Quotes & Sayings About Persisting

The Historian and the Man of Science alike may be said to traffic with the dead. Cuvier has imparted flesh and motion and appetites to the defunct Megatherium, whilst the living ears of M.M. Michelet and Renan, of Mr. Carlyle and the Brothers Grimm, have heard the bloodless cries of the vanished and given them voices. I myself, with the aid of the imagination, have worked a little in that line, have ventriloquised, have lent my voice to, and mixt my life with, those past voices and lives whose resuscitation in our own lives as warnings, as examples, as the life of the past persisting in us, is the business of every thinking man and woman. — A.S. Byatt

Our father knew more than any living person about the secret of time, except how to live in it. His time did not travel; it was a block of persisting nows. — Richard Powers

We see not because everything is visible, but because something always defies the eye, persisting beyond the remit of mere representation. This something, which Pasolini endeavors to situate at the heart of filmmaking, is preceisely 'that which always escapes from the grasp of that form of vision that is satisfied with itself in imagining itself as consicousness' (Lacan, 1998). — Fabio Vighi

Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism. — William Batchelder Greene

But most often she watched the candles as if their outcome held her own, the flames almost extinguishing themselves, but, by some greed of oxygen, persisting. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Nobody hands you excellence on a silver platter. You earn it through planning, preparing, and persisting in the face of all obstacles. — Terry Orlick

Every persisting marriage is based on fear', said Peregrine. 'Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what's at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you to put the foot in it or whether it makes you to cower ... — Iris Murdoch

If a tactic has led to failure, then persisting with it unquestioningly, in the wild hope of a different outcome, is nothing — Amish Tripathi

Realizing your goal, resolution, or transformation is a journey. Change, like any meaningful endeavor, proceeds sequentially through steps. The journey begins with the contemplation stage of specifying realistic goals, getting ready, or getting psyched. The planning stage is all about prepping. How exactly will I do this thing? At some point you will jump from preparing and planning to perspiring, the work of implementing the new, desired behavior. Getting there is wonderful, but we need to keep you there, which entails persevering through slips and, finally, persisting over time. — John C. Norcross

The loveliness of the day was enough to knock you down. Swallows rioted above the calm green lid of the lake. Birch trees gleamed like filaments among the dark evergreens. No planes disturbed the sky. I felt dead to it, though I did take a kind of comfort that all of this beauty was out here, persisting like mad, whether you hearkened to it or not. — Wells Tower

In attachment there is pain, and in pain deliverance, so that at this point attachment itself offers no obstacle, and the liberated one is at last free to love with all his might and to suffer with all his heart. This is not because he has learned the trick of splitting himself into higher and lower selves so that he can watch himself with inward indifference, but rather because he has found the meeting-point of the limit of wisdom and the limit of foolishness. The Bodhisattva is the fool who has become wise by persisting in his folly. — Alan W. Watts

Wilson agreed reluctantly to their attempts: I don't much like to make a compromise with people who aren't reasonable. They will always believe that, by persisting in their claims, they will be able to obtain more. — Margaret MacMillan

But I believe the words entered me and changed me and still work in me. The words eat me and sustain me. And when I'm dead and in a box in the dark dark ground, and all my various souls have died and I am nothing but insensible bones, something in the marrow will still feel yearning, desire persisting beyond flesh. — Charles Frazier

Persisting through lesser difficulties builds your capacity to persist through greater difficulties, and achieve even greater things. — Brian Tracy

What we are looking for is the appearance of political units persisting in time and fixed in space, the development of permanent, impersonal institutions, agreement on the need for authority which can give final judgments and acceptance of the idea that this authority should receive the basic loyalty of its subjects. — Joseph Reese Strayer

...the danger of developing a policy of rush, of being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to do next. In this way one may come to exist as in a prison, and one's life may cease to be one's own. One may take the dog out for a walk at eight o'clock, and meditate the whole time on the fact that one must begin to read at a quarter to nine, and that one must not be late.
And the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not help to mend matters. The evil springs not from persisting without elasticity in what one has attempted, but from originally attempting too much, from filling one's programme till it runs over. The only cure is to reconstitute the programme, and to attempt less. — Arnold Bennett

Dreams have a way of persisting. They just don't come true until you DO what you CAN. — Sana Rose

In the Heart's cavity, the sole Brahman as an ever-persisting 'I' shines direct in the form of the Self. Into the Heart enter thyself, with mind in search or in deeper plunge. Or by
restraint of life-movement be firmly poised in the Self. — Ramana Maharshi

We can speak, think, refer to ourselves as agents, and so build up the false idea of a persisting self that has consciousness and free will. — John Brockman

Dieting was cruel; it was an abuse of human rights. Yes, that's what it was, and she should not allow herself to be manipulated in this way. She stopped herself. Thinking like that was nothing more than coming up with excuses for breaking the diet. Mma Ramotswe was made of sterner stuff than that, and so she persisted. — Alexander McCall Smith

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves. — Andre Gide

And I will place within them as a guide My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting, safe arrive. — John Milton

Another threat, less overt but no less basic, confronts liberal democracy. More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific knowhow. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances, the scientific and technological momentum of the country would not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits.
... Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance. — Marcus Aurelius

What you must realize, what you must even come to praise, is the fact that there is no right way that is going to become apparent to you once and for all. The most blinding illumination that strikes and perhaps radically changes your life will be so attenuated and obscured by doubts and dailiness that you may one day come to suspect the truth of that moment at all. The calling that seemed so clear will be lost in echoes of questionings and indecision; the church that seemed to save you will fester with egos, complacencies, banalities; the deepest love of your life will work itself like a thorn in your heart until all you can think of is plucking it out. Wisdom is accepting the truth of this. Courage is persisting with life in spite of it. And faith is finding yourself, in the deepest part of your soul, in the very heart of who you are, moved to praise it. — Christian Wiman

Social environment in childhood affects achieved adult height, life chances, and ultimately mortality rates in adult life. ( ... ) ... social circumstances acting in childhood do have a persisting effect on adult disease rates, in addition to influences acting in adulthood. — Michael Marmot

If you ever hear yourself or anyone you care about starting to express the belief that a problem is permanent, it's time to immediately shake that person loose. No matter what happens in your life, you've got to be able to believe, 'This, too, shall pass,' and that if you keep persisting, you'll find a way. — Tony Robbins

Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last. — Alexander Pope

I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine men were to perish, and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty. One such freeman must possess more virtue, and enjoy more happiness, than a thousand slaves. — Samuel Adams

In addition, when these men were confronted, they did not stubbornly persist in their sins but repented. Paul commands that we should accept, instruct, and restore such people (Galatians 6:1). So those who sin and fall because of weakness will not be refused forgiveness if they stand up again and do not persist in their sin. Persisting in sin is disastrous. — Martin Luther

Humans are in love with the idea of our persisting,' he said. 'We fetishize it, really. Our retirement funds, our genealogies. Our so-called ideas for the ages. — Barbara Kingsolver

Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur — Samuel Johnson

When discouraged some people will give up, give in or give out far too early. They blame their problems on difficult situations, unreasonable people or their own inabilities.
When discouraged other people will push back that first impulse to quit, push down their initial fear, push through feelings of helplessness and push ahead. They're less likely to find something to blame and more likely to find a way through. — Steve Goodier

At some time you start to think your dreams are beyond you. The universe is sending you messages to quit... contrary. The universe is simply making sure that it really is something you want. Anything great is worth fighting for. Keep fighting, keep persisting. It is only through persistence that we ultimately succeed. — Tony Curl

No, the thing that makes for greatness is determination, persisting in the right direction over the long haul, following your dream, staying at the task. — Charles R. Swindoll

So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It's one I've always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down. Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn't always safe, but it's often necessary. — Octavia E. Butler

Watching, waiting and anticipating will only detract from visualising, persisting and succeeding' (1996) — Kieran Revell

The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields ... they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story. — David Albert

One of the most beneficial of remedies is persisting in du'a. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

I was persisting in reading my present environment in the light of my old one. — Richard Wright

So, who is it?" Stella is persisting, somewhat suspiciously. "What's his name?"
But if I don't tell her the truth, what do I say? My mind draws a blank. I don't want to lie to her- "um ... " walking back to the bedroom, I notice the postcard Spike chose for me resting on my top of my dresser. I haven't written that one yet. Absently I pick it up and turn it over. On the back is written "Matthew Macfadyen as Fitzwilliam Darcy." "Fitzwilliam," I blurt. "No, what's his first name?" she asks. "That is his first name. — Alexandra Potter

In different countries the basis of resistance takes different forms, but it comes chiefly from the conservative groups. Hence it becomes increasingly difficult to go on spending in the presence of persisting deficits and rising debt. Some form of spending must be found that will command the support of the conservative groups. Political leaders, embarrassed by their subsidies to the poor, soon learned that one of the easiest ways to spend money is on military establishments and armaments, because it commands the support of the groups most opposed to spending. — John T. Flynn

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there. — Harper Lee

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes, we should pound our fists over persisting ills we see, but unless we also put our hands to work in providing workable solutions to those problems, what are we left with in the end but bruised fists and a bitter heart? — Jack Graham

Success comes from taking the initiative and following up ... persisting ... eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life? — Tony Robbins

If children are encouraged at this stage, receiving praise for their accomplishments, they will start to exhibit industry by being thorough, and persisting through tasks until complete. If children are instead ridiculed, punished for their efforts, or if they find they are incapable of meeting teachers' and parents' expectations, they develop feelings of inferiority about their capabilities. — Nancy Sander

Do mortal fools still measure the increments leading to their deaths, wagering pleasures against costs, persisting in the delusion that deeds have value, that the world and all the gods sit in judgment over every decision made or not made? — Steven Erikson

The discrepancy is that the ethical self should be found immanently in the despair, that the individual won himself by persisting in the despair. True, he has used something within the category of freedom, choosing himself, which seem to remove the difficulty, one that presumably has not struck many, since philosophically doubting everything and then finding the true beginning goes one, two, three. But that does not help. In despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of everything by myself. But if I do this, I cannot come back by myself. It is in this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, whereas it is quite correct that in order to be at this point one must first have understood the existence-relation between the aesthetic and the ethical; that is to say, by being there in passion and inwardness, one surely becomes aware of the religious - and of the leap. — Soren Kierkegaard

But if it is true that human minds are themselves to a very great degree the creations of memes, then we cannot sustain the polarity of vision we considered earlier; it cannot be "memes versus us," because earlier infestations of memes have already played a major role in determining who or what we are. The "independent" mind struggling to protect itself from alien and dangerous memes is a myth. There is a persisting tension between the biological imperative of our genes on the one hand and the cultural imperatives of our memes on the other, but we would be foolish to "side with" our genes; that would be to commit the most egregious error of pop sociobiology. Besides, as we have already noted, what makes us special is that we, alone among species, can rise above the imperatives of our genes - thanks to the lifting cranes of our memes. — Daniel C. Dennett

If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. — Thomas Szasz