Quotes & Sayings About Fighting For Others

You see the grandmother down there with her son and grandson? They've probably been coming here for years together. Or maybe it's their first trip. Either way, it's three generations sitting down together, laying aside their differences for one night to be a family. This is humanity, Steele. This is what we're fighting for. Family. People. Pride. It's our differences that make up our strength. BAD isn't about patriotism. It's about saving individuals. Not just those in America, but all the ones who are out there going about their lives with little to no care about politics. Men, women, and children who only want to live peacefully while others are looking for ways to use them as pawns in a deadly game they don't even want to play. (Joe) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

if you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible anyway, you will insist on holding onto judgment. You will also use the term with considerable fear, believing that judgment will someday be used against you. To whatever extent it is used against you, it is due only to your belief in its efficacy as a weapon of defense for your own authority. The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an individual has an "authority problem," it is always because he believes he is the author of himself, projects his delusion onto others, and then perceives the situation as one in which people are literally fighting him for his authorship. — Helen Schucman

At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.

If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb. — Patrick Higgins

Changing quadrants is often a change at the core of who you are, how you think, and how you look at the world. The change is easier for some people than for others simply because some people welcome change and others fight it. — Robert Kiyosaki

I recalled how much time i had spent fighting for something i didn't even want. maybe because i had been too lazy to think of other avenues to follow. maybe because i had been afraid of what others would think. maybe because it was hard work to be different. perhaps, because a human being is condemned to repeat the steps taken by the previous generation until a certain number of people begin to behave in a different fashion. then the world changes, and we change with it. — Paulo Coelho

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

I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle. It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside, and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of a continuum of women's work, of reclaiming this earth and our power, and knowing that this work did not begin with my birth nor will it end with my death. And it means knowing that within this continuum, my life and my love and my work has particular power and meaning relative to others. — Audre Lorde

My desire to fight comes from within ... it's a personal journey of accomplishment, not meant to be judges or for me to judge others. — Cat Zingano

If we look for love in others without finding it in ourselves, we are like an underdeveloped country at the mercy of industrialised countries. Some may rescue us, providing the resources we lack and creating a tie of dependence, while others may teach us to produce what we need so that in a distant future we may become self-sufficient. Others may refuse to offer support, hating and even fighting us, hence urgently forcing us to find our own resources within. Perhaps one day someone will become aware that we are part of the same planet, and that all resources, including love, belongs to all. — Franco Santoro

Without his shirt she could see just how bony he was, probably twenty or thirty pounds under his fighting weight from his years in captivity. He loomed over her, and she finally understood her ambivalence. He had protected her, killed for her, led her to safety. He was safety.
But he was also big and raw and so elementally male that it made her teeth sweat. She'd spent most of her life blissfully above the calls of the flesh and the dark, desperate couplings that subsumed others. She didn't like sex, didn't want sex. Body parts were simply that. She looked at MacGowan and thought about sex. — Anne Stuart

We took the path that led others nowhere and only we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. They warned us about the monsters we would encounter, the odds that we would meet. And they laughed when we got the scars while fighting the dragons on our way. When we came back out of the tunnel, holding the sword that they always craved for tightly in our hand. Bleeding and the sun shining on our face. We became the tales they wanted to be. We became the reflections of what they always wanted to see themselves through. We became the warriors they had always imagined of. — Akshay Vasu

People have been fighting and dying over religion for thousands of years. I could understand that fear. It creeps up on you a bit more when you're alone in a foreign land. You certainly worry about it more when you walk the same streets as violent people that harbor a clear hatred of your beliefs and values. The reality is some Muslims in the world would kill me for being Christian, just as some Christians in the world would kill Maya, Gita, Farid and Ridwan for being Muslim. Nowadays news outlets and social media have reified that fear. It keeps some people focused and aware. It paralyzes others. It blinds some of us. That's what happened to me. It's why I felt the whole world shake. Twice. — Tucker Elliot

I don't want to play old music. To me, it is fighting battles that are already over and calling yourself a warrior. For me, I see no courage or adventure in doing the old thing over again. If others want to, that's for them. For myself, I have to move on. Life is too short to live in the past. There is a lot to be done. — Henry Rollins

I came from nothing. My mother was a single mother in the streets. She did everything she could do. Me and my brother experienced a lot on our own and with me knowing that feeling, I didn't want others to have that feeling, so that's why I fight for the streets. I'm making my own lane and staying true to myself, 'cause at the end of the day, you can't ban the truth. — Trae Tha Truth

Our sainted aunts prate of living for others while our rich uncles call us mollycoddles for not fighting for what we want. Murder is a patriotic act if you commit it in a uniform; it is the blackest sin if you kill someone while wearing a gray flannel suit. — Nicholas Samstag

Shall we longer bear these cruelties which have been heaped upon us for the last ten years in the face of heaven, and in open violation of the constitution and law of these United States and of this state? God forbid! I will not bear it. If they take away my rights, I will fight for them manfully and righteously until I am used up. We have done nothing against the rights of others. — Joseph Smith Jr.

Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle.Pray for the defeat of our wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose good is oppression. Pray for victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for Peace. We must march together, all out for God. — George S. Patton

There is no force more liberating than the knowledge that you are fighting for others. — Bob Kerrey

Perhaps this view has to do with the beginnings of modern America, which are to me, like the big bang theory, violent and wonderous. No one was safe from hatred and betrayal. Everyone was fighting to survive. It seemed the American Gypsies weren't immune to the neck-breaking race for what became the American Dream. Like so many others, they were more than willing to cut their roots in order to stake their claim on prosperity. Could that be the reason the American Gypsies largely escaped the more malevolent prejudices their European counterparts suffered? — Oksana Marafioti

For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again, after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one. Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say! — Wilhelm Reich

It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others. — Eric Hoffer

Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully
not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts
watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with. — Frederick William Robertson

Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of all of us. — George W. Bush

He stands apart with Patroclus, his beloved through all eternity, and Patroclus - who loves Achilles but not as much as he is loved - waits for Achilles to move. His deference to Achilles is different from that of others, They honour and respect him, keep a wise distance, because Achilles was better than the rest. Better at being human. Fighting, singing, speaking, raging (oh, he is good at that still). Killing. But Patroclus alone is humbled by Achilles' love. Only a fool thinks that to be more loved than loving gives you power. Only a fool vaunts it and displays his own littleness by bragging to his friends and making capricious demands of his lover. Patroclus isn't a fool. He knows that he is less than Achilles even in this. Humbled by the intensity of Achilles' love he loves him back with all his large, though lesser, heart. — Elizabeth Cook

Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership. — Drew Karpyshyn

I believe that it is my job to fight for the rights of others to have the same rights that I take for granted. As a white, American male, I have had it quite good. I recognize that and fight every day for everyone to have the same opportunities that I have had. — Michael Skolnik

We each create a story - a narritive, a picture, an allegory, a model - for what's going on in the universe. And then we fight - sometimes to the death - to make others believe in that model, or to be able to keep believing in it ourselves. In other words, we try to erase contradictory evidence to that model. — Douglas Rushkoff

When you sever ties with the unit purely for self-serving intentions, you are likely to find yourself stranded and struggling to survive; fighting to keep your head above water. What's more, there is no one to save you because you've turned your back on your comrades and snubbed your support system. — Carlos Wallace

To one degree or another we all fight against preconceptions nearly every day. The wisest people I know don't compare their fight to that of others. Everything is relative through the lens of personal struggle.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes ... mine are often those who are fighting their fight in public. Unashamed. Proud. An example.
Heroes aren't perfect. They have faults and flaws. They stumble from time to time. They are heroes, though, because they correct themselves ... and set an example, intended or not, for the world observing them ... even, and especially, to those who would love nothing more than to see them fail.
Stay Strong! — Dennis Sharpe

Everybody in life is struggling for power, and some people use morality and righteousness as a weapon, while others use different means, even passive aggression. From a distance, we are all fighting, and I am looking at this from a distance. — Robert Greene

Living to give to others, working hard for your destiny
and fighting for your dreams are the battles you will never regret no matter how long it takes. — Michael Hutchison

Self-forgiveness. It's more like a constant attitude. It's just being hopeful. It's refusing to hold your breath. It's loving yourself enough to offer yourself a million more tries. It's what we want our kids to do every day for their whole lives, right? We want them to embrace being human instead of fighting against it. We want them to offer themselves grace. Forgiveness and grace are like oxygen: we can't offer it to others unless we put our masks on first. We have to put our grace masks on and breathe in deep. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Each person may see a fight in different ways ... They can see more to a primal way. Others they can see in a pure artistic way ... For me I see the pure artistic way, the way that a true martial artist can show his art. — Roger Gracie

There are many, and there will be many, who will gladly purchase eternal life for a small price, if they see that others are fighting for God in earnest, rather than pretending to do so. — Pope Leo X

We're fighting for unhappiness?" Noah asked skeptically. "It sounds a bit crazy when you put it that way."
Nijinsky laughed, delighted. "Oh, it is." Then, serious again, he said, "We fight for the right to be what we choose,to feel what we choose. Even if what we choose seems crazy to others."
"If it's all the same to you, I'll fight for revenge," Sadie said.
Nijinsky's eyes glittered. "Oh, yes. That's fine with me. — Michael Grant

Regardless of what others may tell you, you only need two Mexican-Americans for a Mexican standoff. — Alejandra Diaz Mattoni

Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called 'Why We Fight' that explored America's reasons for entering the war. Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it's crucial to ask the questions: 'Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?' — Eugene Jarecki

It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses - say mother love or patriotism - are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad ... There are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries. — Timothy Keller

Only danger is real, and difficulty. Yet we live to make our lives safe - and those of others. (..) I will fight my own people to keep them from fighting, for as long as can be. Never fight, until it is unsafe not to fight, unsafe for our souls as well as our bodies. Then fight for their safety, - but when it is won, remember that safety itself is unsafe. For what is safety? It is sleepy thing. It does not make one happy. It does not remind one that it is good to be alive. Life is taken for granted, so it is no longer surprise. It grows dull and monotonous, one lives as a tree or a cabbage or a cow in the straw of the byre. Our forefathers scorned "a straw death". A straw life is worse. — Margaret Irwin

We're a society of brats, fighting over the same toys. That, for me, is the closest we come to be inherently evil as a people. It leads to selfishness, inflexibility, and impatience -- among so many other traits that are ugly and harmful. We're combative, competitive, petty, and suffer from one fatal flaw that I can never get my head around. We recognize behavior in others that makes us insane, while turning right around and doing the exact thing to someone else. — Trevor D. Richardson

People never hurt others in moments of personal strength and bravery, when they are feeling good about themselves, when they are strong and confident. If we spent all of our waking moments in that place, then fighting for social justice would be redundant; we would simply have social justice and be done with it, and we could all go swimming, or fishing, or bowling, or dancing, or whatever people do. But it is because we spend so much of our time in that other place, that place of diminished capacity, of flagging energy, or wavering and somewhat flaccid commitment, that we have to be careful. — Tim Wise

I may, and I think I represent a tradition that means a lot to me, which has really always been about fighting for others, for middle-class families, for working class - for working people, you know, and that's a tradition and a commitment that I take very seriously. — Caroline Kennedy

All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man's work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others. — Amelia Barr

Nothing - not prestige, power or pride - is worth sacrificing the things that you truly want, the things that you truly love. Don't be afraid to take time and smell the roses. Don't hesitate in seeking out those things you hold dear. Seeking them out and holding on to them. And don't ever cease standing up for what you believe in, and fighting for those things that you want. Life is too short. Do what makes you happy, regardless of how others might feel. — Brenda Jackson

If you're just going to be like everyone else, why are you even doing this? If you merely replicate competitors, there's no point for your existence. Even if you wind up losing, it's better to go down fighting for what you believe in instead of just imitating others. — Jason Fried

If in fact your time to be called before God, you typically won't know it. Sometimes you will, and these are the hardest of times: When the blood pours from your nose and down your throat, clogging it, causing you to spit and gag. You heave for breath in the smoke and dust. Your equipment seems to suffocate you. You wipe the salty sweat and grime from your eyes, only to realize that it is blood, either yours or that of the enemy. You would stand, but you can't move your legs. You grasp the open, gaping wounds in your body, trying not to pass out from the pain. You feel the anger thinking of the loved ones you will never see again, and losing your life infuriates your soul. You rage to get to your feet and grab for a weapon, any weapon. Regardless of your race, culture, or religion, you want to die standing, fighting like a warrior, an American, so others won't have to. For those looking for a definition, this is the price of freedom. — Rusty Bradley

Heaven or Hell? You make it seem as if that's an easy choice to make. Sitting there in heaven watching others burn, and I can't do anything to help? That in itself would be hell for me. I'd be up there fighting god and his angels to let me out, so that I can come down and at least try to help. I am a moral person. Heaven is for uncaring Hypocrites. — Deborah Pryce

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I hope a start at getting some oil out of the enormous Alaska field isn't indefinitely mired in a bureaucratic morass as a result of our national concern for the ecology. This concern must not be so misguided, misdirected, misused that it serves to stop economic growth, to bankrupt companies, to stifle new development, new jobs, new horizons. In fighting new pollution and stemming present pollution, exciting, sometimes costly means and methods exist and others will evolve. But blanket legislative naysaying to expanding power and energy sources is stupid, self-defeating. — Malcolm Forbes

The fucking angels of memory were out. They had come out of their museums, out of their castles. They'd gone to war against whatever this incoming to-come was. The very facts of retrospection and fate that had various sides fighting were now out themselves, personified or apotheosed and smacking seven bells out of each other directly No longer solely reasons, justifications, teloi, casus belli for others to invoke or believe in: now combatants. The war had just got meta. — China Mieville

Our self-identification changes with our environment, but sometimes those dark thoughts permeate within us and there are those who are able to fight off those thoughts and others who don't want to fight them, or have just given in for whatever reason and whether they know the darkness they act upon is wrong, they love the darkness. — Matthew Carter

At some stage in your life you need to stop fighting for others and look at who fights for you. Only then you will truly know who to cherish and who to fight for. — Albert Besselaar

Physical courage in whatever scene ... seems to hinge on whether the individual can feel he is fighting for others as well as himself. — Rollo May

I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites.
[Letter to Mathew Carey, 11 November 1816] — Thomas Jefferson

Imagine yourself in Harriet Tubman's shoes. Fighting to be freed from deplorable conditions. Placing one foot in front of the other, putting slavery behind you. If a petite, abused slave can rise up, fight for freedom, secure the freedom of others, and change her world, so can I. And so can you. — Susie Larson

I have learned not to take too much notice of those who disapprove of my lifestyle choices, because I know that I was not designed to be part of the crowd. If I am different, I make no apology, and I hope that others will have the courage to be themselves and stand up for what they believe in, fight for those who need protection, love who they want to love, and be proud of it. — Clare Balding

Somewhere between sanity and madness lays a fine line, for some it is a tightrope walked daily, a fight for balance to be won or lost. That fight is lost one of two ways. Some simply lose their balance and fall, others are pushed. — Zoe Heller

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat — George Washington

Sorghum started to answer, but Wheat flew at him and knocked him down. The karpoi began to fight, dissolving into funnel clouds of grain. Hazel considered making a run for it. Then Wheat re-formed, holding Sorghum in a headlock. "Stop!" he yelled at the others. "Mulitgrain fighting is not allowed! — Rick Riordan

Being conservative has never been regarded as old-fashioned. But if you fight for a sensible step in the right direction which others has deserted you will be branded "reactionary". — Poul Henningsen

No one sees your strength, do they? No one sees the silent battle you fight against your overprotective mind that's trying to keep you safe from harm by keeping you safe from risk, safe from connection, safe from honesty. Maybe others don't see, but you see it sometimes, don't you? In the mirror, in those eyes, begging for someone to notice. You have noticed. It is real. You are strong. You are fighting for something incredible. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise - especially not your thoughts. — Vironika Tugaleva

If you want peace with others, don't fight them. Go your own way. Live your own life. If some walk with you, fine. If you walk alone for awhile, fine. If you don't like what's going on somewhere, leave. Maintain a portable paradise within yourself. — Peter McWilliams

He shook his head. "Not a bit of it. When I arrived, I was small and dark and ugly. The perfect quarry for every bully. And then, one day, I grew tired of it. I had discovered that sarcasm and wit could be far more effective than fists. The duller-brained the boy, the more others laughed at my bons mots. And so I became a nasty bit of goods in my own way, fighting with words where I could not fight with fists. — Ashley Gardner

At the negotiations in Irvine, it became clear to me that there was no side I could stand on. The English despise me and my countrymen don't trust me. Wallace and the others are rebelling in the name of Balliol. I cannot fight with them. It would be as much a betrayal of my oath as when I was fighting for England. I know what I must do. What I should have done months ago.'
Robert felt embarrassed, about to say the words. Inside, his father's voice berated him, but he silenced it. 'I want you to weave my destiny,' he finished. 'As you did for my grandfather.'
When she spoke, her voice was low. 'And what is your destiny?'
He met her eyes now, all hesitation and embarrassment gone. 'To be King of Scotland.'
A smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. It wasn't a soft smile. It was hard and dangerous. 'I will need something of yours,' she said, rising. — Robyn Young

A warrior is always aware of what is worth fighting for. He does not go into combat over things that do not concern him, and he never wastes his time over provocations. A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference, nor does he attempt to transform it into a victory. The pain of defeat is bitter to him; he suffers at indifference and becomes
desperate with loneliness. After all this has passed, he licks his wounds
and begins everything anew. A warrior knows that war is made of many
battles; he goes on. Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would be had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur, and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild. — Paulo Coelho

It was just him and me. He fought with honor. If it weren't for his honor, he and the others would have beaten me together. They might have killed me, then. His sense of honor saved my life. I didn't fight with honor ... I fought to win. — Orson Scott Card

For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness; whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control. — Samuel Smiles

We have a choice: to spend a lot of time fighting for what we know is right, or to just accept what we know is wrong. We must stand up for our rights and for the rights of others, even if most people say we can't win. — Susan Polis Schutz

We all travel different roads to our ultimate destinations. For some of us the path is rockier than for others. But no one reaches the end without feeling some form of adversity. So rather than fight it, why not accept it as the way of life? Why not detach yourself from the outcomes and simply experience every circumstance that enters your life to the fullest? — Robin Sharma

We don't know when the war will end, so we can't continue our journey," he said. "The battles may last for a long time, perhaps even years. There are powerful forces on both sides, and the war is important to both armies. It's not a battle of good against evil. It's a war between forces that are fighting for the balance of power, and, when that type of battle begins, it lasts longer than others - because Allah is on both sides. — Paulo Coelho

If we were not pushing, fighting, claiming what is ours and challenging what is not yet ours, others would be doing it to us. It is the way of the world. You can be the aggressor, you can fight against crusaders on their own land, or you can stay at home and wait for them to come to you. And they would come. They would come with fire, with disease, with swords and blood and death. Weakness is an irresistible lure. — Kiersten White

[L]ike it or not, the right timing is an inescapable part of human endeavor and thus of politics. . . . But some activists suggest that "timing" is irrelevant in public policy and politics. In their view, it's just another "excuse" by "incrementalists," another example of their traitorous cowardice, another reason why they should be condemned and purged. . . . There is a fundamental ethical and practical difference between compromise and prudently fighting for the most good that can be gained in the face of overwhelming odds. . . . Realizing the constraints and limits of this world should guard us against unrealistic expectations of what politics can or should achieve. And yet, the examples of Wilberforce and Lincoln, among many others, demonstrate that moral purpose can be successfully pursued in politics with prudence. — Clarke D. Forsythe

In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. — Hermann Hesse

Just like me. Just like so many others. Tragedies may change who we are, may alter the paths we take, sometimes drastically. But we can still continue on, continue living for tomorrow. Tomorrow is always worth fighting for." Mach Derune, A Time for Revenge, The End of Old Ways series — A.W.Chrystalis

Most Jewish feminists and gays that I know remain angry and frustrated by Jewish progressives. Deeply committed to progressive causes, frequently in the vanguard of political action, Jewish feminist and gays find ourselves fighting for the rights of others without the secure knowledge that others will fight for us. — Irena Klepfisz

You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered this same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are going to have a lot of joy sailing around this world of yours. Don't fight the opinions of others, or waste your time arguing over these things. Follow the inward gleam of your consciousness and you will arrive. — Ernest Holmes

The rationale seems to be that we keep people as victims by validating them, empathizing with them, and fighting alongside them for equality and the dignity they deserve. I don't think people are kept down by that. I believe what keeps people down is the constant dismissal of their pain, the degradation, the humiliation, the fear of injustice, and the continuous crushing of their will, their faith, and their hope. This type of oppression kills the self-esteem people need to empower themselves, and it's flat-out terrorism. — Kyrian Lyndon

Self-belief is not self-centred. We can only fight effectively for others if we already believe in ourselves. — Carla H. Krueger

We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil. — Stasi Eldredge

The stream of passing years is like a river with people being carried along in the current. Some are swept along, protesting, fighting all the way, trying to swim back up the stream, longing for the shores that they have passed, clutching at anything to retard their progress, frightened by the onward rush of the strong current and in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters. Others go with the current freely, trusting themselves to the buoyancy of the water ... — Laura Ingalls Wilder

It is not easy to hurl snowballs while holding on to a plastic bag of groceries, so my first few efforts were subpar, missing their mark. The nine maybe ten nine-maybe-ten-year-olds ridiculed me - if I turned to aim at one, four others outflanked me and shot from the sides and the back. I was, in the parlance of an ancient day, cruising for a bruising, and while a more disdainful teenager would have walked away, and a more aggressive teenager wouls have dropped the bag and kicked some major preteen ass, I kept fighting snowball with snowball, laughing as if Boomer and I were playing a school yard game, flinging my orbs with abandon. — Rachel Cohn

Don't let anyone speak for you, and don't rely on others to fight for you. — Michelle Obama

One of the most disruptive forces in the Church is arrogance. It is natural for people to bring their pride to Church, and try to prove their own greatness to others. This is an urge we need to constantly be fighting — Dan Schilling

A man may take his own life for many reasons, and it is impossible to make a general statement; but whenever suicide is a gesture - done, that is, to impress or influence or embarrass others - it is always, so it seems to me, a sign of immaturity and muddled thinking. However much we may admire the fortitude of this Vietnamese monk, the wisdom of his action remains very much in doubt. I do not know the details of the provocation offered by the Catholic Head of State, but the monk appears to have killed himself 'fighting for the cause of Buddhism'. Certainly this action is infinitely more honourable than the setting fire to churches and the crowning of statues that seem to be the favoured methods of giving battle in this country; but it does not follow that it is any the less misguided. — Nanavira Thera

I have often wondered whether a person is justified in neglecting his own family to fight for opportunities for others. — Nelson Mandela

Only certain portions of the line had to undergo carnage in the French style, but knowledge of it was all-pervasive. Everything the 19th River Guard knew came from quiet meetings in the communications trenches, conversations with sleepless, bitter infantrymen who had been transferred up from the fiercer fighting in the south. If some of the River Guard were on the edge, many of the regular infantry had gone over it long before. Especially disturbing to the naval contingent were reports from down below that Italian troops now were shot quite casually for disciplinary reasons, and that the Italian generals, like their French counterparts, were executing men in decimations for crimes they had not committed. Men with families were pulled from the ranks along with equally mystified adolescents and put to death for acts attributed to others whom they had never seen. — Mark Helprin

For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes will not often be a bodily one like hunting or fighting. It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? - Or at least, "Do you care about the same truth?" The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer. — C.S. Lewis

Here is a writer possessing the greatest talent: that of fully inhabiting the lives of others. Spargo conjures up these two as no one has done before. Scott and Zelda become, in Spargo's remarkable novel, not people of history but of literature, and reminders of what we fight for, what we fail to win, and the beauty that abides between. A marvel of a book. — Andrew Sean Greer

Once you start cycling, the city opens up for you. No longer are you fighting it, hot and frustrated; no longer are you at the mercy of bus drivers, roadworks, decisions made by others and over which you have no control. Believe me, once you've tasted this freedom, you're hooked. — Deborah Moggach

The conflict has become like a Middle East version of the Thirty Years' War in Germany four hundred years ago. Too many players are fighting each other for different reasons for all of them to be satisfied by peace terms and to be willing to lay down their arms at the same time. Some still think they can win and others simply want to avoid a defeat. In Syria, as in Germany between 1618 and 1648, all sides exaggerate their own strength and imagine that temporary success on the battlefield will open the way to total victory. Many Syrians now see the outcome of their civil war resting largely with the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In this, they are probably right. — Patrick Cockburn

This is our place. Through the harsh waves, the lighthouse stands strong and guides the wanderers safely home. Like many others, who may be lost and fighting for everything, we search for the promise of its glow. — Matt Juhl