Quotes & Sayings About Facing Challenges

Senator Obama will be taking office at a critical juncture. There are many pressing challenges facing the international community, including the global financial crisis and global warming. We look forward to working closely with President-elect Obama and his team to address these challenges. — Helen Clark

We can smile when facing a challenge, if we believe in ourselves that we won't back down. — Ellen J. Barrier

The hardest challenge I'm facing is just balancing my family with the industry. It's kind of like, you gotta stay out there doing your thing, doing whatever and it takes you away from your family. So it's hard to balance it out but once you get it, it's a lifestyle. You got to sacrifice to do what it is you want. — French Montana

Despite all the challenges facing higher education in America, from mounting student debt to grade inflation and erratic standards, our system is rightly the world's envy, and not just because our most revered universities remain on the cutting edge of research and attract talent from around the globe. We also have a plenitude and variety of settings for learning that are unrivaled. In light of that, the process of applying to college should and could be about ecstatically rummaging through those possibilities and feeling energized, even elated, by them. But for too many students, it's not, and financial constraints aren't the only reason. Failures of boldness and imagination by both students and parents bear some blame. The information is all out there. You just have to look. — Frank Bruni

The enormous amount of financial resources and creative energy that nations have spent on wars and weapons could have been redirected to curing deadly diseases, feeding the hungry, eliminating poverty, promoting art and culture, investing in renewable clean energy, and solving a host of other important challenges facing humanity. — Newton Lee

All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different. — Wendy Kopp

Regardless of what challenge you are facing right now, know that it has not come to stay. It has come to pass. During these times, do what you can with what you have, and ask for help if needed. Most importantly, never surrender. Put things in perspective. Take care of yourself. Find ways to replenish your energy, strengthen your faith and fortify yourself from the inside out. — Les Brown

We must turn the greatest collective challenge facing humankind today, climate change, into the greatest opportunity for common progress towards a sustainable future — Ban Ki-moon

Don't complain if your're facing hard moments in life. Challenge yourself to face it, challenge yourself to beat it. — Jayson Engay

The first question to be answered by any individual or any social group, facing a hazardous situation, is whether the crisis is to be met as a challenge to strength or as an occasion for despair. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

One of the challenges that Vancouver and cities across the country are facing is that we don't have a federal partner in terms of building for transit, not in the way we need. — Justin Trudeau

Our nation must manage significant national security challenges over the next several years. We are already facing a potential conflict with Iraq, new challenges on the Korean peninsula, and key decisions in the president's plans to transform the military. — Duncan Hunter

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think you can measure life in terms of years. I think longevity doesn't necessarily have anything to do with happiness. I mean happiness comes from facing challenges and going out on a limb and taking risks. If you're not willing to take a risk for something you really care about, you might as well be dead. — Diane Frolov

It's clear that the medium and long-run fiscal challenges facing the country have to do with the rise of entitlement spending, they have to do with the longer run imbalances that we've created in the structure of the system. — Austan Goolsbee

Climate change is probably the greatest long-term challenge facing the human race — Tony Blair

I would even argue that, for many displaced people, nostalgia is also blended with fear - the fear of uncertainty and of facing the challenges posed by the larger world and the fear of the absence of the clarity and confidence provided by the past. In essence, nostalgia is associated mostly with the experience of a particular type of migrants, namely, exiles. — Ha Jin

A feeling of confidence and personal power comes from facing challenges and overcoming them. — Brian Tracy

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity. — Richard Rogers

The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery. — Charles B. Rangel

Asteroids are deep-space bodies orbiting the Sun, not the Earth, and traveling to one would mean sending humans into solar orbit for the very first time. Facing those challenges of radiation, navigation and life support on a months-long trip millions of miles from home would be a perfect learning journey before a Mars trip. — Rusty Schweickart

I simply am going to look you in the eye and say that if the United States hopes to remain a major player among nations, facing challenges such as poverty, inadequate education, and global market competition, we're going to need to draw deeply from our entire talent pool, not just half of it. — Kathy Cloninger

I think we can make a contribution to their [Saudi Arabia] thinking as they decide how they should deal with the economic and social challenges that they are facing. — Colin Powell

Global climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century. — Angela Merkel

Defeating terrorism in Libya can only be achieved through the political and institutional determination of a united Libyan government, which will need the strong and unequivocal support from the international community in confronting the myriad challenges facing Libya. — Bernardino Leon

The real essence of your distinctive footprints may least be felt in your presence and much more in your absence — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is sometimes hard to be a family. — Maurice Sendak

No matter what challenge you're facing or situation you're going through, always remember this. You are bigger, stronger, greater, more significant, more powerful, more resilient, and more important than any of your problems. — Clifton Anderson

We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West. If one looks around the Western world, one can see the rumblings of discontent, almost regardless of polictical systems, as we come face to face with the problems that the modern age has dealt us. — Hillary Clinton

The major economic policy challenges facing the nation today - pick your favorites among the usual suspects of low public and household savings, concerns about educational quality and achievement, high and rising income inequality, the large imbalances between our social insurance commitments and resources - are not about monetary policy. — Timothy Geithner

Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa clearly show just how dangerous the world is, and how great the challenges facing the intelligence community are going to be in the future as threats to U.S. national security continuously evolve. The U.S. intelligence community did not foresee the sudden collapse of the pro-U.S. regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, the eruption of a civil war in Libya, and the escalating wave of street protests across the Middle East. Then again, no one else in the U.S. government or among our allies abroad did either. — Matthew M. Aid

one big problem and a great paradox in the arena of life is the problem of where or how a person is now and what, who and where he wants to be or have tomorrow. Had it not be this problem, we would have been relaxing all day long — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

There were so many lessons I learned the hard way: missing out on a raise because I didn't know to ask, having colleagues consistently get credit for my ideas because of how I spoke up in meetings. When I looked for a resource that addressed the challenges I was facing, I couldn't find it. There was nothing. — Kathryn Minshew

I have never lived through any time in my career when there haven't been grave challenges facing newspapers. — Donald Newhouse

The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information. — Pope Francis

Once Canadians no longer believe that there is any good in politics, they no longer feel we can work together to solve the challenges we're facing, and that is my fundamental motivation: how do we work together as a country to solve the big challenges we're facing. — Justin Trudeau

Inevitably, if we are to grow and change as adults, we must gradually learn to confront the challenges, paradoxes, problems and painful reality of an insecure world. — James P. Krehbiel

Having a Congress with a more diverse educational and professional background would serve the country well. And given the budget challenges facing America today, we might benefit from a few more cold, calculating problem solvers, and fewer courtroom impresarios. — John Sununu

Our task is a great one, not just because of how far we have fallen. Our task is a great one because of the challenges facing the people we seek to serve. — Johann Lamont

Facing a language you don't know is like returning to your infancy when your mother tongue used to be a foreign language to you — Munia Khan

Synthetic biology can help address key challenges facing the planet and its population. Research in synthetic biology may lead to new things such as programmed cells that self-assemble at the sites of disease to repair damage. — Craig Venter

EMILY's List has worked a lot with swing women voters over the years, and one thing we've learned is that they are very cynical about politics and politicians. They very much want help with the challenges facing them and their families, and they feel like most politicians don't understand or want to lift a finger to help them out. — Ellen Malcolm

This goes back to the main challenge we are facing, because Europe at the moment is not competitive. We have many imbalances and my big worry is that we will slow down in Europe in terms of fiscal consolidations and reforms, whilst we have to step up ... — Mark Rutte

Pennsylvania is facing challenging economic times, a multi-billion dollar budget deficit, and negative cash flow projections. My Budget Deficit and Fiscal Stabilization Task Force will get to work to determine the scope of the challenges facing Pennsylvania and begin to discuss how we can get Pennsylvania's fiscal house in order. — Tom Wolf

Read the right books. Learn how those who have preceded you have handled the challenges you are currently facing. — Robin S. Sharma

Often, the greatest challenge facing an organization is recognizing and acting on opportunity rather than solving a problem. — Peter Ginter

She was fighting for something, she felt
alive and capable of responding to the challenges facing her. — Paulo Coelho

The state is facing a unique and extraordinary set of challenges and opportunities that demand the involvement of all of us to address them. It's time for everyone to pull together to improve California's competitiveness. — Carly Fiorina

Do you find yourself facing a challenge and too tired to pray? Allow the power of prayer to revive your spirit and restore your physical and mental vigor. By following Nehemiah's example, you will have the energy needed to defeat the enemy and thrive in the midst of your challenges. — Lysa TerKeurst

No matter how much money we have or make, we will probably never consider ourselves rich. The biggest challenge facing rich people is that they've lost they're ability to recognize that they're rich. — Andy Stanley

The single-minded focus on scoring political points over solving problems, escalating over the last several decades, has reached a level of such intensity and bitterness that the government seems incapable of taking and sustaining public decisions responsive to the existential challenges facing the country. — Thomas E. Mann

Writing a story no one else dares to say, sits outside my comfort zone, is one of the biggest challenges I'm facing as an author. — Veronica Purcell

Water links us all as human beings. Everyone needs water, and we all have challenges about it, no matter where we live. Yet even in the U.S., people aren't aware of problems facing water. — Ann Bancroft

One of the biggest challenges facing the globe is the gap that exists in the wealth and standards of living enjoyed by the world's nations. — Brian Behlendorf

Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we've ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change. — David Suzuki

People often ask why I remain so optimistic, even in the face of the complex challenges we are facing in the Jewish world, in Israel and beyond. It's because I am so impressed and inspired by the young people I meet. — Lynn Schusterman

When you're facing all the issues of life and you don't know what to do, accept the fact that you are human. We all are. We don't have the capacity to understand Almighty God. But you know what? We know Jesus Christ. He's the wisdom of God. And He put His Holy Spirit in us. So having access to the Holy Spirit and Jesus, we can face the challenges of today with the wisdom of God. — David Jeremiah

Day after day, the globalization of terrorism becomes more evident. This is the one of the biggest challenges we are facing. We must stand with the innocent people around the world who are suffering or have lost their loved ones as a result of terrorism. — Widad Akreyi

One of the major challenges facing creative individuals is that of building upon the continuity of human knowledge while achieving novel insights ... On the one hand, to intensify an inquiry and develop a sense of commitment to a creative life, the learner needs models, teachers, and collaborators. On the other hand, the individual, while building upon the past, needs to transform it, and thus broaden his or her choices. — Vera John-Steiner

I write about the emotional crises that we face in our lives. Readers tell me that they identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I'm an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not- so-everyday challenges. And believe me, I love readers like you to bits. I've built my career one reader at a time. I owe a dept of gratitude to you all! — Barbara Delinsky

I congratulate NUS for launching a new degree, a bachelor of environmental studies. This is a most timely initiative. One of the biggest challenges facing Asia is to reconcile Asia's rapid economic development with care for the environment. — Tommy Koh

My personal convictions drive me to join those like-minded, in the recruitment of a growing army without guns, no hatred or prejudice, but with a leadership voice of influence and harnessing resources to create the change they desire. The major problems facing the world, particularly our beloved African continent, will not be won by sanctions, cruelty, ethnic cleansing, revenge, guns or bullets. The challenges are not largely externally motivated, so the platform to change them must shift. Shift from selfish to selfless, from external to internal, from behaviours to beliefs. Some of them are externally sponsored but self-inflicted, whilst most of them are due to greed, short-sightedness, abuse and selfishness. — Archibald Marwizi

This is a timely and relevant initiative. The environmental challenges facing Singapore and the region are becoming more complex. Tackling them will require inter-disciplinary approaches combined with a good understanding of science, economics and governance aspects. The NUS Bachelor of Environment programme will fill a much needed gap in the current framework. NEA is pleased to be a partner to this programme. — Andrew Tan

You can only arrive at mastery by practicing the techniques you have learned, facing challenges and apprehending them, using to the fullest the tools you have been taught, until they shatter in your hands and you are left in the midst of wreckage absolute ... I cannot create masters. I have never known how to create masters. Go, then, and fail ... You have been shaped into something that may emerge from the wreckage, determined to remake your Art. I cannot create masters, but if you had not been taught, your chances would be less. The higher road begins after the Art seems to fail you; though the reality will be that it was you who failed your Art. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as "the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken." ... Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence. It sets a high, seemingly impossible, expectation for performance and human behavior. — Atul Gawande

I feel that we are often taken out of our comfort zones, pushed and shoved out of our nests, because if not, we would never know what we could do with our wings, we would never see the horizon and the sun setting on it, we would never know that there's something far better beyond where we are at the moment. It can hurt, but then later you say "thank you." I have been pushed and shoved and have fallen out and away, so very, very, many, many times! And others around me have not! But then, the others haven't seen what I have seen or felt what I have felt or been who I have been, they can't become what I have become. I am me. — C. JoyBell C.

Sometimes life will be awesome. Sometimes, life will look blurry. Along the way in the journey of life, sometimes, life will be colder than warmer and sometimes warmer than colder but in all things we must remember that it is never over for a purposeful journey of life until the journey of life is over. Be it rough or smooth, good or bad, we must accomplish the task. It shall always not be good and it shall always not be bad; we only have to work hard. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Ambiguity is really important to me. Part of the difficulty facing photographers is that almost any subject matter has accumulated a representational history, so to find a new discursive space, a space to wander around those subject matters, is a real challenge. — Larry Sultan

I know that, throughout the world, there are good men and women concerned with the greatest challenges facing society today - poverty, illiteracy, and disease. — Nelson Mandela

Stress is not bad but a necessary part of facing life's challenges. Whilst the dreamers maintain the delusion that 'all accidents are preventable' the rest of us know that the bumps and challenges of life are necessary for learning, resilience and maturation. There can be no resilience without stress, and no learning without risk. — Rob Long

I'm no longer sceptical. I no longer have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. — David Attenborough

There is no singular meaning of wife. That is the point. That is its meaning. To see the wife fully through a multi-faceted lens is one of the central challenges facing society in the twenty-first century. To do this, new scripts are required that employ wife as a verb and as a gender-neutral concept. These are essential if we are to create necessary new narratives, new ways of living as women and men together. — Anne Kingston

The only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet. — Nadia Comaneci

Nothing surprises me anymore. We'll keep doing what we're doing. I'm going to keep going forward with solutions that I want to see applied to this great country, the challenges that we're facing. And things like that [e-mails as governor published] are going to be perhaps a distraction for others. They won't distract me. — Sarah Palin

I started off with a company, InfoSpace, with my own funding. The company was listed among the most successful companies and I went on to start Intelius and Moon Express. Now, I focus my time on using the skills of an entrepreneur to solve many of the grand challenges facing us in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water and energy. — Naveen Jain

We look for people who demonstrate perseverance in the face of challenges, the ability to influence and motivate others - people who want to work relentlessly to ensure that kids who are facing the challenges of poverty have an excellent education. — Wendy Kopp

The most urgent domestic challenge facing the United States at the close of the 20th century is the re-creation of fatherhood as a social role for men. — David Blankenhorn

If you are presently facing significant challenges in your life, trust in the Lord! Be an aggressive responder who lives with alert expectancy! — Richard Blackaby

Voters - here's the real challenge: we don't need empty promises made by politicians whose only goal in life is to get elected or re-elected. We need leaders with attributes that qualify them to lead us through the difficult challenges we're facing. — Lee Ellis

There is no guarantee that life will be easy for anyone. We grow and learn more rapidly by facing and overcoming challenges. You are here to prove yourself, to develop, and to overcome. There will be constant challenges that cause you to think, to make proper judgments, and to act righteously. You will grow from them. However, there are some challenges you never need to encounter. They are those associated with serious transgression. As you continue to avoid such tragedy, your life will be simpler and happier. You will see others around you who don't make that choice, who do things that are wrong and evil and bring sadness. Thank your Father in Heaven that your pattern of life is different and that you have been helped to make choices guided by the Holy Ghost. That prompting will keep you on the right path. — Richard G. Scott

As much as I might have wanted to, I could never change my vote on Iraq. But I could try to help us learn the right lessons from that war and apply them to Afghanistan and other challenges where we had fundamental security interests. I was determined to do exactly that when facing future hard choices, with more experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

It is easy to climb the ladder of success if one is working on issues and aeas which are not frequented by the masses, provided one is ready to face challenges. — Vishwas Chavan

While Washington pays lip service to the challenges facing small businesses, it repeatedly chooses its own expansion over results. In effect, government has become a huge silent partner in all businesses, often taking a majority of the profits and forcing many unprofitable business decisions without the risk that it will be fired. — David Malpass

He who doesn't want to face his or her challenges shall always face challenges! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Two powerful, little words I've learned to use when facing challenges, fears, and doubts - so what? — Richelle E. Goodrich

Leaders devoid of crucible experiences are likely to be overly confident about their ideas, and surprisingly more susceptible to fears; this is also true of children who are overly sheltered from facing challenges and experiences that help build their character. Courageously facing our fears in the difficult times gives us both humility and real confidence. — Lee Ellis

Meditation is meeting eternity in the present moment. It is resolving every problem as it comes. It is resolving every tension as it creeps in. It is facing the challenges of life in a non-fearful way. — Vimala Thakar

By facing our challenges and overcoming them, we grow stronger, wiser, and more compassionate. — John Templeton

To me, a witch is a woman that is capable of letting her intuition take hold of her actions, that communes with her environment, that isn't afraid of facing challenges. — Paulo Coelho

We are here to learn lessons and our birth chart tells us what our lessons are, what type of energy we possess in the first place, and how, by facing up to the challenges presented to us in life, spiritual growth will ensue. The birth chart is a 'tool' to guide us through our life. By understanding our basic make up, we can learn to make the most out of our positive points and try to improve on our weaker ones. — Stephen Arroyo

The greatest single challenge facing our globalised world is to combat and eradicate its disparities. — Nelson Mandela

Leadership in church is one of the biggest challenges that the Church is facing because without strong leadership, the church rarely lives out its redemptive potentials. — Bill Hybels

Reading a book that challenges you is the best way to practice facing real-world fears. — Carla H. Krueger

Reincarnation isn't something in which I choose to believe but rather a truth I accept. Most people will never know the meaning of their friendships, passions, choices and even challenges. I embrace them, knowing that there's always a perfect correlation between everything, including between us and the ones that love us and betray us at the end. That's how I know I'm almost never traveling somewhere but returning, or not meeting someone but fixing the past, or facing a challenge but ending a karmic cycle. If I was a Buddhist Monk, a Scottish Doctor, a French Monarch, or a Spanish Templar, none of that really matters, not as much as what I experienced and believed during that time, not as much as what I did ten years ago or what I believed during my childhood, not as much as who I am now and what I can do with my life at present time. — Robin Sacredfire

Their words of encouragement were just what I needed. I was doing a great job, and I appreciated their cheers.I felt a dormlike camaraderie in the burn unit, since each of us knew the challenges we were facing like no one else could, and therefore how meaningful each triumph was. — Stephanie Nielson

Global warming is not just the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet - it is one of our greatest challenges of any kind. — Barack Obama

One of the greatest challenges facing humanity is that of being able to live with one another in a peaceful and civilized way. We all have our individual uniqueness and perceptions of how we believe the world ought to function. This creates conflict unless there is a deeper realization in the collective consciousness and an understanding that most human desires desecrate the beauty of the nowness of life. — Christopher Dines

In some ways clarifying a vision is easy. A more difficult challenge comes in facing current reality. — Peter Senge

Today, the greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world. — C.J. Mahaney

When you look at what is happening to our world-and it is hard to look at what's happening to our water, our air, our trees, our fellow species-it becomes clear that unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible. — Joanna Macy

Courage is the facing of a challenge with a healthy fear, not being fearless. — Les Stroud