Become Strong Quotes & Sayings

You know what it takes to win. Just look at my fist. When I make a fist, it's strong and you can't tear it apart. As long as there's unity, there's strength. We must become so close with the bonds of loyalty and sacrifice, so deep with the conviction of the sole purpose, that no one, no group, no thing, can ever tear us apart. — Ara Parseghian

There is a darkness in you. In all of us, probably. Beasts we keep chained. Ordinary men have to keep the chains strong, for if we let the beast loose then society will turn upon us with fiery vengeance. Kings though ... well, who is there to turn upon them? So the chains are made of straw. It is the curse of kings, Helikaon, that they can become monsters. And they invariably do. — David Gemmell

If you don't appreciate what you have in life right now, whatever it is, you will never realize your purpose. Without appreciation, you will never become strong enough to respect yourself. — Caroline Myss

The economy - and the need to keep it strong and growing - has somehow become the most important aspect of modern life. Nothing else is allowed to rank higher. The economy is suffering; the economy is improving; the economy is stable or unstable - you'd think it was a patient on life support in an intensive-care unit from the way we anxiously await the next pronouncement on its health. But what we call the economy is nothing more than people producing, consuming and exchanging things and services. — David Suzuki

Overwhelmingly, Israel's political and military establishment want the rest of the world to act diplomatically or otherwise to stop Iran. But if that doesn't happen, then the impulse toward the use of force will become quite strong. — Dennis Ross

Weak or strong, everyone falls at least a thousand times throughout their life. It is in what they learn from their fall and how steady they become that you recognize the strongest of all." -Grandma (Magdalen) — Lydhia Marie

Americans say all men created equal. These words very good. Make men feel special. They know is not true, not really, but they always say is true, and they point to these words and say, Ideas like this make us strong. They turn mouse into bear. They turn dog into bear. Everything can become strong like bear if you think with American brains. But if everything is bear, what do bears eat? Americans — Kevin Hearne

One who voluntarily deprives oneself of food may live twice as long as one who is forced to be without food. Similarly, you can choose to go without water for several days, but if you are deprived of it, you die more quickly. The older men survived because they had resaons to live - a garden to finish, a wife to see to, and grandchildren to help raise - whereas the younger men had less encouraging them to return (from battle). Strong wills become more crucial than strong bodies. It was this principle that inspired the establishment of Outward Bound. Yet, more than two millennia earlier, Alexander led his troops out of the desert with this same principle. — Lance Kurke

Superstring theories provide a framework in which the force of gravity may be united with the other three forces in nature: the weak, electromagnetic and strong forces. Recent progress has shown that the most promising superstring theories follow from a single theory. For the last generation, physicists have studied five string theories and one close cousin. Recently it has become clear that these five or six theories are different limiting cases of one theory which, though still scarcely understood, is the candidate for superunification of the forces of nature. — Edward Witten

I didn't go to law school to become a lawyer, per se - let's just say I was leaning in to some strong suggestions from my parents - but my nebulous goals of someday becoming a writer were just that, nebulous. — Rachel Sklar

Anytime you're with somebody, you become a reflection of that person. I believe the first five years of our relationship was me grooming her, getting her tough and getting her ready for all of this and how to deal with it. The last was just her being a strong Black woman who has her man's back. — Snoop Dogg

You can have a pretty good first line but not a strong enough thought to tag along more lines and sometimes in the middle words become bored and make war on one another. Notebooks are full of these fragments, shrapnel of our intention. Life is short on conclusions and that's why it's often a struggle to end a poem. — Jim Harrison

The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments. — Maurice Strong

By the time I stepped down as Xerox's CEO in 2009 - and as chairman in January 2010 - Xerox had become the vibrant, profitable and revitalized company that it still is today. What made the difference was a strong turnaround plan, dedicated people and a firm commitment from company leaders. — Anne M. Mulcahy

The worst thing that can happen for people who don't want women to be strong is that we help each other and become a force. — Sarah Silverman

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself; he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition. — James Allen

The secret to being a rider in the hippodrome wasn't just that you must be agile, or that you must be good with horses, or that you must be strong and steady as the horse careens to the far end of the arena and back with you riding on its back. It was that you must hide inside your costume a little of a killer's heart.
The animal will be tender with you, and you with it, but the animal never forgets that when what it wants for survival requires your death, it will become unafraid to kill you. And so you cannot forget this, either.
It is, on reflection, good training to be a courtesan. A woman of any kind. — Alexander Chee

Daniel walked as tall and strong as Ian or Mac, even Hart. "They grow up so fast," Angelo said when he reacheed Cam.
Cameron glanced at him, thinking the man joking, but Angelo's dark eyes were serious.
"Chilhood is gone in the wink of an eye, and then they have to be men. You Anglos are strange, sending your sons out into the world as soon as they get tall enough. My family has been together forever."
"I notice you don't live with them, Angelo, so don't become sentimental. Besides my family is together. Just a bit spread out."
"Rich Anglos need too much space."
"That is true, but it keeps us from killing each other. — Jennifer Ashley

Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the conception there is combined a strong, a passionate, desire, one will come to look upon the said thought or conception as something fated, inevitable, and foreordained - something bound to happen. Whether by this there is connoted something in the nature of a combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a self-annulment of one's true expectations, and so on, I do not know; — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Almost ten years past now that Edeyn had watched him ride away from Fal Moran, and been gone when he returned, yet he still could recall her face more clearly than that of any woman who had shared his bed since. He was no longer a boy, to think that she loved him just because she had chosen to become his first lover, yet there was an old saying among Malkieri men. Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever. Custom strong as law made it so. — Robert Jordan

The INFP possesses strong principles, especially when it comes to morals and what he thinks is right and wrong. When his inner values are in harmony with the values of the company, then he can become a very useful member of the team. — Louise Gladstone

The traditional gender ideals of the strong-silent man who plays his cards close to his chest and the mysterious woman who disguises her feelings with coyness go so far as to make a virtue of being unavailable and secretive. But wholehearted intimacy can develop only where two people are equally forthcoming and self-revelatory. To take the risk of loving, we must become vulnerable enough to test the radical proposition that knowledge of another and self-revelation will ultimately increase rather than decrease love. It is an awe-ful risk. — Sam Keen

In the heroic effort of the handcart pioneers, we learn a great truth. All must pass through a refiner's fire, and the insignificant and unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. Yet this is part of the purging to become acquainted with God. — James E. Faust

That means if you want to become strong, you become predictable. You keep your word, know and then honor your commitments, mind the details, invest in daily spiritual input, assume rather than avoid responsibility, admit your mistakes, correct your screw-ups, and keep a healthy watch over yourself. — Anonymous

The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected. — Pierre Trudeau

We may never understand all of life, but trusting that each event is as it should be is helpful. And all you can do. Stay strong in your vision of what you want for yourself and live with intention and action to become that. Everything will unfold naturally and easily. Now is all you have. It's all anyone has. The next moment is unpredictable and never promised to us in these bodies. — Camille Lucy

When you become so determined that you want to feel good - you have become as your Inner Being is, in such a pure place of Positive Energy - then that which is 'negative energy' simply can't mix with you. It defies Law. If you are very strong and clear about your positive wanting, and feeling it, then 'bad' things simply cannot get in. Colds can't get in, car accidents can't get in, anything that you are not wanting cannot be your personal experience. — Esther Hicks

This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I knew for a long, long time that that's what I would be. But nothing I ever did seemed to bring me any nearer to the condition of being an artist. And I didn't know how to do it. — Jasper Johns

In my life I had no other choice than to become a strong person. — Donatella Versace

I am an emotional and fragile person. I observe life, I am perceptive and can read a person's body language. I have a strong journalistic streak in me, and had I not been a filmmaker, I would have become a film journalist. I have combined my perceptive and journalistic traits to create my own brand of cinema. — Madhur Bhandarkar

You have a strong active nature. And this in you is a point of strength. If you can mould it rightly this will become a very great strength. On the other hand, this too is your weak point - a hindrance in sadhana. — Sri Aurobindo

Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak. Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law. Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power. And, in an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principal obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power. — Peter Hitchens

You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone. — Henry A. Kissinger

You're only as weak as you let yourself become, and you're only as strong as you allow yourself to be. — Daniel Hansen

I think you are talented and passionate, Isabella. More than you think and less than you expect. But there are a lot of people with talent and passion, and many of them never get anywhere. This is only the first step for achieving anything in life. Natural talent is like an athlete's strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the artist, is the work, the vocation and the technique. The intelligence you are born with is just ammunition. To achieve something with it you need to transform your mind into a high-precision weapon. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

He had a book to finish. Ten-thousand words. The other ninety thousand had been difficult. This last tenth seemed impossible. His plot had become derailed. He was unable to see his way through the smoke and coke dust of a mythical railway track that should stretch ahead. Yes, the characters were there, good and solid. Indeed, the story's engine was strong and had shunted yet forward and forward, with only one or two sharp halts. But six weeks ago he met the bumpers. R. was now stuck in a deserted station, his progress blocked. ("Out Back") — Garry Douglas Kilworth

I have said so many times to many people on the spiritual path, 'You must be strong in yourself to help others. People who are in the emotional sea need someone who can pull them out, not someone who gets in with them and gets dragged away by the tidal wave of human emotions. We have to become emotional lifeguards. — Gordon Smith

Sicknesses, especially those affecting nerves and head, are signs that the defensive strength of the strong natures is lacking; precisely this is suggested by irritability, so pleasure and displeasure become foreground problems. — Friedrich Nietzsche

As the ego becomes strong it starts surrounding intelligence like a thick layer of darkness. Intelligence is light, ego is darkness. Intelligence is very delicate, ego is very hard. Intelligence is like a roseflower, ego is like a rock. And if you want to survive, they say - the so-called knowers - then you have to become rock-like, you have to be strong, invulnerable. You have to become a citadel, a closed citadel, so you cannot be attacked from outside. You have to become impenetrable. — Rajneesh

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

He who wants to become a Bhakta must be strong, must be healthy. — Swami Vivekananda

Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies ... None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong. It is weakness ... that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments. — Ronald Reagan

When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story. — Stephen King

I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment. — Mary Wollstonecraft

We just need a strong female perspective, especially in the world now ... when the degrading of women has become such a popular thing. — Storm Saulter

Steph, you are my sister and I love you. I have always tried to protect you, even when it meant leaving you to fend for yourself so that you'd become strong on your own. — Thaddeus Nowak

It's no secret that I've become known for my strong political views. — Carl Karcher

It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself. — G.K. Chesterton

It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true. — Piet Mondrian

Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain. — Elif Shafak

I always choose strong, direct backlighting that creates patterns of intricate abstract shadows. These shadows become strong design elements that lie across and touch other objects in the set up. — William C. Wright

Gosh, it's easy!' he marveled, open-mouthed. 'I never knew before how easy it is to kill anyone! Twenty years to grow 'em, and all it takes is one little push!'
He was suddenly drunk with some new kind of power, undiscovered until this minute. The power of life and death over his fellowmen! Everyone had it, everyone strong enough to raise a violent arm, but they were afraid to use it. Well, he wasn't! And here he'd been going around for weeks living from hand to mouth, without any money, without enough food, when everything he wanted lay within his reach all the while! He had been green all right, and no mistake about it!
Death had become familiar. At seven it had been the most mysterious thing in the world to him, by midnight it was already an old story. ("Dusk To Dawn") — Cornell Woolrich

The goal is to help the weak grow strong, not to let the weak become weaker. — Neale Donald Walsch

I want my people to be protected, strong, and not to be driven into corners until they either become killers or are killed! — Cassandra Clare

Intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected — Elif Shafak

Kaizen should be done when times are good or when the company is profitable, since your efforts to streamline and make improvements when the company is poor are limited to reduction in staff. Even if you try to go lean and cut out the fat to improve business performance, when your business is in a very difficult position financially there is no fat to be cut. If you are cutting out muscle, which you need, then you cannot say that your efforts to become lean are succeeding.The most important thing about doing kaizen is to do kaizen when times are good, the economy is strong, and the company is profitable — Taiichi Ohno

When you push someone's head under water for 5 minutes, they will drown. It doesn't matter if the person is a sinner or a saint. It's just a natural process. If their head is under water, the lack of oxygen will make them drown. That rule applies to everyone, good or bad, equally. It doesn't matter if the drowning person has strong moral fiber.
And it doesn't matter if you're a good or a bad person, once you become addicted to drugs. What happens next is inevitable. It's a natural process that happens in everyone's brain, once the drugs take over. So don't ever fool yourself into thinking that only weak or bad people get addicted. — Oliver Markus

The necessity for struggle is one of the clever devices through which nature forces individuals to expand, develop, progress, and become strong through resistance ... We are forced to recognize that this great universal necessity for struggle must have a definite and useful purpose. That purpose is to force the individual to sharpen his wits, arouse his enthusiasm, build up his spirit of faith, gain definiteness of purpose, develop his power of will, and inspire his faculty of imagination to give him new uses for old ideas and concepts ... — Napoleon Hill

Most Like an Arch This Marriage
Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch - two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is, what's strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another's sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight. — John Ciardi

Healing ourselves on the spiritual level involves developing a strong connection with our soul. We heal ourselves on the mental level as we become aware of our core beliefs, release those that limit us, and open to more supportive ideas and greater understanding. Emotional healing takes place as we learn to accept and experience the full range of our feelings. And we heal ourselves on the physical level when we learn to honor and care for our bodies, and for the physical world around us. — Shakti Gawain

When you become such a strong personality in music, it's hard for people to accept you as a different character. — Grace Jones

You know Hachi, your life depends only on ourselves. I'm still convinced about this ... But I've also learned to accept that people ... don't all become as strong, and it made me kinder than before. — Ai Yazawa

When I think of a lot of the players I admire, they could always play their parts without hiding behind distortion and sustain. Put the time in. Hear your mistakes. Yeah, it sucks, it's humbling, it makes you want to throw the guitar out the window. But if you work on your mistakes, they'll eventually go away, and you'll become a strong player. — John Petrucci

Age has no pleasures, wrinkles have no influence, revenge itself dies away in impotent curses. Then comes remorse, with all its vipers, mixed with vain regrets for the past, and despair for the future! - Then, when all other strong impulses have ceased, we become like the fiends in hell, who may feel remorse, but never repentance. - But thy — Walter Scott

Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness of the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo, da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the scurrying of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was inevitable that the crowds should sink deeper and deeper in slavery. Whichever won, tyranny from above, or spontaneous organization from below, there could be no individuals. He — John Dos Passos

Originally this was the most important thing about martial arts - to reach a higher level, to become a strong human being. Strong doesn't mean big arms. It means who can be a more strict human being with himself. That is the ideal of martial arts. — Tsutomu Ohshima

The Founders' armor had resisted every attempt by others to force them open; the Senate had been designed as the "firm" body; it had become too firm - too firm to allow the reforms the Republic needed. Never had the dam been more firm than during the last decade, the decade since the conservative coalition had learned its strength. During that decade, despite the mandate of three presidential elections, it had stood across and blocked the rising demand for social justice, had stood so solidly that it seemed too strong ever to be breached. In January, 1949, when Lyndon Johnson arrived in it, it was still standing. — Robert A. Caro

I did not set out to be beloved and just, only strong."
'A King can be better than that," the Prince insisted.
"And so we all begin, determined to better our fathers' performances, knowing we can change the very nature of humanity, make it better, cleaner. But then daggers strike in the night, and peasants revolt, and all manner of atrocities become a necessity as breakfast. Only Princes believe in the greater good. Kings know there is only Reign, and all things may be committed in its holy name ... — Catherynne M Valente

I always think incipent miracles surround us, waiting only to see if our faith is strong enough. We won't have to understand it; it will just work, like a beating heart, like love. Really, no matter how frightened and discouraged I may become about the future, I look forward to it. In spite of everything I see all around me every day, I have a shaky assurance that everything will turn out fine. I don't think I'm the only one. Why else would the phrase "everything's all right" ease a deep and troubled place in so many of us? We just don't know, we never know so much, yet we have such faith. We hold our hands over our hurts and lean forward, full of yearning and forgiveness. It is how we keep on, this kind of hope. — Elizabeth Berg

When people are protecting something truly special to them, they truly can become ... as strong as they can be. — Masashi Kishimoto

Will and George were doing well in business, and Joe was writing letters home in rhymed verse and making as smart an attack on all the accepted verities as was healthful.

Samuel wrote to Joe, sayings, "I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart not to try to convert your mother. Your last letter only made her think you are not well. Your mother does not believe there are many ills uncurable by good strong soup. She puts your brave attack on the structure of our civilization down to a stomach ache. It worries her. Her faith is a mountain, and you, my son, haven't even got a shovel yet. — John Steinbeck

I think that, generally, people of the world typify a "free and wild" person as someone who's uprooted, detached and uninhibited. But I don't believe in that kind of freedom. I think that's an infantile concept. Freedom means something when it has escaped something! Those people who escaped things - their inner cages, cages set by others around them - when those people are able to roam free and say, "This is who I am because this is who I choose to be", THAT is freedom. Freedom isn't being stupid; freedom is being so smart that you develop a strength strong enough to break free and become your own person. A better person than what your circumstances would like to define you as. — C. JoyBell C.

It is harder for queens, who have no luxury of meekness. History does not know how to reconcile our ambition or our power when we are strong enough to survive it. The priests have no tolerance for those of us driven by the divine madness of questions. And so our stories are blackend from the fire of righteous indignation by those who envy our imagined fornications. We become temptresses, harlots, and heretics.
I have been all and none of these, depending on who tells the tale. — Tosca Lee

People who carry in their hearts a strong conviction concerning the living reality of the Almighty and their accountability to Him for what they do with their lives are far less likely to become enmeshed in problems that inevitably weaken society. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. — Oswald Chambers

People eat meat and think they will become as strong as an ox, forgetting that the ox eats grass. — Pino Caruso

We know that productivity suffers when uncertainty is high. But we've failed to realize the equally destructive effects of too little anxiety ... By protecting people from risk, we destroy their self-esteem. We rob them of the opportunity to become strong, competent people. — Judith M Bardwick

You are not, though, forgiving so as to let others off with things. You are forgiving so that you can empower yourself to get over it and become strong. — Stephen Richards

Becoming a mother has been the most amazing experience-in an instant you become strong. You have to be a little bit wiser; it's the most important job you have in the world. — Katie Holmes

218.The same principle probably explains why dogs, when feeling affectionate, like rubbing against their masters and being rubbed or patted by them, for from the nursing of their puppies, contact with a beloved object has become firmly associated in their minds with the emotion of love. The feeling of affection of a dog towards his master is combined with a strong sense of submission, which is akin to fear. Hence dogs not only lower their bodies and crouch a little as they approach their masters, but sometimes throw themselves on the ground with their bellies upwards. — Charles Darwin

Love will push every button, try every faith, challenge every strength, trigger every weakness, mock every value, and then leave you there to die. And then you will be ready to be born at last, to become a soul who is strong enough to take love on. You'll be a romantic mystic who has achieved the elements: you endured the flames of love, you were baptized in the waters of love, and now you can soar like only a mystic can through the skies and skin of a lover's heart. — Marianne Williamson

To build a strong team we need to become strong leaders first. — Sunday Adelaja

It took me three and a half years to become a mom, so it makes me feel so good to know I'm giving my baby the best chance I can to develop a strong immune system and live a healthy life. — Constance Marie

Nations do not become strong because they feel like it but because they must. — George Friedman

In October 1805, Stoddard's tour left St. Louis, including forty-five Indians from eleven tribes. They arrived in Washington in January 1806. Jefferson gave them the standard Great Father talk: "We are become as numerous as the leaves of the trees, and, tho' we do not boast, we do not fear any nation. . . . My children, we are strong, we are numerous as the stars in the heavens, & we are all gun-men." He followed the threat with the carrot: if they would be at peace with one another and trade with the Americans, they could be happy. (In reply, one of the chiefs said he was glad the Americans were as numerous as the stars in the skies, and powerful as well. So much the better, in fact, for that meant the government should be strong enough to keep white squatters off Indian lands.) — Stephen E. Ambrose

No," she told them all. Looking up at the creature, or across at it, she said softly, "Yes, it's what I want. But I also want wings. I want to be beautiful. I want to be strong. I want to be perfect.
"If every wish I ever had, if every fear, could become real, instantly, I would destroy the world. — Michelle Sagara

When I'm brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I'm cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself. That's the divine retribution I believe in — Ken Follett

But all progressive movements have to beware their own successes. The progress they make reinvents the society they work in, and they must in turn reinvent themselves to keep up, otherwise they become hollow echoes from a once loud, strong voice, reverberating still, but to little effect. As their consequence diminishes, so their dwindling adherents become ever more shrill and strident, more solicitous of protecting their own shrinking space rather than understanding that the voice of the times has moved on and they must listen before speaking. It happens in all organizations. It is fatal to those who are never confronted by a reckoning that forces them to face up and get wise. — Tony Blair

Digging back through the events of the past, I found that there have been all sorts of people who had a greater effect on us than our own fathers. Perhaps an adult that we wanted to become like, or someone with such a strong presence that even now, they remain in our hearts - someone who might be referred to as a "father of choice." — Mamoru Hosoda

There were tiny moments, like this, when the grief came on strong out of nowhere. It was sneaky, and tricky, and you couldn't see it coming until it was already there. It came with the mundane, simple tasks: My mother would never be hanging pink streamers at my shower. I would never lean over to someone and conspiratorially whisper, My mother is crazy. She would never become a grandmother. Laura — Megan Miranda

What is envy? It is nothing but passive jealousy. Maybe jealousy is too strong a phenomenon; envy is a little passive. The difference may be of degrees, but it is not of quality, it is only of quantity. Envy can become jealousy at any moment; envy is just jealousy in progress. Mind has to drop all envies and jealousies. — Rajneesh

An adult female orang-utan cannot defeat an adult male spotted hyena. That is the plain empirical truth. Let it become known among zoologists. Had Orange Juice been a male, had she loomed as large on the scales as she did in my heart, it might have been another matter. But portly and overfed though she was from living in the comfort of a zoo, even so she tipped the scales at barely 110 pounds. Female orang-utans are half the size of males. But it is not simply a question of weight and brute strength. Orange Juice was far from defenseless. What it comes down to is attitude and knowledge. What does a fruit eater know about killing? Where would it learn where to bite, how hard, for how long? An orang-utan may be taller, may have very strong and agile arms and long canines, but if it does not know how to use these as weapons, they are of little use. The hyena, with only its jaws, will overcome the ape because it knows what it wants and how to get it. — Yann Martel

We always see Aung San as a strong, tough woman. There are two stories running in parallel. You see the contradictions between the East and the West, and you see someone who does mundane and normal things - someone who's supposed to be a housewife - and then someone who's become important and imprisoned. — Michelle Yeoh

The Jews will become socialist colonisers with strong fists and sharp teeth, a strong national group within the Soviet family of nations. — Mikhail Kalinin

Disturbingly, modern technological society has allowed us all to become nature's bubble children who artificially dwell in that vacuum of cerebral abstraction that we know simply as material culture. But of course our existence on the planet is not an abstraction. Human culture is not really the universe we live in. That we can so rigorously sustain the illusion that we are somehow removed from the forces that perpetuate and sustain life on this planet is a strong indictment of modern humanity's separation from nature and hints that simple human reason and common sense might also be largely illusory. — Joe Hutto

The way to heaven is within. Shake the wings of love-when love's wings have become strong, there is no need to trouble about a ladder. — Rumi

I want to be someone she respects. Admires. But in order for that to happen, I'm going to have to change. To become stronger. As strong as her. — Amy Plum

You can play. You can play. You can play! Livia leaned against the wall, her aches and pains and shivering chill melting away now that Blake's playing had become something beautiful. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth, as if to drink the music. She couldn't imagine how he created it - it sounded as if three people must be playing. She heard bells, then the notes sounded like voices. So clearly the music sang to her: Blake loves Livia. Blake loves Livia. She stretched her arms out and dug her fingers into the rough, scratchy brick, trying to hug him from the outside of the church. She wiped tears from her cheeks. She wanted to run inside and see him creating. She wanted to see his strong arms and intuitive fingers crafting the notes. Blake's sounds enchanted her. — Debra Anastasia

How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites? ... How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do? — Andrew Manis

There is need for clarity on what your leadership role stands for and the kind of unwavering and unstoppable beliefs required. These beliefs must not be deterred by current circumstances and conditions. They must become your source of internal strength and inspiration, especially during trying times. How strong, positive and empowering is your belief system as a leader? — Archibald Marwizi