Quotes & Sayings About Loss And Strength

A caregiver is changed by the culture of illness, just as one is changed by the dynamic era in which one lives. For one thing, I don't have as much time in conversation with myself, and I feel the loss. Certainly I worry more about his death, and mine too, since I;m so much a part of the evolving saga of his health, which I have to monitor every day. But I've grown stronger in every aspect of my life. In small ways: speaking more directly with people. In large ways: discovering I can handle adversity and potential loss and yet keep going. I've a better idea of my strength. I feel like I've been tested, like a willow whipped around violently in a hurricane, but still stranding, its roots strong enough to hold. [p. 301] — Diane Ackerman

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. — Vicki Harrison

Because of fear, I had forfeited strength, life, and beauty. I had lost a sense of my true self, and with that loss so much of what God wanted for me was yet unrealized. — Lisa Bevere

I looked inward at my heart. And indeed, there too, the criss-cross corsetry was slackened and gaping. I was all undone. Potentially, I could spill. Or tangle. And so I began to tug at my own heartstrings, pulling them up tight until there was just the right amount of tension at each criss and each cross. Then I bent down to my boots and laced them firmly too, first the left, then the right, finishing off on each side with a surgeon's shoelace knot. — Danielle Wood

And when hope returns to us, it will be with a passion and power to match every ounce of this crushing despair and pain, every fiery shred of determination that carried us when hope failed. It will claim us with a courage that will make the goddess herself quake and doubt herself. — Rachel L. Schade

She'd lost so much in the process of becoming Zyne, but somewhere in the middle of it all, she'd found herself. Her heritage had shattered her illusions of a tranquil life. Destiny swept behind in a blaze, decimating everything she tried to hold on to. She was left alone, like the solitary tree standing after a forest fire. She'd thought she would crumble to ash, just another memory on the wind. But as blackened pieces of her cracked and fell away, she saw the truth. Under all that charred wreckage was the heartwood. Bruised. Scarred. But still good. Still capable of growth. When she looked in the mirror, she no longer saw a victim, but a survivor. — Gwen Mitchell

The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs. — George F. Kennan

Man may be doomed to loss, sorrow, and desolation, but if he tries his strength and will, however briefly, upon the indifferent vast hostility of the elements, he rages against futility and asserts his right of being — Jim Perrin

It will feel impossible; like you are dying inside this is your soul crying out for life. It may take everything you have; every ounce of will and strength. You will lose a part of yourself trying to save something essential and innocent. And when you have given everything, you will recover and you will be set free, and you will discover there was even more in you than you ever knew. — Bryant H. McGill

[The loss- of-strength gradient is] the degree to which military and political power diminishes as we move a unit distance away from its home base. — Kenneth E. Boulding

When I look back on all the past chapters of my life, I see all the pain I have endured. I see the mistakes and heartbreak, the horror and loss. But when I stand in front of the mirror now, I see all my scars and the strength I've found from them. I see the lessons I have learned about life and the wisdom I've gained from each of my experiences. I will be fine — Christine Zolendz

Again, I am awed, overwhelmed by the strength and emotion conveyed in the human voice. For the first time since this phenomenon started happening to me, I begin to understand the power it could have and why our ancestors mourned its loss. Every sound around me - the renewed pattering of rain, the wind in the leaves - all of is suddenly has a new meaning. I can see how these sounds don't interfere with the world so much as enhance it. The scope and potential are huge. It's like having a new color to paint with. — Richelle Mead

I understood that the most terrible thing in life is complete hopelessness... To cross out all the 'maybes' and give up the fight when you still have strength for it is the most terrible form of suicide. It's almost unbearable to watch it happening in others. Unjustified hope - salvation for the weak in spirit and intellect - irritates me. But the loss of hope is the paralysis, even the death, of the soul. Sveta, let us hope, while we still have strength to hope. — Orlando Figes

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken. There is a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief, which leads to joy. And a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being" --the poetess Rashani, quoted by — Maya Tiwari

Hey You
You are beautiful.
You are talented.
You are blessed.
You are gifted.
You are smart.
You are funny.
You are fun.
You are loving.
You are lovable.
You are unique.
You are special.
But most of all, you are strong and will get through this because there are others that have gone through something similar. Look for them. Because they are looking for you! — Shannon L. Alder

This visit is meant to express my closeness to our brothers and sisters who endured the suffering, loss and devastation caused by Typhoon Yolanda. Together with many people throughout the world, I have admired the heroic strength, faith and resilience demonstrated by so many Filipinos in the face of this natural disaster, and so many others. — Pope Francis

We're the expendable half of the species, ladies. We're designed to take down the bad guys, to save the children. We're your weapons, your attack dogs. We're ready to i.e. taking down the threats against you. There isn't much call for this in the twenty-first century, but this is our baggage. We're here to solve your problems, and when you have no need for our upper-body strength, raw courage, or foolish daring, we can be at a loss. — Shawn T. Smith

I have the right to try to overcome the challenges in my own life, she continued fiercely. Who's to say that's not what makes as strong and decent? How much character and strength do you think someone who's never had any sorrow or loss of hardship possesses, My lord? — Joey W. Hill

Whenever anybody whom we love dies, we discover that although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close to us, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are entirely unprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss so much as the strength of the bond which is broken that is the surprise, and we are debtors in a way to death for revealing something in us which ordinary life disguises. — William Hale White

Love is like a lighthouse, a beacon in the dark. When you lose the path that lights your way, you feel that you have died, but I assure you, you have not. You are reaching out for help or you would not have found this page. So red these quotations, allow yourself to feel your pain and cry out your loss and anguish. As you let it go, you will find the strength and courage to put your relationship in perspective and move on. — Laura Ramirez

they greet those who are cast down, and those in heart, those troubled adn those filled with desire, those who are overjoyed and those disconsolate, all lovers. may all herein find strength against inconstancy, against unfairness and despite and loss and pain and all the bitterness of loving. — Joseph Bedier

Explaining one's recent loss as more of a continuous journey rather than a dead end, giving one of the invaluable opportunity to gain strength and learn about oneself, and thereby turning this terribly tragic affair into something hugely positive. — Cecelia Ahern

The aging process is fascinating because it doesn't disturb me, because this is what it is supposed to be like. But I'll tell you what does - it's the lack of strength - you can't hold up suitcases and do it yourself. Loss of physical strength. — Anita Roddick

Enjoy the blessing of strength while you have it and do not bewail it when it is gone, unless, forsooth, you believe that youth must lament the loss of infancy, or early manhood the passing of youth. Life's race-course is fixed; Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once, and to each stage of existence has been allotted its own appropriate quality; so that the weakness of childhood, the impetuosity of youth, the seriousness of middle life, the maturity of old age.. each bears some of Nature's fruit, which must be garnered in its own season. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,
muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Heartbreak , death and loss were shared between us, but renewal, commitment and strength as well. — Laura Ward

Healing hurts. If you break your leg, there is no stage in the healing process when your leg feels better than it does after it has healed. There is pain and itching and loss of strength. From the moment your leg is broken, it continues to feel bad ... until, gradually, it starts to feel less bad. It's appropriate that it hurts. — Emily Nagoski

I was not able to work up much enthusiasm over the ball game, and in the midst of it I was handed a note informing me of the sudden death of Senator Dwight morrow. He had proved a great pillar of strength in the senate and his death was a great loss to the country and to me. I left the ballpark with the chant of the crowd ringing in my ears, 'We Want Beer!' — Herbert Hoover

Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!
My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,
Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;
In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:
Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,
To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind
Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.
Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,
Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns,
But love is life. To die of love is then
The only pass to higher life than this.
All love is death to loving, living men;
All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss.
Weakness needs pity, sometimes love's rebuke;
Strength only sympathy deserves and draws -
And grows by every faithful loving look.
Ripeness must always come with loss of might. — George MacDonald

Those whose lives have been an exercise in the pitting of their wits, or the selling of their talents, time and strength, to those who pay the piper, can even in their old age, even with their wits partially gone, automatically practise defences, and appeal for aid. But not so those who have never asked, who have never bargained. — Norah Hoult

The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and blood ... — Edward Gibbon

They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you can't be Shakespeare and you can't be Joyce
So what is left instead

You're stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment
This wonderful fire started up again

When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly
When you pass through, I'm better than you all
When you pass through anger and self deprecation
And have the strength to acknowledge it all

When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic
That let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
And there's a door up ahead, not a wall

- "Magic And Loss" The Summation — Lou Reed

---Sleeps through the washes of the morning's colors and the warm brilliance of sunrise. She sleeps in a world where she remembers, perfectly, every detail about her husband, this day, that sentence, another touch. She will remember it all in the deepest sleep, and lose it again the moment her eyes open and she wonders how late it must be for the sun to already be so high and then remembers, in the next instant, what happened the day before. — Ashley Hay

Some people appear to thrive after trauma. Loss emboldens them, they form great ambitions and stride forward as if nothing, now, could hurt them. They are exhibits in those old stories about disaster being character-building, strength in adversity. My experience, to my shame, was nothing like this. I couldn't find it in me to do much more than reel from one day and year to the next, with little optimism about what lay ahead... I had no idea how to grieve. — Catriona Menzies-Pike

You see, evil men, the likes of whom have sought to enslave their fellow man since the dawn of creation, took America not by might or strength of arms, but by deception and guile. — Eric J. Martindale

It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty. — Dalai Lama

To know that I was known by a new living being, who had not existed until she was made in my body by my desire and brought forth into the world by my pain and strength - that changed me. My heart, which seemed to have had only loss and grief in it before, now had joy in it also. — Wendell Berry

The relationship between any two communities in the global economy is not unlike a marriage. As couples counselors advise, relationships falter when two partners are too interdependent. When any stress affecting one partner - the loss of a job, an illness, a bad-hair day - brings down the other, the couple suffers. A much healthier relationship is grounded in the relative strength of each partner, who each should have his or her own interests, hobbies, friends, and professional identity, so that when anything goes wrong, the couple can support one another from a position of strength. Our ability to love, like our ability to produce, must be grounded in our own security. And our economy, like our love, when it comes from a place of community, can grow without limit. — Michael H. Shuman

I knew he that he didn't have the strength to get free. His life was being driven by a kind of flywheel. He had submitted to it and accepted it. It was turning fast. To slow it down or stop it and come to a place that was moving with the motion only of time and loss and slow grief was more, that day, than he could imagine.

I knew too that it was more than he could bear. — Wendell Berry

I can get my head turned by a good-looking guy as much as the next girl. But sexy doesn't impress me. Smart impresses me, strength of character impresses me. But most of all, I am impressed by kindness. Kindness, I think, comes from learning hard lessons well, from falling and picking yourself up. It comes from surviving failure and loss. It implies an understanding of the human condition, forgives its many flaws and quirks. When I see that in someone, it fills me with admiration. — Lisa Unger

These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong
too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil. The fool is too much of a fool or the devil too much of a devil
I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place
and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one or the other. — Joseph Conrad

May you find the strength and resolve today, to allow a deeper sense of healing to begin. — Eleesha

I'm saddened by the loss of Black Diamonds that we bury by the thousands every year never knowing the brilliance they possess. I call you my brother
and we embrace with such sincerity while our mother's tears saturate the grounds where our diamonds lay at rest. My question to you, is this innate or hate? We are greater than the current narrative. We must allow the diamonds to shine. May they shine from above. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

GraceQuest is a gripping story of one man's (and his family's) struggle with tremendous weakness and pain, but it is also a narrative theodicy
defense of God's goodness in spite of the undeniable reality of evil ... This is an honest and hard-hitting book about God's grace in and through tremendous loss of health and strength. Readers will find hope and help here if they are open to its message about the God-given 'strength to suffer well.' — Roger E. Olson

Your life will contribute to a grand and wonderful story no matter what you do. You have been spoken. You are here, existing, choosing, living, shaping the future and carving the past. Your physical matter and your soul exist, not out of necessity, not voluntarily, and not under their own strength. There is absolutely nothing that you or I can do to guarantee that we will continue to exist. You aren't doing anything that makes you be. We aren't the Author. You and I are spoken. We have been called into this art as characters, born into this thread of occurrence tumbling downstream in the long Niagara of loss set in motion by the trouble that faced our first father and first mother. We will contribute to this narrative. But how? — N.D. Wilson

I have no bone loss, no brain loss, I have a lot of energy and a lot of strength, my heart is perfect so I think I 'm more ready than I would have been in my 20s, honest to God. — Suzanne Somers

She would never be caught unprepared again, she swore to herself. She would never trust. Never love. Never put faith in other human beings again. She would learn all she could of the shape and substance of the world, and she would find a way to survive in it. — David Anthony Durham

Magic And Loss (The Summation)
They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you can't be Shakespeare and you can't be Joyce
So what is left instead
You're stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment
This wonderful fire started up again
When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly
When you pass through, I'm better than you all
When you pass through anger and self deprecation
And have the strength to acknowledge it all
When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic
That let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
And there's a door up ahead, not a wall — Lou Reed

We are like those oysters in many ways ... Irritants, or foreign objects, infiltrate our lives in the form of bad choices, jealousy, fear, deep loss, and countless other challenges I could name. We choose how to handle things that come, either by rallying our strength and faith and finding a way to go on, or by giving into the pressure and giving up.
When we choose to stand up inside and protect our spirits, our hearts, and the essence of who we are, we produce a substance similar to what the oyster produces to form the layers of the pearl. In us, it's called character, integrity, grace, courage, and the ability to love ourselves and others, with no strings attached. — Stacy Hawkins Adams

And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own strength, after all, that he had stood up to all the hardships and terrors and the loneliness of his Quest - but as long as he had carried the emblem, he had never been at a loss for what to do. Like a mysterious compass, it had guided his thoughts in the right direction. And now that was changed, now he had no secret power to lead him. He had no idea what to do, but he couldn't bear to stand there as though paralyzed. — Michael Ende

When in the wondrous realms above Our Saviour had been called upon, To save our world of sin by love, He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done.' The Kings of kings left worlds of light, Became the meek and lowly one; In brightest day or darkest night He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." No crown of thorns, no cruel cross Could make our great Redeemer shun. He counted his own will but loss, And said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." We take the bread and cup this day, In memory of the Sinless One, And pray for strength, That we may say, As he, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." — Frank I. Kooyman

I'm not against working out. It's just not effective for weight loss. I like strength training to tone and firm the body so you look tight. But working out just makes you hungrier. — Jorge Cruise

The American Heart Association reports: There are numerous benefits of daily physical activity: reduces the risk of heart disease by improving blood circulation throughout the body; keeps weight under control; improves blood cholesterol levels; prevents and reduces high blood pressure; prevents bone loss; boosts energy levels; helps manage stress; releases tension; improves the ability to fall asleep quickly and sleep well; improves self-image; counters anxiety and depression and increases enthusiasm and optimism; increases muscle strength; gives greater capacity for other physical activities; provides a way to share an activity with family and friends; establishes good heart-healthy habits in children and counters the conditions — Michael Todd Wilson

A dark shadow rose from the depth of the watercourse. Forced to crawl out of the oceans rolling waves, it struggled against the pull of the undertow. Rising, it moved further up the white sandy beach away from the cold water. The creature collapsed onto the cool sand as the crescent moon above shone on his sleek gray skin revealing two immense leather-like wings protruding from his back. Exhaustion clouded his mind.
The darkness of night was soothing, refreshing. Somehow he knew it would bring him strength and sustenance. The creature watched as a great rolling storm cloud sunk into the salty water before him and he tried to remember why he had come. — Alaina Stanford

If there were no life beyond this earth-life, some people I have known would gain immortality by the nobility of our memory of them. With every friend I love who has been taken into the brown bosom of the earth a part of me has been buried there; but their contribution of happiness, strength, and understanding to my being remains to sustain me in an altered world. — Helen Keller

I loved her. I did not know what state of mind I would be in when I got where I was going and I was most worried that in the process I might forget her. I did not ever want to forget her! I held the image of her in my mind so strongly and the eternal love for her so deep within my heart that it could never ever be erased, no matter what. My love for her was stronger than anything that could happen to me. — Kate McGahan

I know it is difficult to believe in your own courage or fortitude when everything inside of you feels weak and shattered. But do not believe what you feel. You will not be easily broken. — Rachel L. Schade

I can feel sympathy for his loss and his pain without affecting who I am and my opposition to all that Viktor Kain is and stands for. When we lose our empathy for others and allow our enmity to spiral downward and twist into mindless hate, we are no better than the Viktor Kains of the world. Compassion is our strength, not our weakness." She paused. "And it is a treasure that is meant to be shared. Do you understand? — Lisa Shearin

Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength. Stealing our will, for what are we without empathy? What manner of joy might we find in our live if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community. — R.A. Salvatore

I am thinking of our family's women
as faraway bulbs, their history
with crippling loss, and
how I am pieced together, shell and sand,
from the spine of their collective strength. — Jerrold Yam

What can I do but stand with my mouth open, no sound emerging? My lips move and I wave my arms making gestures from the other side of the glass, which I can't penetrate.
... people can speak out of anything, though the struggle takes years. The problem is, whatever I say about the present feels false-nothing contains it all, or catches the depth of things, or their terrible one-dimensionality.
What am I living on? Someone said the other day, "that old irrepressible-impossible- hope." And I thought no, this doesn't feel like hope. But maybe that's what hope is, no shining thing but a kind of sustenance, plain as bread, the ordinary thing that feeds us. How could we confuse this optimism, when it has nothing to do with expecting things to get better?
Hope has to do with continuing, that's all ... I can imagine now, where I couldn't before, this long erosion of faith, this steady drawing from one's strength, until what's left is tenuous, transparent. — Mark Doty

Repentance is not just the beginner course; repentance is lifetime learning. The goal of Christian living is not to get past the point of needing to repent, but to realize that God has made us capable through Christ of doing repentance well - repentance that the Bible calls "godly" in nature - what the apostle Paul described as "repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 2:25) - repentance that leads to real change. At the root level. Where it can grow us up into character and consistency and confidence in Jesus' power and strength, fully at work in our pitiful weakness. That's not shame and loss. Bad Christian. That's mercy and grace. From a good, redeeming God. — Matt Chandler

But the main point is that soldiers, after fighting for some time, are apt to be like burned-out cinders. They have shot off their ammunition, their numbers have been diminished, their strength and their morale are drained, and possibly their courage has vanished as well. As an organic whole, quite apart from their loss in numbers, they are far from being what they were before the action; and thus the amount of reserves spent is an accurate measure on the loss of morale. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength. — Oivd

When we lose someone we've allowed to be our whole life, we find that we have very little left to sustain us. Not only have we distanced ourselves from God, but we've lost something of ourselves in the process. When my husband passed away, I discovered that my relationship with God had been a shallow one at best, and that I had no reservoir of inner strength to draw from. — Lawana Blackwell

For a hunter, her shields were surprisingly weak, as if she somehow still saw innocence in the world.
Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal.
Was it not worth the loss of a little immortality to have that strange mix of innocence and strength close to him? — Nalini Singh

You may say suicide is a loss of control and cowardly. Foolish as it may sound, I am prepared to argue. — Dee Remy

Dear young people, choose God for your portion; love his truth, and be not ashamed of it; choose for your company such as serve him in uprightness; and shun as most dangerous the conversation of those whose lives are of an ill savor; for by frequenting such company some hopeful young people have come to great loss, and been drawn from less evils to greater, to their utter ruin. In the bloom of youth no ornament is so lovely as that of virtue, nor any enjoyments equal to those which we partake of in fully resigning ourselves to the Divine will. These enjoyments add sweetness to all other comforts, and give true satisfaction in company and conversation, where people are mutually acquainted with it; and as your minds are thus seasoned with the truth, you will find strength to abide steadfast to the testimony of it, and be prepared for services in the church. — Benjamin Franklin

Those who wish to change things may face disappointment, loss, or even ridicule. If you are ahead of your time, people laugh as often as they applaud, and being there first is usually lonely. But our protection cannot come between us and our purpose. Right protection is something within us rather than something between us and the world, more about finding a place of refuge and strength than finding a hiding place. — Rachel Naomi Remen

I was in love and love died and the pain you've left isn't pain I can see myself having the strength to face again. — Adam Silvera

Above all human existence requires stability, the permanence of things. The result is an ambivalence with respect to all great and violent expenditure of strength; such an expenditure, whether in nature or in man, represents the strongest possible threat. The feelings of admiration and of ecstasy induced by them thus mean that we are concerned to admire them from afar. The sun corresponds to that prudent concern. It is all radiance gigantic loss of heat and light, flame, explosion; but remote from men, who can enjoy in safety and quiet the fruits of this cataclysm. To earth belongs the solidity which sustains houses of stone and the steps of men (at least on its surface, for buried within the depths of the earth is the incandescence of lava). — Georges Bataille

The proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause people's substance to be drained away. When their substance is drained away, they will be afflicted by heavy exactions. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and their incomes dissipated. — Sun Tzu

Presumably, as a Martial artist, I do not fight for gain or loss, am not concerned with strength or weakness, and neither advance a step nor retreat a step. The enemy does not see me. I do not see the enemy. Penetrating to a place where heaven and earth have not yet divided, where yin and yang have not yet arrived, I quickly and necessarily gain effect. — Takuan Soho

Recreation Is Essential to Best Work - The time spent in physical exercise is not lost ... A proportionate exercise of all the organs and faculties of the body is essential to the best work of each. When the brain is constantly taxed while the other organs of the living machinery are inactive, there is a loss of strength, physical and mental. — Ellen G. White

Father, be near as we are surrounded by this cloud of deep suffering. Open our eyes to see that you are all things, the light and the darkness, not only those things that seem good in our eyes, but the horrifying unexplainable. Wrap us up inside of the cloud and reveal the mysteries that can only be learned in places of sorrow, that when we walk out we will be as Moses, transformed by the shadow and beaming with the radiant light of your glory. Give us the strength to love on, though our hearts are broken. — Anna White

Fulfillment comes from striving to succeed, to survive by your own wits and strength. Such things make each of us who we are." Using the blanket, he rubbed his hair. "You lose that in captivity, lose yourself, and that loss saps your capacity for joy. I think comfort can be a curse, an addiction that without warning or notice erodes hope. You know what I mean?" He looked at each of them, but no one answered. "Live with it long enough and the prison stops being the walls or the guards. Instead, it's the fear you can't survive on your own, the belief you aren't as capable, or as worthy, as others. I think everyone has the capacity to do great things, to rise above their everyday lives; they just need a little push now and then. — Michael J. Sullivan

In fact their strength, as with over-specialized athletes, is the result of a deformity. I thought it was the same with people who were selected for trying to get high grades in a small number of subjects rather than follow their curiosity: try taking them slightly away from what they studied and watch their decomposition, loss of confidence, and denial. (Just like corporate executives are selected for their ability to put up with the boredom of meetings, many of these people were selected for their ability to concentrate on boring material.) I've — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I never said I wanted a 'happy' life but an interesting one. From separation and loss, I have learned a lot. I have become strong and resilient, as is the case of almost every human being exposed to life and to the world. We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. — Isabel Allende