but, unlike other heroes, he was as compassionate as he was brave, and a man of great intellect as well as great bodily strength. It was natural that the Athenians should have such a hero, because they valued thought and ideas, as no other part of the country did. In Theseus their ideal was embodied. But Hercules embodied what the rest of Greece most valued. His qualities were those the Greeks in general honored and admired. Except for unflinching courage, they were not those that distinguished Theseus. Hercules was the strongest man on earth, and he had the supreme self-confidence magnificent physical strength gives. He considered himself on an equality with the gods.”

Edith Hamilton book Mythology

Source: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (1942), Ch. 11

God , Confidence , Idea , Courage

“A source of strength in the early days was that groups in various parts of the world were prepared to construct experimental computers without necessarily intending them to be the prototype for serial production. As a result, there became available a body of knowledge about what would work and what would not work.”

Maurice Wilkes (1913–2010) British computer scientist

Sect. 1: Pioneering Days
"Computers Then and Now" (1968)

World , Knowledge , Parting

“In its glorification of the spirit of order, the Church seemed to be giving its sanction to the type of bourgeois who was concerned to fulfill his duties scrupulously and content to remain within his own sphere. But this bourgeois, whom modern eighteenth-century society certainly could not dispense with, was far from summing up in himself the whole spirit of his class. There was another type of bourgeois who had nothing about him of a monk transplanted into an office. He was energetic, pushing, by no means content to confine himself to a life rhythmically punctuated by work; rather, he was concerned to grow, to achieve power and wealth through his own effort. But what would the Church say of this bourgeois who was to become the monarch of the modern age? It did not like him; it could not like him; the impulse that moved him was too contrary to its own. He seemed intent on flouting God; trusting in his own strength, he seemed to want to organize his life independently of the plans of Divine Providence.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 177

Life , God , Age , Effort

“Luther's merit in literary history is of the greatest: his dialect became the language of all writing. They are not well written, these Four-and-twenty Quartos of his; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no Books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He dashes out illumination from him; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter. Good humor too, nay tender affection, nobleness and depth: this man could have been a Poet too! He had to work an Epic Poem, not write one.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest

Secret , Books , History , Sense

“I shall defend this pact with all my strength, and if Fascism does not follow me in collaboration with the Socialists, at least no one can force me to follow Fascism.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in Italy: A Modern History, Denis Mack Smith, University of Michigan Press (1959) p. 352, Pact of Pacification, 1921
1920s

“I admit, of course, that the artist does not see nature as the vulgar do. His emotion reveals to him the inner truths that underlie appearance. But the only principle In art is to copy what one sees. Every other method is ruinous. No one can embellish Nature. It is simply and solely a question of seeing. Doubtless a mediocre man, when he copies will never produce a work of art. He looks without seeing. No matter how minutely he observes, the result will be flat and without character. But the artist's trade is not for mediocre men, and no amount of training can supply them with talent. The artist sees - he sees with his heart. He sees deep into the heart of Nature. To the artist everything in Nature is beautiful.
The vulgarian imagines that what looks to him ugly In Nature is not material for the artist. He would forbid us to represent what displeases and offends him. He makes a grave mistake. What is commonly called ugliness in Nature may become a great beauty in art.
In the realm of realities, people regard as ugly everything that is deformed and diseased and that suggests sickness, weakness and suffering. They regard as ugly everything that defies regularity, which is to them the symbol and condition of health and strength. A hump is ugly, bow-legs are ugly, misery in rags is ugly. Ugly, again, are the soul and conduct of the immoral, the vicious, the criminal man, the abnormal man who is an enemy of society; ugly is the soul of the parricide, the traitor, the unscrupulous slave of ambition. And it is right that the lives and the of which we can expect only evil should be given an odious epithet.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Rodin on realism, 1910

Men , People , Health , Truth

“Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Last lines
Middlemarch (1871)

Life , World , Nature , Dependency

“The Allied airborne operation in Sicily was decisive despite widely scattered drops which must be expected in a night landing. It is my opinion that if it had not been for the Allied airborne forces (82nd) blocking the Hermann Goering Armd. Div. from reaching the beachhead, that division would have driven the initial seaborne forces back into the sea. I attribute the entire success of the Allied Sicilian Operation to the delaying of German reserves (by the 82nd ABN Div.) until sufficient forces had been landed by sea to resist the counterattacks by our defending forces, the strength of which had been held in mobile reserve.”

Kurt Student (1890–1978) German Luftwaffe general during World War II

Quoted in "Airlift Doctrine" - Page 88 - by Charles E. Miller - History - 1988.

Decision , Success , Sea , Night

“We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.
Maxim 19.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine —
Thy wounded hand! — until its tremblings take
Strength from Thy touch.”

Dora Greenwell (1821–1882) English poet

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 88.

“The American ash from which bats are made has an unusually high strength-to-weight ratio. Ash was celebrated in medieval times as the only proper wood from which to construct the lances of knights errant; an ash lance was light enough to carry and wield and strong enough to impale the opposition.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 6, Properties Of Bats, p. 134

Light , Strong , Time

“I possess only a single bare, frame-less icon [his Squares ] of our times (like a pocket), and it is difficult to struggle. But my happiness in not being like you [ Aleksandr Benois ] will give me the strength to go further and further into the empty wilderness. For it is only there that transformation can take place. And I think you are mistaken when you say in reproaching me that my philosophy will destroy millions of lives. Are you not, all of you, like a roaring blaze that obstructs and prevents any forward movement?”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote in: 'Letter from K. Malevich to art-critic Aleksandr Benois', May 1916; by Jane A, Sharp, in Chapter 'The Critical Reception of the 0. 10 Exhibition: Malevich and Benua', in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 44
1910 - 1920

Thinking , Time , Happiness