Reality Is Tough Quotes & Sayings

Life is tough, then you die. — George Carlin

It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkable difficult to kill. — Neil Gaiman

Yes, NFL players deserve to be paid well. Unfortunately, economic realities are forcing everyone to make tough choices and the NFL is no different. These are not easy negotiations, but the outcome can be positive. If both sides give a little, everyone, including fans, will get a lot and the game will improve through innovation. Even in difficult economic times, a new CBA presents us with the opportunity to secure the future of our game. — Roger Goodell

As a candidate, Clinton had - as all candidates do - torn into his predecessor for coddling China and promised that he would get tough on China's human rights abuses. As president, Clinton had - as all presidents do - come to see that the reality was a bit more complicated. — Michael Tomasky

There were actually very few men who could face reality when the going got tough. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Many want to be a warrior but they don't know what a lonely, tough, or pain staking journey it is. Warriors have to fight on behalf of the defenseless, defend what is right, as well as fight believers and non-believers alike. In reality, few like warriors because they confront their own, and their own think they're above being confronted. The warrior, you see, most often walks alone. — Donna Lynn Hope

It is a wonderful thing to see a first-rate philosopher at prayer. Tough-minded thinking and tenderhearted reverence are friends, not enemies. We have for too long separated the head from the heart, and we are the lesser for it. We love God with the mind and we love God with the heart. In reality, we are descending with the mind into the heart and there standing before God in ceaseless wonder and endless praise. As the mind and the heart work in concert, a kind of loving rationality pervades all we say and do. This brings unity to us and glory to God. — Soren Kierkegaard

Life is full of tough decisions, Chase. Decisions that may make a person seem horrible, when in reality that decision was the most humane thing they could have done. A person isn't horrible for having second thoughts, for realizing they've made a mistake and deciding to correct it before it's too late. What makes a person horrible is when they do nothing. When they string other people along with them through their misery when they could have let them go and find happiness elsewhere. What's horrible is seeing the light leave your eyes and taking theirs with it. — Sara Furlong Burr

Many of us don't dream; more dangerously, many of us don't spend quality time thinking. We worry, yes, but we do not think. We don't project ourselves into the future. We don't utilize imagination. For many who do dream, what is lacking is the translation of the dream into reality and the tenacity to hold on to the dream when the going gets tough. — Nana Awere Damoah

You are always laughing at the wrong moment; you are considered cruel and heartless when in reality you are only tough and durable. But if you would laugh when others laugh and weep when they weep then you must be prepared to die as they die and live as they live. — Henry Miller

Heaven and happiness do not exist. That is your parents' way to justify the crime of having brought you into this world. What exists is reality, the tough reality, this slaughterhouse we've come to die in, if not to kill and to eat the animals, our fellow creatures. Therefore, do not reproduce, do not repeat the crimes committed against you, do not give back the same, evil paid with evil, as imposing life is the ultimate crime. Do not disturb the unborn, let them be in the peace of nothingness. Anyway we'll all eventually go back there, so why beat around the bush? — Fernando Vallejo

The church seeks to help form people who can risk being peaceful in a violent world, risk being kind in a competitive world, risk being faithful in an age of cynicism, risk being gentle among those who admire the tough, risk love when it may not be returned, because we have the confidence that in Christ we have been reborn into a new reality. — John Howard Yoder

I grew up in Chillum Heights in the Washington, D.C. area., and it was never a garden spot. When guys go, 'Hey, when I grew up, my neighborhood was tough, and it was this and that' ... the reality is that it was just a terribly sad place. And thank God, I was able to escape it. — Jonathan Banks

There were tough thoughts battling one another inside his head for the right to become reality. — S.A. Tawks

I think people need hope when times are tough. I think they also need escape and adventure and fantasy. Books are like cheap mini vacations. — Michelle M. Pillow

Language and reality are kept strictly apart - reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. — Lev Grossman

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

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's what has gotten you by — Rachel Reiland

Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart - reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life. "Little children don't know that. Magical thinking: that's what Freud called it. Once we learn otherwise we cease to be children. The separation of word and thing is the essential fact on which our adult lives are founded. — Lev Grossman

If you're not tough enough to take on a fight, your best defense is to avoid initiating one". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

We have this misconception about women in the military, that they don't wear make-up, but in reality, they're very feminine women. You can be a tough woman, and still be a very nurturing and emotional parent. It's just not always black and white like that. — Michelle Monaghan

I've had people accuse me of being too tough of a grader. But my job is to paint reality versus telling people what they want to hear. — Steve Burke

Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they've known since childhood ... ... . They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simple minded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple. — Jack Welch

Virtual reality is a tough sell for a software developer. They have to convince investors that not only are they going to build a good game, which is what they normally have to do, they have to convince them that it's going to be a good game and that virtual reality will be successful. — Palmer Luckey

Ideals without power are simply words - they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn't guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself. — George Friedman

Being an entrepreneur is sexy ... for those who haven't done it. In reality it's gritty, tough work where you will be filled with self doubt. Entrepreneurs are survivors. — Mark Suster

My character in 'Prison Break' needs to be formidable. In reality, I'm not very tough at all. — Wentworth Miller

I don't watch reality TV, my reality is tough enough. — Alisa Steinberg

I became super claustrophobic with Hollywood. I don't like Hollywood. I don't like what it represents. I think that Hollywood is great if you're an actor, actress, established. But for reality people or what people perceive as reality, it's tough. People are constantly discrediting everything you put on camera. — Brody Jenner

Career had a lot to do with 80 percent of my breakups. It's very tough to date a struggling musician. The idea of it is enticing and fun and mysterious. But the reality is long hours and hard work. I have a lot of respect for the women I've dated. — Taylor Hicks

It's easy to practice something that you are good at, and that is what most people do. Wat's tough is to go ot and to work hard on the things that you don't do very well. — Pete Rose

I watch way too many VH1 reality shows like 'I Love Money' and 'Tough Love.' — Sterling Knight

But her angry feminism had set as hard as concrete during years of living alongside the tough, hardworking, dirt-poor women of London's East End. Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different. Most of the women Ethel knew worked twelve hours a day and looked after home and children as well. Underfed, overworked, living in hovels, and dressed in rags, they could still sing songs and laugh and love their children. In Ethel's view one of those women had more right to vote than any ten men. — Ken Follett

The ranks of the Marines were now diluted with reservists, at least 50 percent. Few of them were mentally prepared to fight, or physically hardened to war. Inch'on, luckily, had been easy. But now, on the frozen hills above Yudam-ni, the Marines, regular and reservist alike, faced reality. Because their officers were tough-minded, because their discipline was tight, and because their esprit - that indefinable emotion of a fighting man for his standard, his regiment, and the men around him, was unbroken - weak and strong alike, they would face it well. — T.R. Fehrenbach

I ultimately realized we had gotten together for the music. It was such a huge thing in our lives. We were at the same age, same place in our careers, and we had great fun. But when I became a mother and was at home, I realized that in reality we had very little else in common. I wasn't happy, wasn't getting what I needed. It's tough to realize that. But while a big change can be painful, it also was for the best. I'm happier now than I've ever been. — Linda Eder

We've got some guys going good and we've got some guys who are struggling. Usually April's a tough month. Guys come from Arizona where the weather's perfect and the ball flies all over the place. Then you get into the reality of the season, and it can work against them, not so much physically as mentally. — Jeff Pentland

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