Test Your Mettle Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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.

This dark December day inspires him to write / the plainest things in the snow, then walk away. — Chard DeNiord

The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart: - ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing! The sickness - the nausea - The pitiless pain - Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain - With the fever called "Living" That burned in my brain. — Edgar Allan Poe

I learned to stop being English about things like love. If you make a film in England about love, it's hugely complicated. It's all about saying what the weather is like, and you're secretly telling someone you love them. You know what the English are like; they're very repressed people. You don't get that in India. India is incredibly un-cynical about love. It's a not a complicated thing. It's me, you, love. Let's go. — Simon Beaufoy

Achilles glared at him and answered, Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall — Homer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It seems to me that it is psyche in a way that has become occluded by the perverse development of language. — Terence McKenna

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last year, at the beginning of the year, we couldn't get arrested, so I'll take this. Feast versus famine. — Josh Schwartz

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

I am offering you a real commitment - a place in my life forever. Even if our relationship ended, our tie to each other never would. Let me make you a vampire, Leila, and watch decades slide by like days while you're by my side. — Jeaniene Frost

Insolent youth rides, now, in the whirlwind. For those modern iconoclasts who are without culture possess, apparently, all the courage. — Ellen Glasgow