Quotes & Sayings About Hardening Up

I thought how there was a kind of power in being needed. In having a purpose. I could feel it hardening up my bones and thickening my blood. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits. — Henry Kissinger

No matter, no matter how, they are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal, a voice, a little light, poor devils, that's what they're paid for, they say, No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say, no matter, it's a good average, we only have to continue, one day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill, the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us. To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes, that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs. — Samuel Beckett

This reminds me of the place in Genesis 4 where God looks at Cain, who is full of self-pity, and says to him, "Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it." What's important to understand is that the principle of self in your life is crouching at your door! It wants to have you, it wants to pounce on you, it wants to devour you. And it's up to you to do something about it. God asks that you deny yourself, that you lose yourself to find yourself. If you try to do this without the work of the Spirit, and without belief in all Christ has done for you, then simply giving up your rights and desires will be galling and hardening. But in Christ and with the Spirit, it will be liberating. — Timothy Keller

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that the United States is a giant without bones. Since that time our gristle has been rapidly hardening. — James A. Garfield

Now she would be part girl, part hardening gray sludge. And no one would notice the difference. — Anne Ursu

It's the hard things that break; soft things don't break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it's the soft things that can't break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces! — C. JoyBell C.

I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts. — George Gissing

The weed crushed and pressed by the heavy rock may slowly and gently grow up anew helped by the fresh air, sunshine, and sympathetic rain. On the other hand, the rock is often broken through exposure to nature and weathering. Life is a strong power to grow in tenderness; this fact may be considered as having a close relation with human life. At the same time tenderness has sometimes stronger power against stiffness or hardening due to extreme strain. — Kyuzo Mifune

Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or
successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening
there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind. — Robert Greene

She sat in her room on the couch my parents had given up on and worked on hardening herself. Take deep breaths and hold them. Try to stay still for longer and longer periods of time. Make yourself small and like a stone. Curl the edges of yourself up and fold them under where no one can see.

~pg 29, Susie's sister Lindsey dealing with grief. — Alice Sebold

15 "probable illnesses" that are afflicting the curial body, including those of feeling "indispensable;" of excessive work habits and not enough time to rest and recharge before the Lord; of a spiritual hardening of hearts; of over-planning and not leaving room for the Holy Spirit to function; of a lack of collaboration; of living autonomously while forgetting salvation history; of vanity; of living a double life; of the "terrorism of gossip"; of egotistic opportunism; of indifference; of pessimism; of materialism; of cliquishness; and of the allures of power. — Anonymous

A preacher should have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros. His problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart. — Vance Havner

Julian changed; his attention snapped away from Mark, his spine straightening, his voice hardening.
He sounded calm, but Emma, who knew him so well, could hear the ice in his voice. "Emma is my
parabatai," he said. "If you ever speak to her like that again, there will be blood on the floor of the
Sanctuary, and I do not care if they put me to death for it. — Cassandra Clare

We all need a daily checkup from the neck up to avoid stinkin' thinkin' which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes. — Zig Ziglar

The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men. — John Owen

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one. — Edith Wharton

Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders. — William Golding

I could see the two sides hardening, their feelings intensifying, as both began to think the other not just wrong, but hideous, venal ... in league with the devil himself. — James Redfield

I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder
alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware
is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all. — Barack Obama

When we place our immediate conflicts in the territory of an archetypal story we can better see the nature of our problems and find solutions that bring creative imagination to bear in the realm of hard facts and hardening dilemmas. — Michael Meade

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs. — James Thurber

If you aren't hearing your inner voice, it could mean you're overburdened or not stimulated enough, or that you've learned to shut it off because the people around you have refused to engage it. Perhaps you've had a hardening of the arteries around your soul. I believe the choices we make in our lives and the people and places surrounding us increase the volume of our inner voice, decrease it, or annihilate it entirely. — Kelly Cutrone

She frowned. Then blurted, "Do you have other females?"
As if anyone could measure up to her? "No! Why do you ask?"
"We haven't layed together and you are a male with obvious ... needs. Even now, your body has changed, hardening, growing big."
Crap. He'd tried to hide the erection, he really had. "Marissa-"
"Surely you need to be eased regularly. Your body is phearsom."
That didn't sound good. "What?"
"Potent and powerful. Worthy of entering a female."
Butch closed his eye, thinking Mr. Worthy was really rising to the occasion now. — J.R. Ward

Negative identity is a phenomenon whereby you define yourself by what you are not. This has enormous advantages, especially in terms of the hardening of psychological boundaries and the fortification of the ego: one can mobilize a great deal of energy on this basis and the new nation [the US] certainly did ... The downside ... is that this way of generating an identity for yourself can never tell you who you actually are, in the affirmative sense. It leaves, in short, an emptiness at the center, such that you always have to be in opposition to something, or even at war with someone or something, in order to feel real. — Morris Berman

My view of university training is to unsettle the minds of young men, to widen their horizons, to inflame their intellects. It is not a hardening, or settling process. Education is not to teach men facts, theories, or laws; it is not to reform them, or amuse them, or to make them expert technicians in any field; it is to teach them to think, to think straight if possible; but to think always for themselves. — Robert M

Calcification is the hardening of body tissues by calcium salts or deposits. Although calcification itself is not considered a disease, it has been shown to be a significant contributing factor in nearly every known illness and aging condition, including heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, chronic inflammation, arthritis, cancers, cataracts, eczema, psoriasis, and even wrinkles. — David Wolfe

Sitting there I had a vision of the world with nations, systems, economic blocks, hardening and consolidating; a world where it would become increasingly ludicrous even to talk about freedom, or the individual conscience. — Doris Lessing

My mother by then had already begun her own decline, her own transformation, hardening into a bitter rind of a woman who pushed through the stations of her day as though each moment were unpleasant duty; as though the currencies of joy had become so inflated they could no longer purchase anything of worth. — James Sallis

Similarly, perhaps it never did snow that August in Vermont; perhaps there never were flurries in the night wind, and maybe no one else felt the ground hardening and summer already dead even as we pretended to bask in it, but that was how it felt to me, and it might as well have snowed, could have snowed, did snow. — Joan Didion

If the entity allows [the relationships with individuals] to produce a hardening of the heart, or of a determination to get even, or of those conditions that hold for discontent, malice, or otherwise, these must surely bring the destructive forces that build that which the entity must meet; for, in truth, that builded in the mental forces of a body is as active in the experiences as must come to the entity as were done in the very material act ... — Edgar Cayce

Losing beauty was easy.
Overlooking it, forgetting it, hardening yourself so much you could no longer be surprised or overwhelmed by it.
I pulled back, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the sharp edge of cheekbone and the skin now warm from the rising sun.
The trick was in holding on to it. Protecting it. — Emma Raveling

Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one. — Ellen Key

Let none think, when God is said to harden or work evil in us (for hardening is working evil) that he does it by, as it were, creating fresh evil in us, as you might imagine an ill-disposed innkeeper, a bad man himself, pouring and mixing poison into a vessel that was not bad, while the vessel itself does nothing, but is merely the recipient, or passive vehicle, of the mixer's own ill-will. — Martin Luther

In having a purpose. I could feel it hardening up my bones and thickening my blood. I felt older and smarter than anyone else I knew. I could do anything, anything at all. — Carol Rifka Brunt

The number of human deaths due to hardening of the arteries and other similar diseases suggests that human beings were not meant to eat animals; our bodies are unable to digest the animal fat effectively and it ends up stored in our blood vessels, not to mention our waist lines, buttocks and thighs! — Sharon Gannon

And could a man sink to such triviality, such meanness, such nastiness? Could he change so much? And is it true to life? Yes, it is all true to life. All this can happen to a man. The ardent youth of today would start back in horror if you could show him his portrait in old age. As you pass from the soft years of youth into harsh, hardening manhood, be sure you take with you on the way all the humane emotions, do not leave them on the road: you will not pick them up again afterwards! — Nikolai Gogol

I'm here, I said, but I knew, increasingly, I wasn't here, and I felt that able-to-weep-and-be-seen version of myself that I'd been with Ruth hardening again, like warm caramel left to cool. — Catherine Lacey

Someone has written, "The hardening of a tender heart almost always starts with a justifiable action."8 We think we know what we're doing. We consider our resistance toward God's plans and our lack of surrender to be minor compared to what others have done. We figure we do a lot of good things that ought to make up for our admitted weaknesses here and there, in one or two areas. We don't think God expects us to be so radical and on guard all the time. We've still got to have a life, right? — Priscilla Shirer

We are very much afflicted now by tedious, fruitless controversy. Very often, perhaps typically, the most important aspect of a controversy is not the area of disagreement but the hardening of agreement, the tacit granting on all sides of assumptions that ought not to be granted on any side. — Marilynne Robinson

She had been defeated by herself alone, and the sadness of it left a dark shadow in her heart. It further sapped her confidence and left her ever more withdrawn, ever more capable of suppressing her feelings. Like her roughened hands, her sensitivity was slowly being hardened, and she drew relief from the numbness creeping through her. — Yo Yo

In 1967, I found out I was losing my hearing. I went 10 years without any help. I had otosclerosis - hardening of the bone in the middle of the ear. — Frankie Valli

Ahead of me lies the familiar litany: weakening of the heart, hardening of the arteries, increasing brittleness of bones, decreases in kidney filtration rates, lower resistance of the immune system, and loss of memory. The list could be extended almost indefinitely. Evolution seems indeed to have arranged things so that all our systems deteriorate, and that we invest in repair only as much as we are worth. — Jared Diamond

His heart quickened and he fisted his hands.There was nothing for it. When he saw the tip of Seth's tongue lick his lips and felt a hardening beneath him that mirrored his own, movie and tree forgotten, he lunged, closing the distance between their mouths. — Leona Windwalker

Hardening the heart against vulnerability, trust and a new partner will either forever keep us from a truly emotionally satisfying, enriching, and growth-producing partnership, or will throw us unwittingly back into precisely the same type of painful thing again, because we have not examined what happened, except under the out-of-focus microscope of blame. — Gabriella Kortsch

Pure earth does not petrify, because the predominance of dryness over [i.e. in] the earth endows it not with coherence but rather with crumbliness. In general, stone is formed in two ways only (a) through the hardening of clay, and (b) by the congelation [of waters]. — Avicenna

I struggle to conceive of the "resilience" I've developed in my job as a good thing - this hardening inside me, this distance I've put between myself and the world, my determination to delude myself into normalcy. From the cockpit, it feels like much more of a loss than a triumph. It's like the world's most not-worth-it game show: Well, you've destroyed your capacity for unbridled happiness and human connection, but don't worry - we've replaced it with this prison of anxiety and pathological inability to relax! — Lindy West

In a few days I'll have lived one score and three days in this vale of tears. On I plod-always bored, often drunk, doing no penance for my faults-rather do I become more tolerant of myself from day to day, hardening my crystal heart with blasphemous humor and shunning only toothpicks, pathos, and poverty as being the three unforgivable things in life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The hardening of the attitudes is the most deadly disease on the face of the earth. — Zig Ziglar

His expression was composed; there was only the slightest hardening of his topaz eyes. 'She's been seeing Jasper in a strange place, she thinks, near his former. . .family. But he has no conscious intentions to go back.' He sighed. 'It's got her worried. — Stephenie Meyer

I'm just sorry your dragon is so hell bent on mating with someone as fucked up looking as me," he murmured, keeping his voice light even though he wasn't joking at all. God, everything about her was perfect. It was no surprise she was so resistant to mating with him....
To his surprise, she snorted and smacked his stomach.
"Bran Devlin, you're the sexiest male I've ever met. If you want me to stroke your ego you're out of luck."
Then, to his utter fucking surprise, she slid her hand lower and grasped his already hardening cock before looking up at him. Her smile was an erotic mix of uncertainty and wickedness.
"But I don't mind stroking this. — Katie Reus

Orgasm coincides with a general hardening of the arteries. — Raymond Pettibon

When a heart breaks a substance spills out like cement and pours through the bloodstream, hardening everything. In time, I know my heart will mend and the rock inside will crack and crumble away. But for now I'm as solid as a column. And alone I stand. — Sarah Noffke

After a certain length of time has passed, things harden up. Like a cement hardening in a bucket. And we can't go back anymore — Haruki Murakami

Your suffering needs to be respected. Don't try to ignore the hurt, because it is real. Just let the hurt soften you instead of hardening you. Let the hurt open you instead of closing you. Let the hurt send you looking for those who will accept you instead of hiding from those who reject you. — Bryant McGill

Despite all the commotion, and to Calla's surprise, Guthrie kissed her. His lips were warm and masculine and tasted like wassail. Cinnamon, apple cider, and oranges. She licked his mouth to enjoy more of the taste and he licked hers back, smiling. then he deepened the kiss.
Oh my God! She hadn't felt this naughty in forever! The men were going to move the tree soon, and here she and Guthrie would be. Kissing. In front of several members of his pack. She pushed her arms through the branches, trying to wrap them around his neck. She tangled her tongue with his, his cock hardening against her belly, and she felt deliciously wicked hidden beneath the half-decorated tree. — Terry Spear

In soap, fatty acids made from boiling pork bone fat are used as a hardening agent, but also for giving it a pearl-like effect. — Christien Meindertsma

The sun by the action of heat makes wax moist and mud dry, hardening the one while it softens the other, by the same operation producing exactly opposite results; thus, from the long-suffering of God, some derive benefit, and others harm; some are softened, while others are hardened. — Theodoret

The ardent youth of to-day would start back in horror if you could show him his portrait in old age. As you pass from the soft years of youth into harsh, hardening manhood, be sure you take with you on the way all the humane emotions, do not leave them on the road: you will not pick them up again afterwards! Old age is before you, threatening and terrible, and it will give you nothing back again! The grave is more merciful; on the tomb is written: "Here lies a man," but you can read nothing on the frigid, callous features of old age. — Nikolai Gogol

Gentleman, I am hardening on this enterprise. I repeat, I am now hardening towards this enterprise. — Winston Churchill

The principal impact of foreign enterprise on the development of the underdeveloped countries lies in hardening and strengthening the sway of merchant capitalism, in slowing down and indeed preventing its transformation into industrial capitalism. — Paul A. Baran

Hardening of the hearteries is the most serious affliction besetting marriage, and warm, good-humored, approving words are the only effective preventive. — Jo Coudert

I see on a immense scale, and as clearly as in a demonstration in a laboratory, that good comes out of evil; that the impartiality of the Nature Providence is best; that we are made strong by what we overcome; that man is man because he is as free to do evil as to do good; that life is as free to develop hostile forms as to develop friendly; that power waits upon him who earns it; that disease, wars, the unloosened, devastating elemental forces have each and all played their part in developing and hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber. — John Burroughs

No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain. — Peter Enns