Hard Life Lesson Quotes & Sayings

I've learned so much from the Pirahas over the years. But this is perhaps my favorite lesson. Sure, life is hard and there is plenty of danger. And it might make us lose some sleep from time to time. But enjoy it. Life goes on. — Daniel Everett

When I finally made it across the dune, I found her gazing at the ocean and holding a weathered fence post as if it were the mast of a sailboat.
'That was quite a sprint you did on that soft sand,' I said, huffing and puffing. She smiled, but didn't respond. So I clarified, 'That sand is hard to get through.'
She laughed. 'It's easier to get through the tough stuff if I give it a little muscle.'
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and said coyly, 'I think there's a life lesson there.'
'Nah,' she refuted. 'I've exercised my whole life. Lots of practice. It comes naturally now.'
Like I said. — Emily Colson

Life on Earth indeed can seem but one hard-earned lesson after another, with moments of grace and beauty in between to keep people sane, and hopeful. While some die peacefully at the natural end of a long, well-lived life, even they still haven't completed everything they meant to, or lived without regret.

And some of us thought we'd have more time to things right. I tell myself that at least we planted some seeds- ideas of love, and faith, and loyalty- that are starting to show signs of growth. Time will tell. — Lorna Jane Cook

Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those special people even more. — Marie Kondo

217. "We're only given as much as the heart can endure," "What does not kill you makes you stronger," "Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn": these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid "there must be a reason for it" notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it. — Maggie Nelson

It suits here now to forget last year, but she'll never make me forget last year, not if I live to be a hundred. I didn't know much then. I know now that there's people like her who want to be friendly for what you do, not what you are. — K.M. Peyton

I started learning my lessons in Abbot Texas, where I was born in 1933. My sister Bobbie and I were raised by our grandparents [ ... ] We never had enough money, and Bobbie and I started working at an early age to help the family get by. That hard work included picking cotton. [ ... ] Picking cotton is hard and painful work, and the most lasting lesson I learned in the fields was that I didn't want to spend my life picking cotton. — Willie Nelson

Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but, thank heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn. — Henry David Thoreau

And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think ... Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept. To hell with it anyway. — Samuel Beckett

My big philosophy is: Try and work with good people, because the process is your life. That's going to be really, really hard. I'm glad I learned the lesson, 'Failure is OK.' — Dana Fox

Jack Bogle's passionate cry of Enough! contains a thought-provoking litany of life lessons regarding our individual roles in commerce and society. Employing a seamless mix of personal anecdotes, hard evidence and all-too-often-underrated subjective admonitions, Bogle challenges each of us to aspire to become better members of our families, our professions and our communities. Rarely do so few pages provoke so much thought. Read this book. — David F. Swensen

I spoke to a girl today who had cancer and we were talking about how this is such a hard thing for her, but it taught her a big lesson on who her friends are and so much about life. She's 18. And I was like, that's how I feel. — Kim Kardashian

The great lesson here taught is for all time. Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, "Go forward." We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit. Those who defer obedience till every shadow of uncertainty disappears and there remains no risk of failure or defeat, will never obey at all. Unbelief whispers, "Let us wait till the obstructions are removed, and we can see our way clearly;" but faith courageously urges an advance, hoping all things, believing all things. — Ellen G. White

Life Lesson 8: Change is always hard, but time softens the rough edges and eases the pull of the past. Eventually, we all climb out from under the bed, and even the most unfamiliar places begin to feel like home. — Patti Davis

...with this swing set your child will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely and may also learn the most important lesson of all:No matter how hard you kick,no matter how high you get , you can't get all the way around — John Green

I try to show the children how every lesson I teach them is going to be something they use in their real life. That's why my kids work so hard, not because I'm so cool. They're working for themselves. — Rafe Esquith

Our experiences always teach us something. If the experience is "bad", then the lesson is even more powerful and meaningful. Every unfortunate incident makes us stronger and better equipped to handle new challenges. — Miya Yamanouchi

We need others to bring us back into the comity of human life. This appears to have been the final lesson for me - to appreciate someone's embrace not as forgiveness or as an amicable judgment but as an acknowledgment that from time to time private life becomes brutally hard for every one of us, and that without one another, without some sort of community, the nightmare is prone to lurk, waiting for an opening. — John Jeremiah Sullivan

One swing set, well worn but structurally sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may also learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around. — John Green

It's easy to teach, give lesson to other, passing comments, but hard to learn when it comes to yourself. — Nutan Bajracharya

After you've work hard to get what you want, take the time to enjoy it. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

We never love a person after judging them because that's not love then, But today's life lesson is to judge a person before falling in love with that person, It's hard to trust anyone in this cruel world where all are determined to hurt you by any mean. — Debolina Bhawal

Pursue joy, not happiness. This is probably the hardest lesson of all to learn. It probably seems to you that the goal in life is to be happy. Oh, you maybe have to sacrifice and study and work hard, but, by and large, happiness should be predictable. — Guy Kawasaki

Everyone's looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that's something people find all too hard to accept. Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself. The Tradition is linked to our encounter with the forces of life and not with the people who bring this about. But we are weak: we ask the Mother to send us guides, and all she sends are signs to the road we need to follow.
Pity those who seek for shepherds, instead of longing for freedom! An encounter with superior energy is open to anyone but remains far from those who shift responsibility onto others. Our time on earth is sacred and we should celebrate every moment. — Paulo Coelho

A hard lesson had been learned
that man himself suffers most when his hand despoils the earth and robs it of its legitimate fruits. — Lois Lenski

It was a hard lesson to learn, but eventually I had to come to grips with the fact that I cannot solve everyone's problems and lead them to a happy, fulfilled life. They have to figure that out on their own. — Theo Rossi

Her sadness had given her a serenity which had not been there before. It was as if she had learned a hard lesson: that chances in life would not fall into her lap like ripe cherries. — Philippa Gregory

This has been a really tough lesson for me to learn. The people I love, I love hard and without conditions. My loyalty, once earned, will be with you for a lifetime. I really get that we are all connected and that until we all get it, no-one is getting it. That said, I'm also learning that some people are not a good match for us and their presence in our life is incredibly toxic. We can still love them, we just need to love them from a distance. Maybe after a few more reincarnations, we'll be able to love them up close again. — Brooke Hampton

The Shulamite lives by a different set of values. One of the most horrible frauds perpetrated on western couples is 'trust your feelings' or 'follow your heart.' Solomon's family must never be left to whims. A wise Shulamite does not make life decisions based on feelings, alone. She takes God's point-of-view: 'He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool; But whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.'
Pr 28:26
For young couples, a hard lesson to learn is: Their hearts will lie to them.
pg 3 — Michael Ben Zehabe

Clearly it's not easy for women in modern society, no matter where they live. We still have to go the extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. we have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us via the male members of our family. — Benazir Bhutto

I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life- some proof that everything in its way mattered, that working hard mattered, that feeling things mattered, that even sadness and loss mattered, because it was all part of something that would live on. But I had also come to recognize that not everything needs to be durable. the lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not limiting but liberating. Rin Tin Tin did not need to be remembered in order to be happy; for him, it was always enough to have that instant when the sun was soft, when the ball was tossed and caught, when the beloved rubber doll was squeaked. Such a moment was complete in itself, pure and sufficient. — Susan Orlean

An athlete gains so much knowledge by just participating in a sport. Focus, discipline, hard work, goal setting and, of course, the thrill of finally achieving your goals. These are all lessons in life. — Kristi Yamaguchi

Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home
"One swing set, well worn but structually sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may alos learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard how you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around."
Swing set currently resides near 83rd and Spring Mill. — John Green

It is the same with people. Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those. — Marie Kondo

Life goes one way only, and whatever opinions you hold about the past have nothing to do with anything but your own damn weakness. Nothing changes what already happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't. A simple enough lesson, yet hard for Luce to learn. She couldn't — Charles Frazier

Regrets are a terrible thing to live with but, if we take a good look at them, some are not regrets at all, they're situations that taught us a valuable lesson. Don't be so hard on yourself it's not a perfect world. — Ron Baratono

I didn't know what to say to that. Did he feel bad because he'd gotten caught? Or did he feel bad because he'd learned his lesson the hard way? Relationships were not always black and white, cut and dry. There is always so much history, so much emotional impact on a life that makes it so hard, to just walk away when someone hurts you. — Courtney Giardina

Lou Holtz is a brilliant strategist, a first-class motivator, and an inspiring role model. Winning Every Day coaches you through the hard-won lessons of life that Coach Holtz has gleaned from a lifetime of learning. Using personal behind-the-scenes experiences he shows you how to break through obstacles, capitalize on fleeting opportunities, and achieve success. There is no better mentor than Lou Holtz. — Peter Lowe

Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. — Haruki Murakami

Please remember, no matter how hard it seems and no matter how badly you feel you can always become courageous. — Abeba Habtu

He thought of his own by-now legendary novel, American Disillusionment, that cyclone which, for years, had woven its erratic path across the flatlands of his imaginary life, always on the verge of grandeur or disintegration, picking up characters and plotlines like houses and livestock, tossing them aside and moving on. It had taken the form, at various times, of a bitter comedy, a stoical Hemingwayesque tragedy, a hard-nosed lesson in social anatomy like something by John O'Hara, a bare-knuckles urban Huckleberry Finn. It was the autobiography of a man who could not face himself, an elaborate system of evasion and lies unredeemed by the artistic virtue of self-betrayal — Michael Chabon

It's time to stop following the yellow brick road, use your God given brain, and quit chasing rainbows, because the truth is life's hard, but can be oh so sweet when you choose to own it. — L.M. Fields

A judicious reticence is hard to learn, but it is one of the great lessons of life. — Lord Chesterfield

Our choices are defined not by others, although those others would comb through it with a fine tooth pick. But in all honesty, we learn from each choice we make. Thing's that wouldn't be taught by any other. We might take the easy road and not work as we would if we chose the harder road, where we would work to the bone. Our choices impact our lives, no-one else's. And we have to face what is on the other side of that choice whether easy or hard because we chose it. Choices suck sometimes but in the end, it is a new life lesson learned. — Melina Turner

It's a hard lesson in life, but you have to accept that some things are out of your hands. Otherwise, you'll never know a single minute of peace. You mend what you can, and you let the rest go. You just let it go. — Rysa Walker

Falling is not hard to do just take your feet from under you but do you want to risk something that could hurt you, life is like that choose to fall and fall choose success and acomplish — Felisha Rush

Always think extra hard before crossing over to a bad side, if you were weak enough to cross over, you may not be strong enough to cross back! — Victoria Addino

I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on ... — Sammy Toora Powerlifter

Why is hard to believe than to doubt? — Lailah Gifty Akita

The hard truth is, the life thing moments happen. They are the details, the surprises, the every now and again "dang it" moments that are necessary for you to be able to appreciate good times and accomplish greater things. — Jaha Knight

I was raised in the Marine Corps and I was taught as a boy that you feed your own men before you feed yourself. It was my belief then, and it remains so today, that my platoon who loves and respect me will slaughter your platoon that hates you. But here is the great lesson I took from the plebe system - it let me know exactly the kind of man I wanted to become. It made me ache to be a contributing citizen in whatever society I found myself in, to live out a life I could be proud of, and always to measure up to what I took to be the highest ideal of a Citadel man - or, now, a Citadel woman. The standards were clear to me and they were high, and I took my marching orders from my college to take my hard-won education and go out to try to make the whole world a better place. — Pat Conroy

If he knew one thing about life, it was this: look out for yourself. No one else would do it for you. If you were cheated or tricked, it was your own fault, and a lesson best learned before the world devoured you. — Kelley Armstrong

I've always been confident with who I was, but my twenties were hard. I had to learn a lot of life lessons and I think my thirties will be a little easier because of all the wrong turns I took. — Eva Longoria