Quotes & Sayings About Being Strong Without You

Even he knew that if demons could exist, it meant there was real evil in the world, and if you believed in the devil, somewhere in the deepest fibers of your being you had to believe in God. He knew, firsthand, that the devil was real; he'd seen it with his own two eyes. But he'd never seen God. He'd never felt God. He'd never been helped by God. For all he knew, wickedness was strong enough to exist in a world without good. — Ania Ahlborn

The guilt of moving on seeps into my life every time I do something I thought I couldn't do without you. Every time I make a financial decision, I take over your job. Every time I fix the washing machine, choose a wallpaper without consulting you, I feel guilty. How dare I function without you! What could you have possibly meant to me if I can function without you? Much less, function well. Every so often I'm overwhelmed with the decisions. In those moments I hate you for leaving me. But I am stronger now, and I like being strong. And for this, I feel guilty. When can I stop proving that I loved you? When will I stop believing that loving you better might have saved you? — Stephanie Ericsson

I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes. — Joyce Carol Oates

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony. — Jane Austen

She told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house all by yourself, and that she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours. — Bram Stoker

Inez, I'm sorry," Thomas said quietly, his expression earnest. "I had no choice. You were dying, and besides you agreed to the turn the night before. Didn't you?" He frowned and muttered, "Of course, it was right after you'd nearly drowned and you might not have really understood what was going on at the time. Do you even love me? You nodded to that too, but ... " He raised his head and said solemnly, "I'm sorry if you're upset about being turned, but I'm not sorry for doing it. Because whether you love me or not, Inez, I love you. You're strong, and brilliant and sweet and have a strength I've never seen in other women. This last week you've done whatever was required of you to help find Marguerite without complaint or allowing fear to stop you, even going so far as being the bait in the trap." He scowled and then admitted, "Though I have to say I thought that was rather foolish. I was really pissed at you for putting your life at risk like that. — Lynsay Sands

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 be strong without being involved in every single civil war around the world. — Rand Paul

She must not cry in front of all these men. They would think her a useless watering pot unworthy of her father's inheritance. Everything went blurry as she turned away, trying to hide the tears. Colonel Lowe bent down to peek beneath her lowered head, a trace of humor on his strong face. "Tears? We've come all the way across the state to meet the famous Miss Mollie Knox, and all she has for us are tears?" She swiped them away. "It is just that I have felt so overwhelmed. It has been a difficult few weeks." "Then those are the last tears you will shed from being overwhelmed," he said. Colonel Lowe's face was a blend of kindness and humor as he smiled at her. "We will not leave this city until your factory is rebuilt and you are once again producing the world's most magnificent watches. — Elizabeth Camden

The weak can never forgive. — Mahatma Gandhi

Of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong. — G.K. Chesterton

I'm very comfortable being married to an extremely strong, opinionated, and driven woman. But I also sit at the head of the table. I have both of those sides to me. — Kevin Bacon

On Portents
If strange things happen where she is,
So that men say that graves open
And the dead walk, or that futurity
Becomes a womb and the unborn are shed,
Such portents are not to be wondered at,
Being tourbillions in Time made
By the strong pulling of her bladed mind
Through that ever-reluctant element. — Robert Graves

I inhale slowly, soaking it all in. I step forward and backward, my neck twisting and turning, memorizing every corner. I feel an instant connection to this place. Something about being here grabs me and infatuates me. I begin taking mental pictures of the narrow alleys decorated with rows of artists and vendors. I start imagining myself dining at the sidewalk cafes, sitting there with Chad during the summer, spring, winter, and fall. I get this strong desire to take off my shoes and walk barefooted on the cobblestones as if I have found my new home. — Corey M.P.

But this must not be confused with our usual ideas of the practice of "unselfishness," which is the effort to identify with others and their needs while still under the strong illusion of being no more than a skin-contained ego. Such "unselfishness" is apt to be a highly refined egotism, comparable to the in-group which plays the game of "we're-more-tolerant-than-you." The Vedanta was not originally moralistic; it did not urge people to ape the saints without sharing their real motivations, or to ape motivations without sharing the knowledge which sparks them. — Alan W. Watts

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. — Helen Oyeyemi

Always, it was claimed of her, she was strong and she was capable. You are not loved for being strong and capable if you are a female but if you are a female and you are strong and capable you will make your way without love. — Joyce Carol Oates

But, on the other hand, the study of music is one of the best ways to learn about human nature. This is why I am so sad about music education being practically nonexistent today in schools. Education means preparing children for adult life; teaching them how to behave and what kinds of human beings they want to be. Everything else is information and can be learned in a very simple way. To play music well you need to strike a balance between your head, your heart, and your stomach. And if one of the three is not there or is there in too strong a dose, you cannot use it. What better way than music to show a child how to be human? — Edward W. Said

The tonal is so strong, that it even arranges a syntactical place for God and thus kills the mystery, the reality, and paralyzes the being. — Frederick Lenz

We commonly confuse love with the strong emotions most often associated with it, such as joy, attachment, lust, infatuation, pleasure, pain, fear, and hope, to name a few. But, love is not a feeling; love itself is an action. There are countless emotions and beliefs that can cause us to love. Love is the willing giving of self to another living being. Love is giving the life, time, energy, and resources that we would normally give or use for our self to someone else. Love is an action that enhances the well-being of another living being. — C W Newman

Perhaps this is an area where every generation starts from scratch. Although the crisis of the First World War inaugurated an especially strong period of disillusion with regard to the optimism of the previous age, the pattern has repeated itself in many ways in more recent times, e.g., the loss of faith in politics as a means of advancing human well-being. And perhaps this also has to do with basic elements in growing up. — George Pattison

Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is. — Kate Bush

It's all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it's all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. [p. 62] — Mary Catherine Bateson

Being on a galloping camel bears several resemblances to energetic sex with an enormously strong and very ugly woman. — Mark Lawrence

In the past, when I'd recorded during a break in a tour, it was so easy to sing, because I felt strong. Also, like so many new mothers, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and sleeping is such a huge part of being able to sing. — Amy Grant

But the world can't comprehend a woman being that strong. We're supposed to buckle and break, like the only time we can possibly have any strength is if there's someone with a dick standing by our side.
It's like a penis is a prerequisite for an opinion, so if I don't have one myself, I've got to be utilizing someone else's in order to have any say-so in my own fucking life. — J.M. Darhower

A part of control is learning to correct your own weaknesses. The person doesn't live who was born with everything. Sometimes he has one weak point, generally he has several. The first thing is to know your faults. And then take on a systematic plan of correcting them. You know the old saying about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link. The same can be said in the chain of skills a man forges. — Babe Ruth

He may have as strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so equal under particular circumstances to act up to it."
"Then, it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction. — Jane Austen

Corruption begets corruption." He heard the bitterness he felt very clearly in his voice. "That's what I hate about it most, the contagion of it. Men who could have been good become tainted, and the more of it there is the harder it is to survive without being touched by it. If you give people power, sooner or later they are tempted to abuse it. It takes a very strong man not to, a man wise enough to see its price, brave enough to go against the tide, and he can pay dearly for it." Narraway — Anne Perry

My least favorite form of street harassment is when a guy asks why I'm not smiling. It's related to that: Women aren't allowed to be quiet or stoic or shy - or, hell, just in a bad mood - without being criticized. Women are bitchy and frigid if we don't seem accessible at all times, for the most part to men. We're supposed to be perpetually friendly. Who wants to live up to that? And seriously, when was the last time you heard a quiet woman described as "deep"?
Men who are serious are just that - serious. Think laconic cowboys and Clint Eastwood-style movie heroes. Strong and silent is a desirable personality trait for men - women, not so much. Because where silence in men is seen as strength, silence in women (if not seen as bitchy) is seen as weakness - she's shy, a wallflower. — Jessica Valenti

I love people with strong convictions, because we are living in a very PC world. You can't crack a joke without it being in the headlines. — Imelda May

It takes two or three generations to do what I tried to do in one; and my impulses
affections
vices perhaps they should be called
were too strong not to hamper a man without advantages; who should be as cold-blooded as a fish and as selfish as a pig to have a really good chance of being one of his country's worthies. You may ridicule me
I am quite willing that you should
I am a fit subject, no doubt. But I think if you knew what I have gone through these last few years you would rather pity me. And if they knew"
he nodded towards the college at which the dons were severally arriving
"it is just possible they would do the same. — Thomas Hardy

To be with another in this [empathic] way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish.
Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong - yet subtle and gentle - way of being. — Carl R. Rogers

You are not lost. It's just that your own thoughts are being kept from you, or hidden away. But the mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed
your self. You must believe in your own powers. — Haruki Murakami

It's definitely difficult being a woman and growing up a girl. When you're graceful, people say you lack personality; when you're serene, people say you're boring; when you're confident, people say you're arrogant; when you're feminine, people say you're too girly; and when you climb trees, people say you're too much of a tomboy! As a woman, you really need to develop a very strong sense of self and the earlier you can do that, the better! You have to be all the things that you are, without allowing other people's ignorance change you! I realized that they don't know what grace is, they can't identify serenity, they have inferiority complexes, they are incapable of being feminine, and they don't know how to climb trees! — C. JoyBell C.

I can skate beautifully. While performing on ice I always try to please the audience and to win as well. Being artistic is very important to get the audience on your side. As for a competition, you can't win without strong technical content. — Evgeni Plushenko

I could beat my mike stand into the stage, but I was still in pain. Maybe fans liked it, but sometimes people forget you're a person and they're more into the entertainment value. It's taken a long time to turn that around and give a strong show without it being a kamikaze show. — Axl Rose

The Beauty of It If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy? Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what's been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has hardened about me, what will I do with what I have? At first, this might seem scary or sad, but as a tired swimmer comes ashore surprised to find pearls washing through his legs, I lift my tired head again and again to find all I need is right where I am. But being human, I stray and dream of lives other than my own, and soon I am busy wanting something else, somewhere else, someone else; busy imagining something just out of reach to strive for. It leads me to say if you are unhappy or in pain, nothing will remove these surfaces. But acceptance and a strong heart will crack them like a shell, exposing a softness that has always been, exposing a soft thing waiting to take form. It glows. I think it is the one spirit we all share. — Mark Nepo

Fate does not invite ugly boring people to save the world; and if you do try to save the world (without being beautiful, strong, clever, or wise), you will soon die pointlessly and how much adventure is there in that? — James Alan Gardner

With her back to him, she maneuvered the towel, endeavoring to dress without revealing anything.
"Though I could watch this all night, you should no' bother with it. I've seen every inch of you by now."
She glanced over her shoulder, not knowing if she was pleased or disappointed that he'd slung on his jeans. "How's that?"
"I'm tall enough that when I was behind you, I could see straight over you. And my eyesight's strong enough to easily see through the water."
She wasn't modest, and this hiding her body like a blushing virgin wasn't her front anyway. "In that case . . ." she said, dropping the towel.
He hissed in a breath. As she set about dressing as usual, he grated, "Not a bashful one, then?"
Bashful? She and her friends made Girls Gone Wild look like a quilting circle. "Just being charitable to aging werewolves. — Kresley Cole

You can be strong and true to yourself without being rude or loud. — Paula Radcliffe

If man could write his own fate, he would have designed his journey to be without obstacles. Yet all obstacles come with valuable lessons designed just for you and only you. Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. That is, a strong being who is confidently aware of their intended direction in life, and fearlessly adding value to the world and their future. — Suzy Kassem

You are the most incredible being I have ever met. And its not just because of the things my grandfather did to you. You're strong all on your own. You care about all of them, even if you don't really know what love even means.
Eden is a wonderful place but it wouldn't be anywhere near the same without you. I know I don't fit in there, that people still don't fully trust me. But you're there so its all okay. When I'm with you, I feel something I didn't think it was still possible to feel in this world. I feel alive like there is still hope in this world. Like maybe things will still be okay someday. — Keary Taylor

When a writer develops a story, he is confronted with a poison that is inside him. If you don't have that poison, your story will be boring and uninspired. It's like fugu: The flesh of the pufferfish is extremely tasty, but the roe, the liver, the heart can be lethally toxic. My stories are located in a dark, dangerous part of my consciousness, I feel the poison in my mind, but I can fend off a high dose of it because I have a strong body. When you are young, you are strong; so you can usually conquer the poison even without being in training. But beyond the age of 40 your strength wanes, you can no longer cope with the poison if you lead an unhealthy life. — Haruki Murakami

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

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

Most hiring managers interview a lot of people. So many that they generally have to go back to their notes to remember candidates - the exception being candidates with a strong hook. Sometimes these hooks are how people dress or their personality, but the best hook is a strong story that's work-related. — Travis Bradberry

The worst thing about being strong is no one recognizes the beauty in strength or the love behind it. — Catherine Fraser

I know people could tell incredible stories. People have been in concentration camps, or women being raped, or a man going to war and not recovering from it. People have been robbed and beaten. A lot of people have had strong events in their life, which I didn't. — Agnes Varda

I'd realized then just how strong our connection was, how perfectly we understood each other. I'd been skeptical about people being soul mates in the past, but at that moment, I knew it was true. And the emotional connection had come a physical one. Dimitri and I had finally given in to the attraction. We'd sworn we never would, but... well, our feelings were just too strong. Staying away from each other had turned out to be impossible. ~Rose, Pg.74 — Richelle Mead

Japanese horror films take the business of being frightening seriously. There is no attempt at postmodernism or humour. They are incredibly melancholy, with a strong emotional core, while remaining absolutely terrifying. — Jane Goldman

It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be. — Bill Bryson

There are certain aspects of me that can be bad-ass sometimes, but being able to push it to the extreme is something I'd love to play. You don't get those roles, as a female, and especially as an indigenous female. There aren't those roles out there, so I want that. I want women to see a strong, sexy female without showing her body too much. — Tinsel Korey

It felt like some kind of honor, you know? Being asked to be the head of the Council's son-in-law. Plus, you dad, he, uh, told me a lot about you."
My voice was barely above a whisper. "What did he say?"
"That you were smart, and strong. Funny. That you had trouble using your powers, but you were always trying to use them to help people." He shrugged. "I thought we'd be a good match."
The vast dining room suddenly felt very small, like it consisted only of this table and me and Cal. — Rachel Hawkins

Therein, ye gods, ye make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor stony wall, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit:
But life being weary of these worldly bars
Never lacks power to dismiss itself. — William Shakespeare

Darwin struggled for a very long time with the problem of evolution being wrong but finally came up with the answer: it's all the fault of the females. . . The females aren't crazy at all. If a female sees a magnificent work of art, she knows she's dealing with an experienced male - a male who's good at surviving and who has enough time to spare to create a beautiful work of art. He's got to be a strong and healthy male, the kind of male you'd want to father your children. — Jan Paul Schutten

To love God more is never to love people less. It's to love people best. It's to relieve them of the responsibility of being your false Christ. It's to keep their sins against you from being unforgivable and your sins against them from being ignorable. It's to guard them from our mean-streaks and strong human tendencies to respond to disappointment with punishment. It's to keep the people close by from cutting their wrists on the razor-sharp blades of our insecurities. It's to dull the edge of our cravings to be adored. It's to untie the double knots of codependency. It's to let the affirmations of others be the overflow and not the essential source of our emotional survival. To love God is to guard man. — Beth Moore

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

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

She went as through a forest
the columns were furrowed like ancient trees, and in through the forest flowed the light, many-hued and clear as song, from the pictured windows. High up above her, beasts and men sported among the stone leafage, and angels played
and yet far, dizzily far higher, the vaulting soared, lifting the church towards God. In a hall that lay to one side, worship was being held at an altar. Kristin sank down on her knees by a pillar. The singing cut into her like a too strong light. Now she saw how low she lay in the dust ... Pater noster. Credo in unum Deum. Ave Maria, gratia plena. — Sigrid Undset

Both Othello and Iago seem a bit cracked. If you spend 15 years being responsible for death and destruction, that sense of suppressed horror is strong. — Rory Kinnear

Sometimes in love it just gets to the point where I have to give up. I have to give up trying and I have to give up believing because I know things won't change. To me, giving up isn't being weak. Giving up is being strong enough to let go. — Taylor Swift

It was easier being strong when another man was strong enough to be weak. — Aleksandr Voinov

I love you, Ink, and I want you-only you. Being strong doesn't mean I don't want you too. You are the only person who knows every part of my life, every part of me in it, the good and the bad and the horrible, and you still love me. You are always with me, even when you're not there. And when you're not there, I can feel it, like an empty space where you ought to be, and I can hardly wait until you're back to fill it again. Neither world feels like it fits, but we belong. — Dawn Metcalf

Since being quite young, I've had a very strong sense of independence and survival. As a child, I was on my own two feet emotionally. — Lena Headey

To venture into space we must be strong-willed and determined. We must be fully committed to its exploration and discovery; space permits no half measures and is unforgiving of mistakes. — Henry Joy McCracken

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

Te is thus the natural miracle of one who seems born to be wise and humane, comparable to what we call "perfect specimens" of flowers, trees, or butterflies - though sometimes our notions of the perfect specimen are too formal. Thus Chuang-tzu enlarges on the extraordinary virtue of being a hunchback, and goes on to suggest that being weird in mind may be even more advantageous than being weird in body. He compares the hunchback to a vast tree which has grown to a great old age by virtue of being useless for human purposes because its leaves are inedible and its branches twisted and pithy.5 Formally healthy and upright humans are conscripted as soldiers, and straight and strong trees are cut down for lumber; wherefore the sage gets by with a perfect appearance of imperfection, such as we see in the gnarled pines and craggy hills of Chinese painting. — Alan W. Watts

Early Summer, loveliest season,
The world is being colored in.
While daylight lasts on the horizon,
Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing.

The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos.
"Welcome, summer" is what he says.
Winter's unimaginable.
The wood's a wickerwork of boughs.

Summer means the river's shallow,
Thirsty horses nose the pools.
Long heather spreads out on bog pillows.
White bog cotton droops in bloom.

Swallows swerve and flicker up.
Music starts behind the mountain.
There's moss and a lush growth underfoot.
Spongy marshland glugs and stutters.

Bog banks shine like ravens' wings.
The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome.
The speckled fish jumps; and the strong
Swift warrior is up and running.

A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow
Hits the highest note there is;
The lark sings out his clear tidings.
Summer, shimmer, perfect days. — Marie Heaney

Still putting out the O'Reilly fires of me being a traitor and using Casey's name dishonorably, my in-laws sent out a press statement disagreeing with me in strong terms; which is totally okay with me, because they barely knew Casey. We have always been on separate sides of the fence politically and I have not spoken to them since the election when they supported the man who is responsible for Casey's death. The thing that matters to me is that our family - Casey's dad and my other 3 kids are on the same side of the fence that I am. — Cindy Sheehan

The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history - the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. — Josiah Strong

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook. — Hilary Mantel

Mindfulness means being present to whatever is happening here and now - when mindfulness is strong, there is no room left in the mind for wanting something else. With less liking and disliking of what arises, there is less pushing and pulling on the world, less defining of the threshold between self and other, resulting in a reduced construction of self. As the influence of self diminishes, suffering diminishes in proportion. — Andrew Olendzki

I don't want just bits and pieces of you that I can steal away. I told you - you're worth more than being someone's secret."
"Yeah, well, it's not really a secret anymore," she declared.
"I know it isn't."
She groaned. "Then what, Corrado? What do you want?"
His strong hands cupped both of her cheeks as he leaned down toward her. He stared into her eyes, drinking in the devotion she - for some godforsaken reason - felt toward him. "I'm a greedy man, Celia. I want everything. — J.M. Darhower

I had grown up. I had learned that being a woman was knowing when to stand firm and when to compromise. I had learned to laugh and weep; I had learned that I was weak as well as strong. I had learned to love. I was no longer a rigid, upright tree that would not flex and bow, even though the gale threatened to snap it in two; I was the willow that bends and shivers and sways, and yet remains strong. — Juliet Marillier

Is there a rarer being,
Is there a fairer sphere
Where the strong are not unseeing,
And the harvests are not sere;
Where, ere the seasons dwindle
They yield their due return;
Where the lamps of knowledge kindle
While the flames of youth still burn? — Edmund Clarence Stedman

We grow in part by confessing our faults and weaknesses to each other (James 5:16; Eccl. 4:10). If we are always being strong and without needs, we are not growing, and we are setting ourselves up for a very dangerous fall. — Henry Cloud

We were running one morning through the fall leaves. I looked at him and had what I supposed was a defining moment. I saw how handsome he is, how strong
mentally and physically. When I was with him, I ... I really liked myself. Being with him was fun. Easy. I'd never felt so intensely about anyone before, and it made me sad. I wanted him to be around for a long time, to be my friend forever, and I knew it didn't work that way. But it didn't occur to me that what I was feeling was romantic love. Not until Mick kissed me." Fielding smiled slowly, a blush warming his cheeks. I felt an answering smile hijack my own. "Which he would never, ever have done if not for the mistletoe. — Eli Easton

People never know how strong is their lust for being cheated. — Joe Chung

I don't mind being called a "feminist," as I certainly embrace the tenets of feminism, though it does feel a little sad to me that we need to call a novel "feminist" simply because the female characters are interesting and strong. — Laurie Foos

Depending on the day or even the hour, productivity can take very low dips. At times, I may feel like throwing in the towel. I love being inspired by amazing women who have achieved great things. When I have a setback, I will spend 15 minutes reading quotes from strong women or reading or watching an interview with a woman I admire (a gold medalist or a CEO). This gets me back in the right mindset to tackle any challenge. — Samantha Ettus

That's where faith comes in. I've struggled more with being away from her. She keeps me strong. Being away from her means I have to stay in the Word and to stay strong throughout the season. — Jrue Holiday