Quotes & Sayings About Battles Of Life

Some people think that because Jesus accomplished everything on the cross, we don't have to do anything at all. But if that's true, why did Jesus teach us to pray, "Deliver us from the evil one" (Matthew 6:13)? Why did Paul say to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17)? Yes, the victory over evil was accomplished on the cross, but the enemy is still here. He is a defeated enemy, but he is still waging the war. We don't want him winning any battles on our watch, especially as long as we can be part of the force God has called to stop him. We must have the whole armor of God protecting us at all times so we can stand successfully against the enemy's plans for not only our life, but also the lives of others. — Stormie O'martian

Now you must cast aside your laziness,"
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore, get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it.
A longer ladder still is to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have understood, now profit from it. — Dante Alighieri

You cannot win the war. You will seem to win but it will be an illusion. You will win the battles, kill billions, rape Worlds, take slaves, and destroy ships and weapons. But after that you will be forced to hold the subjection. Your numbers will not be expendable. You will be spread thin, exposed to other cultures that will influence you, change you. You will lose skirmishes, and in the end you will be forced back. Then will come a loss of old ethics, corruption and opportunism will replace your honor and you will know unspeakable shame and dishonor... your culture will soon be weltering back into a barbarism and disorganization which in its corruption and despair will be nothing like the proud tribal primitive life of its first barbarism. You will be aware of the difference and unable to return. — Charles V. De Vet

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
"Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way. — Howard Schultz

Make life easier for those around you, not harder.
Every person you know is fighting their own great battle. Few of us ever know what those battles entail, and so often we say and do things that push others deeper and harder into the front lines of those battles. I know such has been the relentless lifelong reality for me.
Love a person for the person that they are.
Or dislike them for the person that they are.
But don't love or dislike them for the sole reason that they see people differently than you do. Don't love or dislike them because they experience the world differently than you do.
And please don't eternally and wholly define them with sexual labels just because they were among those who finally found the courage to acknowledge their truth. — Dan Pearce

Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters?
Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them. — Francis S. Collins

[O]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life. And I think it may be possible to review 'the chronicles of wasted time.' William Morris wrote in The Dream of John Ball that men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected, and then be compelled again to defend it under another name. We are all of us very good at self-persuasion and I strive to be alert to its traps, but a version of what Hegel called 'the cunning of history' is a parallel commentary that I fight to keep alive in my mind. — Christopher Hitchens

In all of our battles, let's roar with the conquering powers of love and determination. — D. Allen Miller

Fantasy stories open our eyes to an unseen world and train our minds to see beyond the visible. In the New Testament context, this is where our real battles are fought. Good fantasy will reveal the hidden powers of evil that threaten the hero's life and upset his journey. Good fantasy focuses on how a hero finds victory when he learns that he can't win by himself, so he submits to the higher power in faith and obedience. — Bryan Davis

This was where war happened, in someone's backyard. Sometimes it was yours. Often, it was someone's a world away. But it did happen. In this moment. In the next breath. Every day.
Every day, someone lived in the midst of destruction and chaos. Every day, someone's flower boxes filled with gunpowder's haze, a child's laughter turned to tears. There had been a day when someone watered those flowers in the evening's peaceful quiet and the children caught fireflies in mason jars. And that day will come again, when the crickets and the bullets no longer have to compete for the night's stage. But for now, all anyone could do was fight on the crickets' behalf. — Kelseyleigh Reber

Procrastination and fear are the enemies of success; the war is lifelong, but the battles are daily. — Noel DeJesus

Once he had thought it a refuge, once he had thought it holiness ... But now he began to suspect that the good brothers did not shadow the ether not because they were good, but because they had masked themselves from everything, had carefully erased their stray thoughts, had poured out their human longings, emptied themselves of desires and become so transparent as existence that they had not only ceased to be evil, they had ceased to be good. They had ceased to fight the battles of everyday life, and simply weighed nothing. Not a feather. Not a grain. They had given up everything, until they vanished from the scale of all that mattered, having given away themselves long before any power declared the contest. — C.J. Cherryh

I've been reading and researching various aspects of history - Dickens' London, Nelson's sea battles, Magellan's nautical explorations, the weapons and battles and key figures of the American Civil War - for most of my life. I pick up a book here or there or see a documentary or talk with an expert in the subject, and my curiosity about the one area of study and discovery always leads to another. — Gary Paulsen

The peaceful warrior's greatest battles don't lie in the external world, but within us. These inner hurdles generate most of the obstacles and difficulties we encounter in daily life. They carry greater danger than outer problems, because they slip, unseen and unnoticed, into our every endeavor. — Dan Millman

Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life. — Stefan Zweig

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. — Michael Grant

But while the residents were shocked by the violence, they were also often surprised by the mundaneness of it all. Discovered the extent of perversity the heart is capable of as they sat at home with nothing to do, and found that it was possible, faced with the stench of unimaginable evil, for a human being to grow bored, yawn, be absorbed by the problem of a missing sock, by neighborly irritations, to feel hunger skipping like a little mouse inside a tummy and return, once again, to the pressing matter of what to eat ... There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice
the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event, — Kiran Desai

Our lives consist of a series of internal battles, deep within us, where weapons don't exist and technology is unable to create devices that better the best of yesterday. Our knowledge is our only defense; caution, our only friend. — A.J. Darkholme

Don't judge me. You're not living my life and you know nothing about my battles. You have not the faintest idea of how I manage to smile in the middle of storms or how I transform my despair into delight. You have not the faintest idea of what I have gone through and why I am who I am today. This is my life and only I know the real story. The strains, the struggles, the sorrows are all mine. They're not for you to assess or evaluate; I give that authority to none, for My Guiding Light is Within. - Manprit Kaur — Manprit Kaur

Your trials equal the power of God that works in you. If your battles are intense, then what God has deposited in you is deep. — Paul Gitwaza

For at the beginning of the twentieth century, the nation had been struggling to find its way. Terror had raged, a second civil war had threatened to split the nation into new feuding armies, and the inequities of industrial life had brutalized too many lives. Three men who were caught up in those traumatic times, shaped by them, found with their talents, energy, and ideals a way out of it, both for themselves and for the nation. Darrow, Billy, D.W. were all flawed - egotists, temperamental, and too often morally complacent. But as their careers and lives intersected in Los Angeles at the tail end of the first decade of the twentieth century, each in his own way helped to move America into the modern world. They were individuals willing to fight for their beliefs; and the legacy of their battles, their cultural and political brawls, remains part of our national consciousness. — Howard Blum

Shakespeare's plays were a great Teutonic Valhalla with brilliant sunshine at times and violent tempests at others. The world to him was a battlefield, but his sense of poetic justice, his sublime faith in life and its infinite resources, guided the battles. — Bjornstjerne Bjornson

While his relaxed, good-natured voice doled out his life for us to live a rollicking past full of kid fun and drinking buddies and loving women and barroom battles over meager honors-for all of us to dream ourselves into. — Ken Kesey

When you are all wasted
by the battles of life
And finally,
given up on ideologies
An embalming hand comes out of Grace
Race towards it
Hold it
Embrace it
Cut off your garments
Expose your wounds
Bare your heart
Heal
Forget
Live — Gabriel Iqbal

May God fight our battles for us. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I grew up on welfare in the South Bronx; I had a very tough upbringing in that neighborhood. Reading books like The Four Agreements, A Return to Love, and The Power of Now helped me to overcome many internal battles. Had I not worked on myself, put value in myself, I would not have the loving and supportive people that I have right now in my life, including my husband and children — Andrea Navedo

We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it. We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty. It is time to acknowledge that light-hearted superficiality has done us no good. When the foundations of social life are corroded, what ensues are battles over conflicting interests, new forms of violence and brutality, and obstacles to the growth of a genuine culture of care for the environment. — Pope Francis

Richard straightened with a sigh. "People are often more willing to believe lies than truth. Lies can be made to sound pleasant. The truth, by it's very nature, isn't always so attractive."
"That leaves peaceful people no choice but to fight for their lives or fall to the blades of madmen. In such a situation, there is no middle ground. There is no such thing as compromise between civilization and savagery. Civilization must always defend itself against savagery or else fall to it."
"I guess that's our part in this?"
Richard nodded. "I've never wanted to fight, to be in a war, to see good people die, to have to kill. I just wanted to live my life in peace. Others wouldn't allow me that life of peace. The battles I fight have always been to survive and live in peace, not to conquer. — Terry Goodkind

I see myself living by correct principles and accomplishing worthy purposes. One of my favorite quotes is, "The greatest battles of life are fought out every day in the silent chambers of one's own soul." (David O. McKay). — Stephen Covey

For decades Southie had been immigrant Irish against the world, fighting first a losing battle againsnt shameful discrimination from the Yankee merchhants who had run Boston for centuries and then another one against mindless bureaucrats and an obdurate federal judge who imposed school busing on the "town" that hated outsiders to begin with. Both clashes were the kind of righteous fight that left residents the way they liked to be: bloodied but unbowed. The shared battles reaffirmed a view of life: never trust outsiders and never forget where you come from. — Dick Lehr & Gerard O'Neill

A scientist's life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown, the problem to be solved, the mystery to be clarified. It is never a matter of civil war; even though of different opinions, or of different political leanings, scientists dispute each other, they compete, but they do not battle: they are bound together by a strong alliance, by the common faith "in the validity of Maxwell's or Boltzmann's equations," and by the common acceptance of Darwinism and the molecular structure of DNA. — Primo Levi

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for. — Paulo Coelho

People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought. — Daniel Goleman

So endeth the story of the winning of Excalibur, and may God give unto you in your life, that you may have His truth to aid you, like a shining sword, for to overcome your enemies; and may He give you Faith (for Faith containeth Truth as a scabbard containeth its sword), and may that Faith heal all your wounds of sorrow as the sheath of Excalibur healed all the wounds of him who wore that excellent weapon. For with Truth and Faith girded upon you, you shall be as well able to fight all your battles as did that noble hero of old, whom men called King Arthur. — Howard Pyle

Ways that God's army will not be like a human army: 1) It will fight to give life, not take it. 2) It will fight to free people, not conquer them. 3) Its victory is not the destruction of those controlled by the enemy, but rather the tearing down of strongholds that are keeping them in bondage so as to set them free. 4) Its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. 5) The battles, objectives, strategies, and tactics will be spiritual, not physical. The above is corroborated in a number of Scriptures, but we will review just a few, beginning with II Corinthians 10:3-6: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled (NKJV). — Rick Joyner

It is not lies or a lack of loyalty that ends a relationship. It is the agonizing truth that one person feels in their heart on a daily basis. It is realizing that you are coping and not living. It is the false belief that there is a verse, quote, phrase or talk that will magically make you feel content, complete or not care. However, it doesn't last longer than a few days, before your mind and heart goes back to what it wants. It is the moment you realize that you left without ever leaving. It is the moment you realize that fear, shame or guilt is the only thing standing in the way of the life God meant for you to live. — Shannon L. Alder

I have studied the enemy all my life. I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders. I have even read his philosophers and listened to his music. I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles. I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances. And he hasn't the slightest idea of what I'm going to do. So when the time comes, I'm going to whip the hell out of him. — George S. Patton

Neither the victories of the Olympic Games nor those achieved in battles make the man happy. The only victories that make him happy are those achieved against himself. Temptations and tests are combats. You have beaten one, two, many times; still fight. If you defeat at last you will be happy your entire life, as if you have always defeated. — Epictetus

If the beginning of wisdom is in realizing that one knows nothing, then the beginning of understanding is in realizing that all things exist in accord with a single truth: Large things are made of smaller things.
Drops of ink are shaped into letters, letters form words, words form sentences, and sentences combine to express thought. So it is with the growth of plants that spring from seeds, as well as with walls built from many stones. So it is with mankind, as the customs and traditions of our progenitors blend together to form the foundation for our own cities, history, and way of life.
Be they dead stone, living flesh, or rolling sea; be they idle times or events of world-shattering proportion, market days or desperate battles, to this law, all things hold: Large things are made from small things. Significance is cumulative
but not always obvious.
Gaius Secondus — Jim Butcher

You'd put our parents at risk for some piece of tail?" Ghleanna demanded.
"She saved my life."
"You can fight your own battles!"
"Not when I'm knocked out on my ass!"
"You mean knocked out on your fat ass!"
"My ass, like the rest of me, is perfection! — G.A. Aiken

This isn't a courtroom, pal," I said to Nelson, "this is the gutter. No fancy robes, no platitudes engraved in marble, no brass railing dividing the sides. This is the streets and the alleys. this is the Chicago we really live in. Here justice isn't dispensed with a wooden gavel, it's taken with your bare hands. It may be Tubby's world, a part of it, but it's also August Jansen's world, and my world, and yours. Darrow's a great man but this work comes after the fact, after the real battles of life are fought. Lawyers and judges pick up the pieces after the dust settles. Their job is to make sense of what's happened, not make it happen. That occurs in the gutter where blood and bone and horse manure and coal dust and sweat and fear blend and roil. In the end you either have hope or sewage. It can go either way, but it goes on. — James Conroy

Battles are won by those who never give up the fight. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Everywhere in Homer's saga of the rage of Achilles and the battles before Troy we are made conscious at one and the same time of war's ugly brutality and what Yeats called its "terrible beauty." The Iliad accepts violence as a permanent factor in human life and accepts it without sentimentality, for it is just as sentimental to pretend that war does not have its monstrous ugliness as it is to deny that it has its own strange and fatal beauty, a power, which can call out in men resources of endurance, courage and self-sacrifice that peacetime, to our sorrow and loss, can rarely command. — Bernard Knox

Why does anyone fight a war? To protect a way of life, to find or support loved ones. To avenge those lost. Or maybe because it's a calling. Because someone has to. Because there's a line no enemy should be allowed to cross. — Tracy Banghart

A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' ... — Christopher Hitchens

The best convent for a woman is the seclusion of her own home. There she may find her vocation and fight her battles, and there she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life. — Elizabeth Prentiss

Maybe it's just me, but I think imperfections build character. The most interesting people seem to have the bumpiest pasts. You ever talk to a "perfect" person? What a snooze! I don't even trust people with no scars. Whether for casual conversation or companionship on any level, I prefer to connect with someone who has experienced the casualties of life's battles. — Steve Maraboli

I didn't just magically end up becoming the person that I am today. I also dealt with different kinds of pain and hardships, and I chose to fight and win over these battles instead of letting it defeat me and become just a mere victim. — Kcat Yarza

It does not matter what others think of how I lived my life. It does not matter if we go down in Temuge's histories as tyrants or even cowards. All that matters is what we do now. We are our only judges, Kachiun. Remember that. Those who come after will have other trials, other battles to worry about. — Conn Iggulden

Heterosexual relationships seem to lead only to marriage, and for most poor dumb brainwashed women marriage is the climactic experience. For men, marriage is a matter of efficient logistics: the male gets his food, bed, laundry, TV, pussy, offspring and creature comforts all under one roof, where he doesn't have to dissipate his psychic energy thinking about them too much - then he is free to go out and fight the battles of life, which is what existence is all about.
But for a woman, marriage is surrender. Marriage is when a girl gives up the fight, walks off the battlefield and from then on leaves the truly interesting and significant action to her husband, who has bargained to 'take care' of her. What a sad bum deal.
Women live longer than men because they really haven't been living. Better blue-in-the-face dead of a heart attack at fifty than a healthy seventy-year old widow who hasn't had a piece of life's action since girlhood. — Tom Robbins

In the New Testament it is taught that willing and voluntary service to others is the highest duty and glory in human life ... The men of talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books, and produce the works of art. The benefit and enjoyment go to the whole. There are those who joyfully order their own lives so that they may serve the welfare of mankind. — William Graham Sumner

Life is seen as an ongoing war between art and philistinism - and although the philistines may win some of the battles, it is literature that always wins the war. — Helon Habila

I know I have been portrayed as a general looking for war. Many other headlines speak of that. That's what people say. But I understand the importance of peace because I saw the horrors of war. That's how I see it. I lost my best friends in battles.. and I had to make decisions of life and death, of others and myself. — Ariel Sharon

Artham felt lighter and stronger, and for the first time in nine years, his mind was clear and sure. The words to a hundred of his own poems scrolled across his memory; he saw faces of old friends, battles he had fought, and even the most terrible moments of his life - and yet he remained himself. The wild animal inside that he had struggled so long to kill pulsed with power, but it was no longer his master. He rode the pain like a knight rides a horse. ...
Artham's eyes watered from the wind and from the speed and from the magnificent beauty of the land arrayed below him. Water streaked from the corners of his eyes ... and , in the vicious cold froze into silvery jewels.
He would have to write a poem about this. — Andrew Peterson

For me, the most interesting people seem to have the bumpiest pasts. I prefer to connect with someone who has experienced the struggles, battles, and casualties of life's journey. There is beauty, wisdom, and truth to be found in the scars. — Steve Maraboli

A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference, nor does he attempt to transform it into a victory. The pain of defeat is bitter to him; he suffers at indifference and becomes desperate with loneliness. After all this has passed, he licks his wounds and begins everything anew. A warrior knows that war is made of many battles: he goes on — Paulo Coelho

We are great fools. "He has spent his life in idleness," we say; "I have done nothing today." What, have you not lived? That is not only the most fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. . . . To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. — Harold Bloom

We never know the battles others are facing. We don't know the demons they are hiding. Everyone you have ever met is fighting something. You may have thought no one could've had the kind of raw deal you were dealt in life, being ailed with a mental illness, yet the truth is, many have the same or worse problems than that of your own. — Kathryn Perez

At least 600,000 men died in the Civil War. Major battles numbered the dead in the thousands; even minor skirmishes killed hundreds...Then why study the death of thirteen men?... Mass death numbs the mind and heart as it numbers its vast toll. Relief from the horror is less possible when we watch old Joe Woods and thirteen-year-old David Shelton plead for life - and then die. — Phillip Shaw Pauadan

...true death, my friend and counselor, who was never again going to allow me to act like such a coward...He was not going to allow me to put off until tomorrow what I should be enjoying today. He was not going to let me flee from life's battles, and he was going to help me fight the good fight. Never again, ever, was I going to feel ridiculous about doing anything. Because he was there, saying that when he took me in hand to travel with me to other worlds, I should leave behind the greatest sin of all: regret. With the certainty of his presence and the gentleness of his face, I was sure that I was going to be able to drink from the fountain of life. — Paulo Coelho

Our faith is built in the dark, in the valleys, and during the back-breaking battles in life. — Dana Arcuri

Here's a hand to the boy who has courage
To do what he knows to be right;
When he falls in the way of temptation,
He has a hard battle to fight.
Who strives against self and his comrade
Will find a most powerful foe.
All honor to him if he conquers.
A cheer for the boy who says, "No!"

There's many a battle fought daily
The world knows nothing about;
There's many a brave little soldier
Whose strength puts a legion to rout.
And he who fights sin singlehanded
Is more of a hero, I say,
Than he who leads soldiers to battle
And conquers by arms in the fray.

Be steadfast, my boy, when you're tempted,
To do what you know to be right.
Stand firm by the colors of manhood,
And you will o'ercome in the fight.
"The right," be your battle cry ever
In waging the warfare of life,
And God, who knows who are the heroes,
Will give you the strength for the strife. — Phoebe Cary

Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life. — Anton Chekhov

Seek happiness now within you. Don't look anywhere else or for anyone to help bring that happiness to your life. Happiness comes as a reward of battles we win. Happiness will come from the will to be strong minded and the readiness to face the next challenge with a smile. — Sal Martinez

A life without an objective is much like a ship at sea with no port in mind. It drifts with the waves or storms, or with the whim of the captain. They are tempted to ask, amidst the battles of life, "Is the struggle worth-while?" That attitude lessens the joy of living. They who say that there is no purpose in life are not unhappy, but become dangerous to themselves and others, for they have no safe guide for their actions. Indeed, life has not objective save physical satisfactions, it is empty and valueless. — John Andreas Widtsoe

Running away, avoiding life's battles or giving up robs you of the opportunity to grow and be stronger. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

No, that's not the case at all. Shishio's logic dictates that the winner of a battle, in other words, the strong, is always correct that it does. If the truth could be discovered through fighting one or two battles, then we'd all be going through life without ever being wrong. A person's life isn't so simple a matter that it isn't. The true answer is something you find out yourself by how you live your life from this day onward that it is.
-Kenshin — Nobuhiro Watsuki

The simple fact is that we live in a world of conflict and opposites because we live in a world of boundaries. Since every boundary line is also a battle line, here is the human predicament: the firmer one's boundaries, the more entrenched are one's battles. The more I hold onto pleasure, the more I necessarily fear pain. The more I pursue goodness, the more I am obsessed with evil. The more I seek success, the more I must dread failure. The harder I cling to life, the more terrifying death becomes. The more I value anything, the more obsessed I become with its loss. Most of our problems, in other words, are problems of boundaries
and the opposites they create. — Ken Wilber

Our greatest battles lie deep within our own psyches as we face fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. These internal adversaries pose a far greater threat to our lives and our well-being than the external difficulties of daily life. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato — Dan Millman

Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd. — William Shakespeare

No one wants to go through life alone, fighting battles single-handedly their whole life. Not even the hardiest of heroes. That's just a miserable existence. Everyone needs someone in their corner, right? ... Even if you could," I wrinkled my brow, "would you really want to? By all accounts, it gets lonely being your own hero. — J.M. Richards

Of course things like that complicate life, and there are all kinds of
readjustments to think about, battles to fight and lines to draw. — Nick Hornby

One of the tests for positive thinking, for constructive thinking, is to test one's idle moments. At those times, is one's mind turning over negative critical thoughts; fighting battles that have been won or lost; rehashing senseless arguments? If so, then one is out of tune. But if one is thinking how to improve a situation or a procedure, how to gain a worthwhile objective, then one is on the constructive side of life. — Paul Davis

In life, some of the toughest battles we face are in between our own two ears. — Christian Cianci

Now the line was drawn. Lucy had never thought that one of the fiercest battles of her life would be fought over a breakfast table, with quiet words carefully chosen. — Lisa Kleypas

Choose your battles - small enough to win but big enough to matter. — Carlos Wallace

Your thoughts about your circumstances have you down. On the other hand, you can be in one of the biggest battles of your life, and still be filled with joy and peace and victory - if you simply learn how to choose the right thought. It's time to think about what you're thinking about. — Joel Osteen

I languish around in my life, never quite doing what I set out to do. I am tired of being a silver medalist, and tired of fighting uphill battles that I only sort of win. — Kim Gruenenfelder

The greatest power you have is your faith. F-A-I-T-H. And the word faith stands for Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him. God will be there to fight all your battles, all you have to do is let him. Faith is very strong. Part of my life ministry is talking about God in terms of bringing back who I really am to the forefront of my identity. — Gary Busey

Most of life's battles are fought inside ourselves, & our greatest periods of growth usually come during crises. — Robert Scheid

And she knew that her fate wasn't set by how or where she was born, but the decisions she made and the battles she fought. It didn't matter if she had eight toes or ten, amber eyes or blue. What mattered was what she set out to do. — Robert Beatty

Software-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options. — Nathan Myhrvold

If you haven't got a sense of humor you're making your life a hundred times harder. It doesn't matter what happens to you, if you can have a laugh about it, and don't take yourself so serious, you have the battles halfway won. — Jack Bruce

Not one foot will I fly, so long as breath bides within my breast; for, by Him that shaped both sea and land, this day shall end my battles or my life. I will die King of England. — Richard III Of England

What happens to you, Uhtred, is what you make happen. You will grow, you will learn the sword, you will learn the way of the shield wall, you will learn the oar, you will give honor to the gods, and then you will use what you have learned to make your life good or bad. — Bernard Cornwell

By laughing at me, the audience really laughs at themselves, and realizing they have done this gives them sort of a spiritual second wind for going back into the battles of life. — Emmett Kelly

Call listened with amusement
not that the incident hadn't been terrible. Being decapitated was a grisly fate, whether you were a Yankee or not. But then, amusing things happened in battle, as they did in the rest of life. Some of the funniest things he had ever witnessed had occurred during battles. He had always found it more satisfying to laugh on a battlefield than anywhere else, for if you lived to laugh on a battlefield, you could feel you had earned the laugh. But if you just laughed in a saloon, or at a social, the laugh didn't reach deep. — Larry McMurtry

In his treatise on the battles between the gods underlying ancient Dionysian theatre, the young Nietzsche notes: 'Alas! The magic of these struggles is such, that he who sees them must also take part in them.' Similarly, an anthropology of the practising life is infected by its subject. Dealing with practices, asceticisms and exercises, whether or not they are declared as such, the theorist inevitably encounters his own inner constitution, beyond affirmation and denial. — Peter Sloterdijk

Here's the problem: when every sin is seen as the same, we are less likely to fight any sins at all. Why should I stop sleeping with my girlfriend when there will still be lust in my heart? Why pursue holiness when even one sin in my life means I'm Osama bin Hitler in God's eyes? Again, it seems humble to act as if no sin is worse than another, but we lose the impetus for striving and the ability to hold each other accountable when we tumble down the slip-n-slide of moral equivalence. All of a sudden the elder who battles the temptation to take a second look at the racy section of the Lands End catalog shouldn't dare exercise church discipline ont he young man fornicating with reckless abandon. When we can no longer see the different gradations among sins and sinners and sinful nations, we have not succeeded in respecting our own badness; we've cheapened God's goodness. — Kevin DeYoung

The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul. — David O. McKay

Defeating the enemy through deception with little loss of life is better than fighting face-to-face with the loss of many lives on both sides. — Aleksandra Layland

My conflicts of conscience are about the only battles I'm fighting these days, and I'm willing to fight until the end. There is something freeing
about this life, about living out of a single backpack and disappearing into the night. About smelling terrible and never remembering people's names. About never having to say you're sorry. We exist outside of society. We stay up late and sleep even later. We
are bandits, pirates, serial killers. The dregs. Someone should lock us up and never let us out again. But instead, they give us their money, they offer us their beds. We are not
going to pay for the beer. We are not going to be back here for a good, long while. We have prior engagements. We have the money in a duffel bag. We have no shame. Fuck guilt. Back to life. — Pete Wentz

If you're the kind of woman who can withstand the blaze of hellfire he's got burning inside, he battles that and wins, you will know nothing for the rest of your life, no taste, no experience, not even the birth of your children that will be sweeter than the love he'll have for you. — Kristen Ashley

Your worries are my worries. Your battles are my battles. I will stand by you for all of my days. I will witness your life. I will look to you and follow. You will never be alone, for I will be at your side. Together we will forever be. — M. Topping

If getting my way as ruler is always going to be so difficult, I'll have to choose my battles carefully, or spend the rest of my life in a state of perpetual exhaustion. — Stacey Jay

Perhaps it's human nature: We want to shield our children from pain, and what we get instead is life and heartache and lessons that bring us to our knees. Sooner or later we are handed the brute, necessary curriculum of surrender, we have no choice, then but to bow our heads and learn. We struggle to accept that our children's destinies are not ours to write, their battles not ours to fight, their bruises not ours to bear, nor their victories ours to take credit for. We learn humility and how to ask for help. We learn to let go even when every fiber of our being yearns to hold on even tighter. — Katrina Kenison

The minister's leadership of the congregation in its mission to the world will be first and foremost in the area of his or her own discipleship, in that life of prayer and daily consecration which remains hidden from the world but which is the place where the essential battles are either won or lost. — Lesslie Newbigin

Often, during combat, the warrior of light receives blows that he was not expecting. And he realizes that, during a war, his enemy is bound to win some of the battles. When this happens, the warrior of light weeps bitter tears and rests in order to recover his energies a little. But he immediately resumes the battle for his dreams. — Paulo Coelho

Angry at his parents and all grown-ups who thought that school life was a lark, a good time, the best years of your life with a few test and quizzes thrown in to keep you on your toes. Bullshit. There was nothing good about it. Tests were daily battles in the larger war of school. School meant rules and orders and commands. To say nothing of homework. — Robert Cormier

Something similar happens on the other side of the equation: Giving kindness does us as much good as receiving it ... The true benefit of kindness is being kind. Perhaps more than any other factor, kindness gives meaning and value to our life, raises us above our troubles and our battles, and makes us feel good about ourselves. — Piero Ferrucci