Fiercest Quotes & Sayings

Ome things you don't need to hear in order to hear. The mind has an ear of its own and sometimes memory is the fiercest fucking DJ alive. — David Levithan

I'm not a pretty princess, and I'm aware of that, so I like music that is really intense, really bold, and characters that in a way almost have a dark side and are kind of evil because, for me, that's when I feel my strongest and fiercest, when I'm not necessarily the good girl. — Ashley Wagner

The first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the traitor, second on the enemy. If I had but one bullet and I were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the traitor have it. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

We followed Mrs. Morton down the High Street. She sailed, like a vessel, along the pavement, skirting around pushchairs and small dogs, and people who had stopped to wipe ice cream from their chins.
July had found its fiercest day yet. The sky was ironed into an acid blue, and even the clouds had fallen from the edges, leaving a faultless page of summer above our heads. Even so, there were those who still nurtured mistrust. We walked past cardigans draped across elbows and raincoats bundled into shopping bags, and one woman who carried an umbrella wedged into her armpit, like artillery. It seemed that people couldn't quite let go of the weather, and felt the need to carry every form of it around with them, at all times, for safekeeping.

The trouble with goats and sheep by Joanna Cannon — Joanna Cannon

A tiny company, 'the aware', we have taken up civilization's fiercest weapons to fight against the dark army of the masses whose leaders are hunger and stupidity. These weapons are the smile and the lie. — Iwan Goll

This was typical of Topgyay. Unlike most Tibetan officials, he was interested in these Khambas, the fiercest and most populous of all the Tibetan peoples, as individuals and not as mere tools to serve his purpose. They loved him for it, as much as they respected him for his fighting record. — George Patterson

I thought of Sammy Glick rocking in his cradle of hate, malnutrition, prejudice, suspicions, amorality, the anarchy of the poor; I thought of him as a mangy puppy in a dog-eat-dog world. I was modulating my hate for Sammy Glick from the personal to the societal. I no longer even hated Rivington Street but the idea of Rivington Street, all Rivington Streets of all nationalities allowed to pile up in cities like gigantic dung heaps smelling up the world, ambitions growing out of filth and crawling away like worms. I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause, his own army and his own flag, and I realized that I had singled him out not because he had been born into the world anymore selfish, ruthless and cruel than anybody else, even though he had become all three, but because in the midst of a war that was selfish, ruthless and cruel Sammy was proving himself the fittest and the fiercest and the fastest. — Budd Schulberg

He was by far the fiercest, most ruggedly handsome, yet, formidable man she had ever laid eyes on. She couldn't stop staring at him. He had dark brown hair which skimmed his shoulders, a short-haired beard around his lips and chin, and gorgeous greenish-blue eyes that reminded her of the sea. There was something dangerously wicked about the look of his face, and she half expected him to yell for his men to batten down the hatches or swab the deck. — Madison Thorne Grey

Having an exciting destination is like setting a needle in your compass. From then on, the compass knows only one point - its ideal. And it will faithfully guide you there through the darkest nights and fiercest storms — Daniel Boone

In truth, it is I who have defiled myself, for one is one s own fiercest enemy. — Ding Ling

Knowledge is always one of the fiercest of advantages a lady can have. — Heather Lyons

Be a woman of Christ. Cherish your esteemed place in the sight of God. He needs you. This church needs you. The world needs you. A woman's abiding trust in God and unfailing devotion to things of the Spirit have always been an anchor when the wind and the waves of life were fiercest. — Jeffrey R. Holland

The great name of the Dollys was Milton, and ... if you named a son Milton it was a decision that attempted to chart the life he'd live before he even stepped into it, for among Dollys the name carried expectations and history ... Jessops, Arthurs, Haslams and Miltons were born to walk only the beaten Dolly path to the shadowed place, live and die in keeping with those blood-line customs fiercest held.
Ree and Mom both had shouted and shouted and shouted against Harold becomeing a Milton, since Sonny was already a Jessop ... Ree'd a thousand times wished she'd fought longer for sonny, Shouted him into an Adam or Leotis or Eugene, shouted until he was named to expect choices. — Daniel Woodrell

Tina Fey is my comedy wife. I have known her for almost a double decade. We met each other when we were poor and single. Now we are both rich as shit and have husbands all over the world. People think of us as a "comedy team" and I am not quick to correct them. Why wouldn't I want to connect myself to the fiercest and most talented voice in the comedy world? — Amy Poehler

His education was conducted with all care. The ablest teachers were engaged for him, and he was trained in the strict doctrine of the Stoic philosophy, which was his great delight. He was taught to dress plainly and to live simply, to avoid all softness and luxury. His body was trained to hardihood by wrestling, hunting, and outdoor games; and though his constitution was weak, he showed great personal courage to encounter the fiercest boars. At the same time he was kept from the extravagancies of his day. — Marcus Aurelius

In almost every story, the fiercest battles often take place within. — Camron Wright

If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men are ever subject, because doctrines get inside a man's reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines. — William Graham Sumner

For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity, unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious license unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster? For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. — Augustine Of Hippo

On occasion he would think back to the fiercest passion it had been his pleasure to experience and reflect on what might have been. He would look upon the woman who occupied the opposite half of his bed and feel his life had not quite lived up to the promise of another day. These moments would be mercifully brief, or so he hoped. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Facing the sagging middle when writing a novel, while inevitable, may be
overcome by pre-planning. I divide my collection of proposed scenes into three acts, each scene inciting tension that builds toward the final crisis in Act Three. If by Act Two the emotional river isn't spilling over the banks, I reassess the plot so that once the writing is flowing I don't slide into a dry creek. The central character should be struggling to navigate life well into the end of Act One, even if her fiercest antagonist is only from within. — Patricia Hickman

The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of mustaches. — Victor Hugo

In the secret of God's tabernacle no enemy can find us, and no troubles can reach us. The pride of man and the strife of tongues find no entrance into the pavilion of God. The secret of his presence is a more secure refuge than a thousand Gibraltars. I do not mean that no trials come. They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of the soul, and we may dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life fiercest storms. — Hannah Whitall Smith

Throughout his life, General Wesley Clark has stood up to some tough opponents. He battled the Viet Cong, and went toe-to-toe with Slobodan Milosevic. But today the retired four-star general capitulated to the fiercest enemy he's ever confronted: the American voter. — Jon Stewart

It means putting up with my fiercest and most annoying rival, Robin Goodfellow, who - despite all his attempts to hide it - is in love with my queen as well. I don't know why I haven't killed him yet. Maybe because Puck is Meghan's closest friend and she would mourn him terribly if he were gone (though I can't imagine why). — Julie Kagawa

Even in the fiercest battles the Butterflies and Bee's still kiss the flowers. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

He was an animal. He was terrifying. And he was beautiful. I realized that I was biting my lip, that my hand was wound into the ruffled fabric at my chest. Something in me was drawn to the carnage. Like so many women before me, I was a slave to the caveman brain, that deep old part of my DNA that whispered that ferocity would keep me safe and fed and alive and that I should most definitely find the fiercest creature around and hump it. — Delilah S. Dawson

None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much. — Lydia M. Child

It's way beyond ironic that a place called the Holy Land is the location of the fiercest, most deeply felt hatred in the world. And it makes for wonderful theater. — George Carlin

The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians. — Edward Gibbon

Paper is the strongest material in the world. Things under which a mountain will crumble, you can place on paper and it will hold: beauty at its most intense; love at its fiercest; the greatest grief; the greatest rage. — Nadeem Aslam

Pain was an eloquent tragedy; it spiralled out of control and ignited the fiercest types of passion. — Alessia Dickson

You see, Doctor, what people say is true: man carries his fiercest enemy within himself. Hell isn't others. It's ourselves. — Elie Wiesel

But it turns out that even the fiercest denial can't stop time. — Nina LaCour

So began one of the fiercest and strangest battles ever fought, a battle that involved all manner of business supplies, elegant clothing and accessories, and no shortage of trickery and taunts. — Trenton Lee Stewart

Of all the tyrants the world affords, our own affections are the fiercest lords. — John Sterling

Time that had not come yet - an anomaly in itself - had the fiercest reality for her. It was a hard wind in her face; if she had made the world, every tree would be bent, every stone weathered, every bough stripped by that steady and contrary wind. Lucille saw in everything its potential for invidious change. — Marilynne Robinson

If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil? — Piers Anthony

The Saga of Dharmapuri is one of the great works of modern Indian literature. ( ... ) Set against Vijayan's heroic and scatological Candide
originally written in Malayalam and finely translated into English by the author
the timidity of our own English talent for political satire is embarrassingly laid bare. For this is dangerous stuff, and cut close to the bone. ( ... ) Fiercest of all is Vijayan's Voltairean recoil from Indian cringing to power. — David Selbourne

Tyranny is the fiercest form of slavery. Terrorist is the most ferocious form of slavery. We are all slaves until every human is free from both. — James Morris Robinson

We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal. — Henry David Thoreau

The more ignorant the authority, the more dogmatic it is. In the fields where no real knowledge is even possible, the authorities are the fiercest and most assured and punish non-belief with the severest of penalties. — Abraham Myerson

The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,
Is that which rages in the place of dearest love. — Euripides

Oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dulness of life. This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world. — G.K. Chesterton

It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming. It's easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. — Timothy Ferriss

William, an artist is someone who combines a desperate need to be understood with the fiercest love of privacy- — Garth Risk Hallberg

I am the Fiercest of the Fierce. — Lois Lowry

I was always a distinct no-one, whose fiercest wish was to be an indistinct someone. — John Banville

Deep the waves may be and cold,
But Jehovah is our refuge,
And His promise is our hold;
For the Lord Himself hath said it,
He, the faithful God and true:
"When thou comest to the waters
Thou shalt not go down, BUT THROUGH."
Seas of sorrow, seas of trial,
Bitterest anguish, fiercest pain,
Rolling surges of temptation
Sweeping over heart and brain
They shall never overflow us
For we know His word is true;
All His waves and all His billows
He will lead us safely through.
Threatening breakers of destruction,
Doubt's insidious undertow,
Shall not sink us, shall not drag us
Out to ocean depths of woe;
For His promise shall sustain us,
Praise the Lord, whose Word is true!
We shall not go down, or under,
For He saith, "Thou passest THROUGH — Annie Johnson Flint

The strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair. — John Milton

The Jewish problem is as old as history, and assumes in each age a new form. The life or death of millions of human beings hangs upon its solution; its agitation revives the fiercest passions for good and for evil that inflame the human breast. — Emma Lazarus

It's probably your fiercest critics - not your compatriots - who have the sharpest, most resonant insights. — Umair Haque

What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy - in Afghanistan and in Texas. — Mark Steyn

I could run farther than a hare! I could fight the fiercest fox that ever lived ... I could climb the highest mountain faster than an eagle could fly. — Erin Hunter

I ... I sang," she whispered, "if that matters," and Karou felt her heart pulled to pieces. This Misbegotten warrior, fiercest of them all, had crouched in an icy stream bed to sing a chimera soul into her canteen, because she hadn't known what else to do.
The singing wouldn't have mattered, but she wasn't going to tell Liraz that. If Ziri's soul was in that canteen, Karou would happily learn whatever song Liraz had sung and make it part of her resurrection ritual forever, just so that the angel would never feel that she'd been foolish. — Laini Taylor

If I could let you know -
two women together is a work
nothing in civilization ha made simple,
two people together is a work
heroic in its ordinariness,
the slow-picked, halting traverse of a pitch
where the fiercest attention becomes routine
- look at the faces of those who have chosen it. — Adrienne Rich

The fiercest fire is hatred. — Gautama Buddha

Time for a new tactic. "Kieran, you may be paranoid, selfish, and pretty much heartless, but I didn't think you were a coward." I steeled myself to face his rage.
Instead, his shoulders moved, and he coughed. The cough changed into a low chuckle. Finally, he was laughing so hard that he had to wipe his eyes.
I gave him my fiercest frown.
He looked over and started laughing again.
"That was-" he coughed and shook his head. "That was a good try. Really. You're learning. The glare needs a little work, though. — Sharon Hinck

In one point the plan was fatally defective, since it involved the deadly enmity of a race whose character and whose power were as yet but ill understood,
the fiercest, boldest, most politic, and most ambitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth. — Francis Parkman

In the days of the Roman Colosseum, captured soldiers were regularly thrown to the lions. But one soldier earned a reputation for bravery and managed to save his life by a bold act. When a lion sprang toward him with lunch on its mind, the man whispered something in the lion's ear just at the last moment. The lion cowered, turned a sickly green, and then slunk back into its cage. This happened again and again, with even the empire's fiercest lions turning tail once they had heard what the man whispered. The emperor, curious to understand the man's power over these beasts, promised him his life in exchange for the secret of how he caused the lions to leave him alone. "It's simple," the soldier told the emperor. "When a lion is about to attack, I just whisper, 'After you've eaten, they're going to ask you to make a short speech.' Works every time.
— Arthur H. Bell

We all have a relentless yearning to attach and connect, to love and be loved. This relationship hunger is the fiercest longing of the human soul. — Dave Earley

The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity,
as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame — Charles Caleb Colton

The independents who were our fiercest competitors all succumbed to the one-hit-makes-you-a-genius philosophy. It is a mistake to think you have the magic touch. Show business is roulette. If you start to play for stakes you can't afford, there's no way you can survive. — Samuel Goldwyn

I emitted an ultrasonic signal. The beast climbed off her and scampered to my side. "Good girl, Snarg." I patted her between the antennae, and she squeaked. Zala stood. "By the hidden moon, what is that?" "My pet ultrapede." "I wouldn't expect you to have a pet." "Snarg was a gift of the ambassador of the Undersphere. She's the fiercest ultrapede ever bred for the royal family. How could I turn down a gift like that? — A. Lee Martinez

Faith is mind at its best, its bravest, and its fiercest. Faith is thought become poetry, and absorbing into itself the soul's great, passions. Faith is intellect carried up to its transfigurement. — Charles Henry Parkhurst

When we hold it (amber) in our hands, we hold also that furious epoch where rioted all monsters and poisons, where death fecundated and life destroyed, where superabundance demanded such existences, no souls, but fiercest animal fire - just for that I hate it! — Harriet Prescott Spofford

Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled
he did not fall
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes
He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledge him a man. — Emily Dickinson

Which ones scared you, made comments, touched you, and asked you out? I want a list." "Did you not hear anything I just said?" My brow creases with my fiercest frown. "Do not interfere." "Heard it. Processed it. Ignoring — Sarah Castille

In the midst of the storm, your life boat appears. A psalm, a hymn, a word ... calming the fiercest winds of the soul. — The Refined Poet

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done. — Jason Kidd

Is mass surveillance worth it when its fiercest advocates can only say that it "contributed to our understanding" of cases "at the margins"? — Julia Angwin

That's right: Never underestimate the power of a good laugh. It can stop some of the fiercest middle-school monsters. — James Patterson

But more than anything, as a little girl, I wanted to be exactly like Miss Piggy. She was ma heroine. I was a plucky little girl, but I never related to the rough-and-tumble icons of children's lit, like Pippi Longstocking or Harriet the Spy. Even Ramona Quimby, who seemed cool, wasn't somebody I could super-relate to. She was scrawny and scrappy and I was soft and sarcastic. I connected instead to Miss - never 'Ms.' - Piggy; the comedienne extraordinaire who'd alternate eye bats with karate chops, swoon over girly stuff like chocolate, perfume, feather boas or random words pronounced in French, then, on a dmie, lower her voice to 'Don't fuck with me, fellas' decibel when slighted. She was hugely feminine, boldly ambitious, and hilariously violent when she didn't get way, whether it was in work, love, or life. And even though she was a pig puppet voiced by a man with a hand up her ass, she was the fiercest feminist I'd ever seen. — Julie Klausner

Sport is a great equalizer that can build bridges, transcend borders and cultures, and render even the fiercest conflicts temporarily irrelevant. — Richard Attias

The Fey did nothing in half measures. That intensity of emotion was part of their appeal. It made them the fiercest warriors, the staunchest allies, the most passionate lovers. The most devoted mates. — C.L. Wilson

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. — Robert Green Ingersoll

If I had learned anything from this past year, it is that despair is love's fiercest enemy. — Susan Meissner

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign. — William C. Bryant

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

Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again. Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Til I can rest again. Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight. Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own. — Maya Angelou

Even in the fiercest uproar of our stormy passions, conscience, though in her softest whispers, gives to the supremacy of rectitude the voice of an undying testimony. — Thomas Chalmers

Thais believed that in defeat the downtrodden, courageous soul would rise with the fiercest determination for victory. That is when the true spirit of warriors shined through and soared. A new day would dawn and with it a renewed hope would rise above the blood and the ash, strengthening even the weakest and igniting a birth of revolution. — Madison Thorne Grey

Like so many women before me, I was a slave to the caveman brain, that deep old part of my DNA that whispered that ferocity would keep me safe and fed and alive and that I should most definitely find the fiercest creature around and hump it.
Dawson, Delilah S. (2012-03-27). Wicked as They Come (Blud) (p. 309). Pocket Books. Kindle Edition. — Delilah S. Dawson

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above. — Alexander Pope

I have much to think on." Tadhg gave him a sideways glance. "I could be using some wisdom."
Sean looked skyward before facing his friend. "Yea, Tadhg I will pray that ye receive wisdom." He took a few steps away, heading back to the house, and added in a loud voice without looking back. "And a set of balls."
Tadhg smiled. The man was the fiercest warrior in the clan. He had always been sorely infatuated with Brighit. — Ashley York

This caterpillar does not just simply grow wings
First, it must alter its mind; transform the very being of itself
It must climb the tallest tree, the highest mountain
Swim the deepest of oceans
Walk through the fiercest of flames
And then, if it chooses, this caterpillar can become a butterfly — Aubrey Moore

Most ferocious was Kobe. Fiercest, most competitive, it was Kobe. D Wade is second after that. — Shaquille O'Neal

Our deepest sorrows always flow from the same source as might have filled us with joy, and those wounds burn the fiercest which are inflicted by a hand we love. — Georg Ebers

I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated. — Andrew Carnegie

Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another, makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solicitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? — George Santayana

The fiercest storm is taking place in some of our churches - the unbelief and disobedience of God's Word. — Billy Graham

There is a famous question that shows up, it seems, in every single self-help book ever written: What would you do if you knew that you could not fail? But I've always seen it differently. I think the fiercest question of all is this one: What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail? What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant? What do you love even more than you love your own ego? How fierce is your trust in that love? — Elizabeth Gilbert

Such terrifying powers we possess, but what a sorry lot of gods some men are. And the worst of it is not the cruelty but the arrogance, the sheer hubris of those who bring only violence and fear into the animal world, as if it needed any more of either. Their lives entail enough frights and tribulations without the modern fire-makers, now armed with perfected, inescapable weapons, traipsing along for more fun and thrills at their expense even as so many of them die away. It is our fellow creatures' lot in the universe, the place assigned them in creation, to be completely at our mercy, the fiercest wolf or tiger defenseless against the most cowardly man. And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them, as if their little share of the earth's happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man's attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational, or wicked. — Matthew Scully

Her fiercest sincerities were translated by the male ego, on arrival, into daffy flirtation. (p. 24) — Jonathan Lethem

It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous members are ever mixed the most sordid interests and the fiercest passions of mean confedes. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most impeccable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known ...
just-
didn't-
have it. — Matthew Woodring Stover

The very best testament to the validity of the Warren Commission's findings is that after an unrelenting, close to forty-five-year effort, the Commission's fiercest critics have not been able to produce any new credible evidence that would in any way justify a different conclusion. — Vincent Bugliosi

As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths of the hearts of people which the storm of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach this silence and to live consciously in it is peace. — James Allen

From earliest days I wanted to be someone else. The injunction nosce te ipsum had an ashen taste on my tongue from the first time a teacher enjoined me to repeat it after him. I knew myself, all too well, and did not like what I knew. Again, I must qualify. It was not what I was that I disliked, I mean the singular, essential me - although I grant that even the notion of an essential, singular self is problematic - but the congeries of affects, inclinations, received ideas, class tics, that my birth and upbringing had bestowed on me in place of a personality. In place of, yes. I never had a personality, not in the way that others have, or think they have. I was always a distinct no-one, whose fiercest wish was to be an indistinct someone, I know what I mean. — John Banville

Unless our souls had root in soil divine We could not bear earth's overwhelming strife. The fiercest pain that racks this heart of mine, Convinces me of everlasting life. — Stefan Zweig

Even the fiercest of anarchists lose their teeth to age. — Cari Luna