Quotes & Sayings About Life When Things Get Tough

Life is a tough journey, an educational process that takes us to the place of survival and to the place of growth and development. — Euginia Herlihy

If you don't love yourself it's tough to love anything about your life. Appreciating who you are is essential to your happiness. — Karen Salmansohn

I was the sibling that kind of kept it all on a level when life at home got tough. I did it through comedy, sarcasm and distraction. All families are complicated, but my home life was glaringly uncomfortable much of the time, and it was me that took the onus. — Johnny Galecki

I love playing these characters that are crazy tough, though. Because I am not in real life. Not at all. — Katee Sackhoff

Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don't understand. As I look back over my life--an' let me say, young fellar, it's been a tough one--what I remember most an' feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an' those that cost the most sweat an' blood." As — Zane Grey

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art. — Neil Gaiman

Life is tough, then you die. The sooner you accept that and move on with your life, the better off you'll be. — Michael Murphy

Life is rough so you gotta be tough. — Johnny Cash

Things get tough Chase, that's the way life is. But when it does, you don't just go running away from it all into the arms of the first girl willing to go to bed with you. That's not how it works. Marriage is supposed to be forever. You made a promise to me, and your broke it. This wasn't just a one-time thing; you saw her over and over and just lied to my face like I was nobody. — Courtney Giardina

In Advance of All Parting is a tough, unsentimental examination of marital grief. Musically elegant and inventive, understated and passionate, the poems give us a profound glimpse into how the events of a life can form a center of gravity that fixes the self in its force field. Theres a cold, truth-telling clarity about them that makes them as unsettling as they are beautiful. Ansie Baird has created a richly-drawn world in which this elemental drama plays out, and the result is vivid, startling poems in which pain has left its indelible tracks. — Chase Twichell

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

Having a tough time, things aren't working out no matter what you try and do? That's because you are spending your whole life just doing things for yourself. That's a very limited view of your being. — Frederick Lenz

Anything that lifts responsibility for our actions is addictive, I've found. So really, looking back, I'd have to say that was not the hard moment. The tough bit is always later, when you're held responsible for yourself again, and your life is expected to go on. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you're going through family troubles, when you're heartbroken, when you're frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career. — Teresita Fernandez

To a lot of Africans, seeing an animal is a something of a rarity. So it's a paradox of this sort of parallel life. A safari is an expensive experience and it's adjacent to a place where people are having a very tough time. — Paul Theroux

We do not like the truth because it is simple, we do not want the truth because it is hard, and we do not trust the truth because it is free.
Perhaps because many are idealists and publishing is so frustrating, writers are particularly vulnerable to believing in those who offer hope in exchange for cash. Writers know life is tough and we all want to think of an easier way. Maybe for a rare few, there is. If you count on that, you are a chump and somebody is going to take your money and break your heart. — Pat Walsh

I saw a man swerve his car and try to hit a stray dog, but the quick mutt dodged between two parked cars and made his escape. God, I thought, did I just see what I think I saw? At the next red light, I pulled up beside the man and stared hard at him. He knew that'd I seen his murder attempt, but he didn't care. He smiled and yelled loud enough for me to hear him through our closed windows: 'Don't give me that face unless you're going to do something about it. Come on, tough guy, what are you going to do?' I didn't do anything. I turned right on the green. He turned left against traffic. I don't know what happened to that man or the dog, but I drove home and wrote this poem. Why do poets think they can change the world? The only life I can save is my own. — Sherman Alexie

Some people will hear you louder in silence. Those are your tribe - they'll get you through the tough days and give you something to laugh about on the ride. — Nikki Rowe

Learn so carefully in life,learning is tough not impossible But if once you learn wrong then its almost impossible to unlearn — Mohammed Zaki Ansari

There were times when I consider simply taking the dagger and sinking it into his heart, I had ample opportunity after all, but I was still young and tough my hatred consumed me, I still lusted for life. I was a coward, a prisoner whose captivity was made worse by the knowledge of the vastness of his prison. Despair began to rot my heart. I fell to indulgence again, seeking escape in wine and drugs and flesh, an indulgence that would have seem me dead before long, had not the foreigners arrived. — Anthony Ryan

When things get tough, there are two things that make life worth living: Mozart, and quantum mechanics — Victor Frederick Weisskopf

They say being in love and loving someone are two different things, right? I mean, you love your best friend, but you love your husband, right? Falling in love with someone is easy. It's loving when the newness has worn off, when life gets tough, when things get in the way, when physical passion is gone, that true love remains. When love can conquer it all. — Mia Asher

Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding. — Martha Beck

Being a part of the world in a healthy, mindful, present sense means learning to have complete faith that things will work out. Living in this world means that instead of cowering away, or giving up when the going gets a bit tough, get up and keep going. You're not here merely to survive or fight your way through the world. — Leigh Hershkovich

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect. — Corey Taylor

Everyone wants to get out of living where they're living now, because life is a pretty tough proposition and not much fun. But when you think back to earlier times, you only extrapolate the nice things. — Woody Allen

Because you don't walk away from someone when things get tough, you find a way to stick it out and figure out what's gone wrong. - Zac Greeley, The Boyfriend Thief — Shana Norris

You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere, and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth. And as you grew up, you sought love, anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend's parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them. They sustained you. For all these years, you've lived under the illusion that somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That is what has gotten you by. — Rachel Reiland

You say people's struggles are a game! That's totally wrong!
Facing yourself no matter how tough things get ... and keeping up the fight ... that's what games are really about!
You bet your chip of life as if it meant nothing! You lost to yourself! When you realized you were going to lose, you didn't have the courage to keep living!
Listen ... Real courage is protecting that chip you have in your hands ... no matter what!
-Anzu to Kaiba — Kazuki Takahashi

Get rid of all that is unnecessary. Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, no matter how trifling, whenever it is encountered. [ ... ] In other words, wabi-sabi tells us to stop our preoccupation with success
wealth, status, power, and luxury
and enjoy the unencumbered life. Obviously, leading the simple wabi-sabi life requires some effort and will and also some tough decisions. Wabi-sabi acknowledges that just as it is important to know when to make choices, it is also important to know when not to make choices: to let things be. Even at the most austere level of material existence, we still live in a world of things. Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom of things. — Leonard Koren

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong - in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art ... Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before: make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn't even matter. Do what only you can do best: make good art. — Neil Gaiman

My grandmother instilled in me a toughness that comes with survival. She was a tough lady and never truly enjoyed her life. She would always worry about things and I would tell her that it wasn't going to get her anywhere and it didn't. I wasn't even that smart back then, but I knew that worrying about everyone else wasn't good for her health. As Latinos, we stress and worry so much about the future when the future is today. As long as we protect what's good in our lives, we will be all right. — George Lopez

You're going to go through tough times - that's life. But I say, 'Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.' See the positive in negative events. — Joel Osteen

It's tough out there, boy, and as long as there are people, there's gonna be somebody trying to take what you got and trying to drag you down. It's up to you whether you let them or not. — Mildred D. Taylor

In 1963, while my brothers were engaged in their lives, I call this period of my life 'my character-building years.' I adhered to the saying, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going. — Marc Ashton

The vigorous branching of life's tree, and not the accumulating valor of mythical marches to progress, lies behind the persistence and expansion of organic diversity in our tough and constantly stressful world. And if we do not grasp the fundamental nature of branching as the key to life's passage across the geological stage, we will never understand evolution aright. — Stephen Jay Gould

Poor Amy. I could tell she was suffering. Poor Thing. Life was so tough for the rich, beautiful and magical. — Elizabeth A. Reeves

An island, on the other hand, is small. There are fewer species, and the competition for survival has never reached anything like the pitch that it does on the mainland. Species are only as tough as they need to be, life is much quieter and more settled [..] So you can imagine what happens when a mainland species gets introduced to an island. It would be like introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan and Rupert Murdoch into the Isle of Wight - the locals wouldn't stand a chance. — Douglas Adams

The world isn't perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn't apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it's about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn't perfection. The point is doing it anyway. — Chloe Neill

It took a lot of guts to change it and say 'I don't like the life that I'm living and I don't like the swimmer I am', so let's change it completely and say 'Look, I've got to learn to love myself'. And that's been a really hard thing to do because when you've done a performance that you're not proud of and the public and the media have criticized you ... people are really quick to make judgements so it was tough to say 'Well I don't care what you have to say. I'm going to do this for myself and if you don't like me after this, well then, it's too bad'. — Leisel Jones

Wars are Spinach. Life in general is the tough part. In war all you have to do is not worry and know how to read a map and co-ordinates. — Ernest Hemingway,

As you go along your road in life, you will, if you aim high enough, also meet resistance ... But no matter how tough the opposition may seem, have courage still and persevere. — Madeleine Albright

Life's been one tough little shit, but there's a very obvious reason why she hasn't let me get too comfy, settle too long or sink too deep. She knows she has to kick me in the ass sometimes to get me moving on my journey. — Jennifer DeLucy

What trunk?" Velkan
"My trunk. I'm moving in" Esperetta
"In where?" Velkan
"My room. Here." Esperetta
Completely stunned and flabbgausted, he opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak.
Esperetta walked over to him and placed her finger on his chin before she closed his mouth. "I know you dont trust me, but tough shit."
"This is my home and you're my husband. I made a mistake and for that I'm sorry, but I'm through being an idiot." Esperetta
"Dark-Hunters can't be married." Velkan
"Well then, someone should have told Artemis before she made her bargain with you and brought me back to life, huh? You were created as a married Dark-Hunter. I hardly think they can complain now." Esperetta
She did have a point about that
"But
" Velkan
She ended his words with a kiss. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Life is tough - and you have to be tougher than life to change the world. — Sebastian Pinera

For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late. — John McCain

To hear people saying, 'The music you are doing has really touched my life and it's moved me in a lot of ways. It's helped me get through some tough times.' That's the best compliment that you could get. — Kip Moore

People that are brilliant and successful, we think they've just always been that way. That's not the case. Most of them have had some tough adversity in their life. It's prepared them. I've never felt like you could develop character without adversity. — Bobby Bowden

It's a skill that I worked all my life, and it's been taken away. That's kind of tough to take. — Martin Brodeur

I've learned ... That life is tough, but I'm tougher. — Andy Rooney

Accepting the facts is always tough, so we search for forgiveness to this universe everyday to break the shackles, hurt is a prison and I from a very young young age refused to be held prisoner or even conform. — Aidan McNally

There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets 'things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns 'my' and 'mine' look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution. — A.W. Tozer

Life is sometimes tough when you do not fit the standard profile. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

I don't believe in the Law of Attraction. There were things I wanted in my life that no amount of positive thinking was going to make it a reality for me. However, I have learned to believe in the Law of Tough Love. Life has thrown a dozen tragedies at me. I did what any Christian would do
prayed for the outcome I wanted, but God was tough and only gave me what I needed. I now realize that life is not about fulfilling a wish list; rather a need list. Good and bad experiences are on the horizon. How else does a person change, grow and evolve? And just like any warrior woman, I won't simply survive
but thrive! — Shannon L. Alder

Some people make a bad bed, they just have to lie in it. — Virginia Euwer Wolff

My Mother

My mother was not educated but she was the best teacher I've ever had in my entire life. She had what it's called natural wisdom, bless her precious soul. Here some of her teachings: Human Values:
Love: Learn to love because everything that's based on love has a deep rooted foundation.
Kindness: Be kind all the time but never let anyone take advantage of your kindness.
Peace: Learn to have peace with yourself when the world turns against you because it starts with you.
Honesty: Be honest to yourself and then to the others.
Respect: Respect others and they will respect you.
Openness: Be always transparent especially when you are hurting. Never pretend that it's all okay.
Loyalty: Always be loyal to your family and make sure your family comes before anything else.
She taught me to learn to compose myself when life gets tough and unfair to me.

I love you mama & Happy Mothers Day — Euginia Herlihy

Will you have kids?"
"You make such an attractive case for the reproductive plunge. I don't know, Duncan. Childhood is so exhausting."
"As a parent?"
"I mean as the child. Not sure it's fair to drop somebody else into life without giving them a choice in the matter."
"You'll find it's kind of tough to canvass the opinion of sperm."
"I prefer asking the eggs - they're more articulate. Anyway, aren't you the guy who's always bemoaning the future of humanity? Saying how the worst jerks always have millions of babies, meaning the world gets worse every generation?"
"Exactly why decent people need to have kids. — Tom Rachman

If you're controlled by your circumstances, life is going to be a roller coaster with ups and downs. God wants you to be stable, consistent, not moved by any of these things. When you face an adversity, when you hit a tough time, one of the best things you can do is simply stay calm. Keep your peace. — Joel Osteen