Quotes & Sayings About Mettle

The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I suspect it was ... the old story of the implacable necessity of a man having honour within his own natural spirit. A man cannot live and temper his mettle without such honour. There is deep in him a sense of the heroic quest; and our modern way of life, with its emphasis on security, its distrust of the unknown and its elevation of abstract collective values has repressed the heroic impulse to a degree that may produce the most dangerous consequences. — Laurens Van Der Post

Life brings sorrows and joys alike. It is what a man does with them - not what they do to him - that is the true test of his mettle. — Theodore Roosevelt

This is when family and friends must stand tall and strong - when mettle is tested, refined and purified. We'll survive. We must. And we'll watch the enemy burn in the fire. — Jason Price

If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode. You can just as easily see a crises or problem as a challenge, an opportunity to prove your mettle, the chance to strengthen and toughen yourself, or a call to collective action. By seeing it as a challenge, you will have converted this negative into a positive purely by a mental process that will result in positive action as well. — Robert Greene

Strength is not merely proved by how much blood one has spilt, how many foes defeated, or how many battles won. Sometimes, living day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and minute-to-minute is a truer sign of one's mettle. The ticking of the clock and the passage of time wear away courage more surely than any mortal blade might do - — Greg James

Achievement is not last, disappointment is not deadly: It is the mettle to proceed with that matters. — Winston Churchill

Every age, every culture, every ethos and tradition has a style of its own, has the varieties of gentleness and harshness, of beauty and cruelty that are appropriate to it. Each age will take certain kinds of suffering for granted, will patiently accept certain wrongs. Human life becomes a real hell of suffering only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap. Required to live in the Middle Ages, someone from the Graeco-Roman period would have died a wretched death by suffocation, just as a savage inevitably would in the midst our civilization. Now, there are times when a whole generation gets caught to such an extent between two eras, two styles of life, that nothing comes naturally to it since it has lost all sense of morality, security and innocence. A man of Nietzsche's mettle had to endure our present misery more than a generation in advance. Today, thousands are enduring what he had to suffer alone and without being understood. — Hermann Hesse

Songs choose their hour and their own season. When your tune's tin, there is a reason. The tone of a tune is your heart's mettle, and there's no clear water from a muddy well. All you can do is let the silt settle, or you'll sound sour as a broken bell. — Patrick Rothfuss

Life in Lagos was locked in a constant struggle against empathy. Empathy was too much to ask for, too much to give: it was good only for beggars to exploit in their sob stories aimed at your pocket through your heart. Heart, in Lagos idiom, meant guts, mettle, even recklessness, but rarely compassion. — A. Igoni Barrett

Marathon running, for me, was the most controlled test of mettle that I could ever think of. It's you against Darwin. — Ryan Reynolds

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you, for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
Aaron Hill — Michael Tappenden

In diplomacy there are two kinds of problems: small ones and large ones. The small ones will go away by themselves and the large ones you will not be able to do anything about. The biggest challenges in your career will come from the temptation to act. The test of your mettle will be how nobly you surmount it. — Patrick McGuinness

As I've been telling your, son, you get nowhere looking at clothes and the color of the skin to judge a man. It won't tell you nothing about what's inside. That's where a fellow's mettle is, and that's what counts. — Richard Puz

It is the age of ambition that proves the mettle of men — Jose De Alencar

Remember too that business entrepreneurs can be iconoclasts, hermits, and even cranks. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, reportedly wasn't Mr. Warm-and-Fuzzy in person. He was a perfectionist. But whether they innovate with computers or with education, business and social entrepreneurs share a sense of wonder, curiosity, and the ability to scan for opportunity. They are prone to resilience, either through practice or nature, and it pays off for them. So they keep looking at the world with wide-eyed anticipation for more opportunities to test their mettle, to create new things and ways of accomplishing goals and meeting needs. — Pamela Price

Jay was intimidating to the point where I was totally intimidated before I even got to the booth. But I was like, this is going to be a test of my mettle. In the South, I'm regarded as the guy who, quote unquote, out-rapped Jay-Z. — Bun B.

When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith:
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show, and promise of their mettle. — William Shakespeare

We are, I think, eager to show mettle we don't yet have. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

So what if she wasn't a pushover? So what if she had some mettle and didn't wear her heart on her sleeve? She had done everything she had done for the best. For king and country. — Sara Sheridan

Then an event happened that caused him to wonder at the great folly that seemed to govern his life, namely, his attempts to plan and control his future. Most of the events that changed his life had taken place without his consent and at the time had seemed of little consequence. Our destiny didn't lie in the stars, he told himself, or even in our mettle. It lay in our ability to recognize a gift when it was placed in your hands. — James Lee Burke

I find life itself provides ample and sufficient tests of my valor and mettle: illness; betrayal; fruitless searches for love; working for the abusive, the insane, and the despotic. All challenges easily as thrilling to me as scrambling over icy rock in a pair of barely adequate boots. — David Rakoff

Many words made no sense to me; it was a particular kind of language, highly stylized, while at the same time much of the dialogue between officers seemed informal, even casual. What was at once evident was Captain Janeway's love of science, her unusual friendship with the Vulcan Tuvok, her need for adventure, and her mettle. In the pilot script, her name was Elizabeth Janeway, and although I knew I had my work cut out for me, I felt an instant and natural affinity with this woman. I liked her style. — Kate Mulgrew

To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity. — Jose Marti

We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and to thereby know that there is a reason for us. We seek to be told we are good because we're too unsure of ourselves to know. Yet often we remain so focused on our neediness that we forget the creatures - human and otherwise - we're drawing into the vortex of our own passion play. All of us have compulsive loves we must forbear. We forget to see that we can engage the world without harming it. And although we fish for approval, the challenge is: to capture our prizes while bringing more to the world than we take. — Carl Safina

Here is a story that's stranger than strange.
Before we begin you may want to arrange:
a blanket, a cushion, a comfortable seat,
and maybe some cocoa and something to eat.
I'll warn you, of course, before we commence,
my story is eerie and full of suspense,
brimming with danger and narrow escapes,
and creatures of many remarkable shapes.
Dragons and ogres and gorgons and more,
and creatures you've not even heard of before.
And faraway places? There's plenty of those!
(And menacing villains to tingle your toes.)
So ready your mettle and steady your heart.
It's time for my story's mysterious start ... — Robert Paul Weston

If you walk through life in a fighting pose with your fists balled up and ready to strike, someone, someday, somewhere, is going to want to test your mettle. — Neal Boortz

Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth...fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober. — Michel De Montaigne

Sidney was intriguing. But she made Anna feel uncomfortable. She had that bright, mocking cynicism that challenged her in some way. Sidney was irritating, almost aggressive; but also there was that curious farouche sort of nervousness about her. And her attractive, one-sided smile that you couldn't quite trust in, and which promised so much; which, perhaps, was the token of a rare inward warmth. There was nothing easy about her. She was sharp, and stinging and stimulating and would need living up to; she would keep you on your mettle. — Anna Kavan

A great many people never really discover themselves until ruin stares them in the face. They do not seem to know how to bring out their reserves until they are overtaken by an overwhelming disaster, or until the sight of their blighted prospects and of the wreck of their homes and happiness stirs them to the very center of their beings ... There is something in defeat which puts new determination into a man of mettle. — Orison Swett Marden

And policemen. They were obliged to sneak past two en route to Kampa. Thomas was a contentedly law-abiding child, with fond feelings toward policemen. He was also afraid of them. His notion of prisons and jails had been keenly influenced by reading Dumas, and he had not the slightest doubt that little boys would, without compunction, be interred in them. He began to be sorry to have come along. He wished he had never come up with the idea of having Josef prove his mettle to the members of the Hofzinser Club. It was not that he doubted his brother's ability. This never would have occurred to him. He was just afraid: of the night, the shadows, and the darkness, of policemen, his father's temper, spiders, robbers, drunks, ladies in overcoats, and especially, this morning, of the river, darker than anything else in Prague. — Michael Chabon

Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be. — Nelson Mandela

The sort of movies I make are not ones that can easily be sold upfront, so I have to make them and prove their mettle before I can sell them. — Amber Sealey

Deda kissed her on the forehaed. "There are difficult days ahead for all of us. Ahead of you particularly, Tania. You and Dasha. Now that Pasha is not here, your parents need you more than ever. Your mettle will be tested, along with everyone else's. There will be only one standard, the standard of survial at all cost, and it will be up to you to say at what price survival. Hold your head high, and if you're going to go down, go down knowing you have not in any way compromised your soul."
Pulling him by the arm, Babushka said, "That's enough. Tania, you do whatever you have to do to survive, and damn your soul. We expect to see you in Molotov next month."
"Never compromise on what your heart tells you to be right, my granddaughter," Deda said, getting up and hugging her. "You hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Deda," Tatiana said, hugging him back. — Paullina Simons

I have been so struck by the mettle of the men who founded this country and wrote the Constitution. What unbelievable persistence and integrity. I wonder if any of us would have the attention span required to forge a whole new world. I wish we did. — Rosanne Cash

I don't know about living on an automatic pilot, but I've had times where I've decided to just test myself and my mettle, and for no good reason other than it's what life is. Even before I was acting, I had, like, one day in high school I decided to just show them my pajamas, just for no good reason. — Will Ferrell

Anger is like
A full hot horse, who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him. — William Shakespeare

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom. mettle: spirited bottom: capacity to endure strain — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man who doesn't test the mettle of his soul isn't much of a man ... — Joey W. Hill

Well could he ride, and often men would say, "That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!" And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed. — William Shakespeare

What good is a dream that doesn't test the mettle of the dreamer? What good is a path that doesn't carry us to the edge of our capacity and then beyond that place? A true calling involves a great exposure before it can become a genuine refuge. — Michael Meade

As a blacksmith uses heat to temper steel, so should a trial by fire strengthen one's mettle. — Jeffrey Fry

There's nothing worse than being shackled by some miniscule sort of technology you have onstage, and I think your mettle is going to get tested in those moments. — El-P

Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades Sink in the trial. — William Shakespeare

I have not harmed her. I have not allowed harm to come to her. It's more than her lot has ever offered me, and English has seen what befalls them when they press the boot on our necks. She has survived the wages of justice through luck, mettle, and wit enough to open her eyes.
English finally sees.
If I'm to be ruled, may it be by those who see. — J. Anderson Coats

Cowards shrink from toil and peril, Vulgar souls attempt and fail; Men of mettle, nothing daunted, Persevere till they prevail. — Dean Koontz

My Nana Westbrook, true as a saint's prayer, always used to say the Devil was a woman thought up by the Good Lord Himself to test a man's mettle and drag him down to Hell if he came up short and, Lordy, I sure as hell kept my granny's wise words to heart, God rest her soul, never once dipping my stick in a place where it might get snapped. — Ojo Blacke

What courage, man! What though care killed a cat? Thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. — William Shakespeare

Legacy proves ones mettle and one's karma. — Aporva Kala

You who live your lives in cities or among peaceful ways cannot always tell whether your friends are the kind who would go through fire for you. But on the Plains one's friends have an opportunity to prove their mettle. — Buffalo Bill

We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. — Oswald Chambers

He says he was physically not right, that's fine but the mentality, even if you're not right, you're still in a fight and you still show what you have deep down inside, and I don't think he showed the mettle that he needed to show in that fight in order to beat a guy like Miranda. — Andre Ward

I'll listen to you, but you need to treat me with a little respect. Because it doesn't sound like I'm a pawn. Sounds like I'm more of a queen." A vein in his temple began to throb, and she grew bolder, the sense of power emanating from the mark on her chest filing her with the mettle she'd lost after the break-in two years ago. Lowering her voice to a tense whisper, she nipped his earlobe. "Checkmate. — Larissa Ione

Well, I guess I'm just not as special as you are. (Urian)
No one knows their true mettle until it's been tested. This is yours. Whether you pass or fail is entirely up to you. I can't tell you what to do, but I know where I'll be tonight. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Turn off your computer and go out of doors. Dig a large enough hole to transplant a mature apple tree. Nurture the tree, feed it, coddle it so that its fruit will be ample, bright and firm. Practice open-hand strikes against the rough bark of the trunk until it's time to harvest. Choose the champion of your apple crop, pluck it from the tree, and beat yourself about the face and tits with it until your mettle will suffice. — Nick Offerman

To fall down is to face the weakness of my humanity, test the mettle of my character, and push the limits of my strength. Therefore, falling down will tell me who I am far more clearly than most things I might learn when I'm standing up. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Britain won its wars on the playing fields of Eton. America developed its mettle at the muddy gaps of the Cumberlands, in the swift rapids of its rivers, on the limitless reaches of its western plains, in the silent vastness of primeval forests, and in the blizzard-ridden passes of the Rockies and Coast ranges. — Harvey Broome

O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me! — Walt Whitman

We are not built for mountains and dawns and artistic affinities; they are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff of life, and this is where we have to prove our mettle. A false Christianity takes us up on the mount and we want to stay there. But what about the devil-possessed world? Oh, let it go to hell! We are having a great time up here. — Oswald Chambers

This is a test of mettle. That's the Ganseylike part."
Gansey knew that Henry was right by the zing of feeling in his heart. It was very similar to the sensation he'd felt at the toga party. That feeling of being known. Not in a superficial way, but in something deeper and truer. He asked, "What is my prize if I pass?"
"What is ever any prize of a test of mettle? The prize is your honor, Mr. Gansey."
Doubly known. Triply known. Gansey wasn't precisely sure how to cope with being so accurately pegged by a person who was, after all, only a recent acquaintance. — Maggie Stiefvater

I love the game. I think it's a great game because you find out a lot about yourself. You test your mettle every week. There's no grey area, there's instant gratification and there are no quarterly reports. We're not just doing a little bit better. You know every Sunday what happened. — Bill Parcells

Descartes' Meditations; doubt rise and results in clear and distinct ideas. all in the mind and all innate. Spinoza bakes the best cake, love God intellectually. Oh! God, he should have stuck to polishing glasses or gotten married. Then dear Philosopher we what mettle your are of. Soren Kierkgaard is the king of leer; life is a disease unto death, he proclaimed till death claimed him early. And Nietzche? following Schopenhauer's Superman- was nursed by his sister despite crying foul of the female race and died a wreck man. All theory no practice. Sartre was better , loyal to Simon De ... Both lay next to each other in Paris, witout marrying. — Aporva Kala

By nature independent, gay, even exuberant, seductively responsive and given to those spontaneous sallies that sparkle in the conversation of certain daughters of Paris who seem to have inhaled since childhood the pungent breath of the boulevards laden with the nightly laughter of audiences leaving theaters, Madame de Burne's five years of bondage had nonetheless endowed her with a singular timidity which mingled oddly with her youthful mettle, a great fear of saying too much, of going to far, along with a fierce yearning for emancipation and a firm resolve never again to compromise her freedom. — Guy De Maupassant

Life provides ample opportunity to test our mettle. When circumstances call for it, let's give ourselves a break and ask for help. — Gina Greenlee

This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of? — Laurie Halse Anderson

Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real mettle of friendship is forged in life's daily workings. — Ethan Hawke

The true test of a soldier's mettle is to see whether or not they will cling to what they believe in, even in the face of impending death. — Matthew S. Williams

We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount. We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount. The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiritual selfishness wants to make them the only time. — Oswald Chambers

Her heart, she had discovered in the last half year, was of durable stuff. You could test its mettle with a hammer. — Paul Russell

There is oftentimes a great deal of knowledge where there is but little wisdom to improve that knowledge. It is not the most knowing Christian but the most wise Christian that sees, avoids, and escapes Satan's snares. Knowledge without wisdom is like mettle in a blind horse, which is often an occasion of the rider's fall. — Thomas Brooks

A life without a storm would lack drama. Pounding waves of a tempestuous sea test a person's mettle. A fearless sailor climbs the rigging and shouts out at the top of their lungs into the wind and rain whipping across their face that they will not go quietly into the good night without a fight. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Our Party's Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People's Army. — Kim Jong Il

If we didn't have any stress, we'd never grow and you'd probably wouldn't test your mettle and you'd probably wouldn't come up with a lot of creative stuff that people come up with by being somewhat on the edge. — David Allen

My agent called me and said, they watched you do Chopped Champions and they thought you'd be good for this competition. What do you think? And I said, well, what do you think? He said he thought it would be great and I said let's do it. When you decide to do this, you don't really think that you're going to win it. I thought it would be fun, good to test my mettle; games are fun like that. Why not? I'll try it. — Geoffrey Zakarian