Human Toughness Quotes & Sayings

The only thing I can give to young gay people is that when I was growing up, there were no role models that were blokey that were men. Everybody was flamboyant and camp, and I remember going, 'That's not me, so even though I think I am gay, I don't think I fit into this world.' — Russell Tovey

Over the previous few years, Vigil had become convinced that the next leap forward in human endurance would come from a dimension he dreaded getting into: character. Not the "character" other coaches were always rah-rah-rah-ing about; Vigil wasn't talking about "grit" or "hunger" or "the size of the fight in the dog." In fact, he meant the exact opposite. Vigil's notion of character wasn't toughness. It was compassion. Kindness. Love. That's right: love. — Christopher McDougall

I've been prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. — Margaret Atwood

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.
Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected. — Alfred North Whitehead

The nice thing about twitter is the architecture of visibility. Email is invisible unless you reach out to someone directly. With Twitter, anyone can follow you and this is one of the big changes that was really introduced by Flickr, was this wonderful idea that you can follow somebody without their permission. Recognizing that relationships are asymmetrical, unlike facebook where we have to acknowledge each other otherwise we can't see each other. — Tim O'Reilly

Considering the wealth of poetic drama that has come down to us from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is surprising that so little of any value has been added since. — James Fenton

In the evening I came home and read about the Messina earthquake, and how the relief ships arrived, and the wretched survivors crowded down to the water's edge and tore each other like wild beasts in their rage of hunger. The paper set forth, in horrified language, that some of them had been seventy-two hours without food. I, as I read, had also been seventy-two hours without food; and the difference was simply that they thought they were starving. — Upton Sinclair

It is high time for the living to get tough, for toughness is indispensable in the struggle to safeguard and develop the life-force; this will not detract from their goodness, as long as they stand courageously by the truth. There is ground for hope in the fact that among millions of decent, hard-working people there are only a few plague-ridden individuals, who do untold harm by appealing to the dark, dangerous drives of the armored average man and mobilizing him for political murder. There is but one antidote to the average man's predisposition to plague: his own feelings for true life. The life force does not seek power but demands only to play its full and acknowledged part in human affairs. It manifests itself through love, work and knowledge. — Wilhelm Reich

He saw the white paper as the great universe of nonexistence. A single stroke would give rise to existence within it. He could evoke rain or wind at will, but whatever he drew, his heart would remain in the painting forever. If his heart was tainted, the picture would be tainted; if his heart was listless, so would the picture be. If he attempted to make a show of his craftsmanship, it could not be concealed. Men's bodies fade away, but ink lives on. The image of his heart would continue to breathe after he himself was gone. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Anyone can be tough for a season. It takes a special kind of human to rise to life's challenges for a lifetime. — Chris Matakas

Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it. — Henry Ward Beecher

History teaches that when valuations are extreme, "mean reversion," a move towards historical norms, is likely. Once value stocks turn, the recovery can be fast and intense. — Robert D. Arnott

But nature - that is, biological evolution - has not fitted man to any specific environment. On the contrary, ... he has a rather crude survival kit; and yet -this is the paradox of the human condition - one that fits him to all environments. Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it. — Jacob Bronowski

Editing one's writing is as easy as lighting a match while riding a bicycle. — Fennel Hudson

Nothing is more disgraceful than insincerity. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I don't really think about dance except just before rehearsals start. I put it off. I don't live my life thinking about dance. — Paul Taylor

Don't become too narrow. Live fully. Meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone. Follow what you feel in your heart. — Yuri Kochiyama

You seek up an emotion and your cup is overflowing,
you seek up an emotion sometimes your well is dry — Dave Matthews

I think about what 10-year-old Tony would want that 40-year-old Tony can make. — Tony DiTerlizzi