Tough People Quotes & Sayings

A lot of people put pressure on themselves and think it will be way too hard for them to live out their dreams. Mentors are there to say, 'Look, it's not that tough. It's not as hard as you think. Here are some guidelines and things I have gone through to get to where I am in my career.' — Joe Jonas

And then she figures out something important: These people aren't looking at her. They're not even giving her a second glance. They're all looking at Raven. And it's not just a case of celebrity watching or something like that. All of these Raft dudes, these tough scary homeboys of the sea, are scared shitless of this guy. And she's on a date with him. And it's just started. — Neal Stephenson

Growing up in the public eye was really tough. When you're 14 and your body is changing, your life is changing, and people are watching every step you make, it's really hard to deal with. But I was pretty lucky, people didn't watch me that closely. — Mandy Moore

The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate 'apparently ordinary' people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people. — K. Patricia Cross

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

I think one of the reasons I've had success in hip-hop is that I can bring out vulnerability in people who are generally seen as tough guys. To me, when a hip-hop musician always plays tough, I find it annoying because I know they're not really like that - there's something deeper and vulnerable. There has to be, because they're human beings. — Skylar Grey

People can be tough as hell. They can go through some really heavy stuff... with a genuine smile... — Adam Scythe

The only good thing was that by midnight, even most of the bums had gone home to sleep it off. That was lucky for them, because Ray was the worst damn driver I'd ever seen. And that was after I jerked his head out of the duffel and parked it on the dashboard.
"Gah! That makes it worse!" he told me, as I tried to get the eyes facing forward.
"How can it possibly be worse?"
"Because I got double vision now! Get it off! Get it off!"
He batted at his own head and succeeded in sending it tumbling into Christine's lap. She immediately went into hysterics and slapped it away. The head fell out of the car; Ray hit the brakes and we came to a screeching halt.
"What are you doing?" I screeched, as he hopped out. "There are people firing at us!"
"Tough!" came from somewhere under the car. — Karen Chance

For your information, I'm staying like this, and everyone else can just get used to it! If people don't like me the way I am, well TOUGH BEANS! It's a free country! I don't need anyone's permission to be the way I want! This is who I am - Take it or leave it! — Bill Watterson

I always see guys get all, like, flexed on other people, trying to show off that they are tough, and it is just, like, no girl really likes that. — Kreayshawn

I served as a missionary for my church. I served as a pastor in my congregation for about 10 years. I've sat across the table from people who were out of work and worked with them to try and find new work or to help them through tough times. — Mitt Romney

The argument [behind climate change] is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger. — Tony Abbott

We actually have some gay people that work with us, and we have a lot of friends that are gay, too, and I know that this song has inspired them ... I know that coming out was tough on their parents and on them and the whole entire family. For a long time, some of them didn't get to hear 'I love you' from their dads or be accepted in that way ... It's helped a lot of our friends ... We don't judge anybody's lives. — Martha Stewart

We live in a society that likes to kick people when they're down. Don't be a fair-weather friend. Stick with people. They need you more in the tough times than they do in the good times. — Joel Osteen

I encounter really tough men and women who are just so harsh, you can't bend them. You do come across these kinds of people in every profession-just unyielding. — Catherine Keener

The Scots are a very tough people. They have drive-by headbuttings. In Glasgow a sweatband is considered a silencer. — Emo Philips

Very few people around the world know that cancer kills more people than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined - until we get everyone to realize that, it will be tough to get them to act. — Jenna Morasca

Jackie, let me tell you this one true thing and we could go our separate ways, nd I'm gonna be conservative about this right here: Anybody you meet before the age of, say, 25? That's your friend. Anyone after that? That's just an associate. Someone to pass the time. Someone who meets maybe one or two specific needs. But friend? Shit. Friends are at the playground. And adult, sobre life, real life - it's nothing like a playground. And if that sound tough, that's because it is. It's called the real world. And it largely fucking sucks. So if you got one friend when you die, then you got something most people never have. — Stephen Adley Guirgis

I don't like nice people. I like tough, honest people. — Woody Hayes

Channing, come back here."
"No," she tossed off over her shoulder.
"I'm warnin' you, girl, you don't want to make me mad."
"Tough shit, tough guy. Suck it up and walk it off."
People around them stopped and stared, nudged each other and chuckled, giving Colby a wide berth.
"Last chance," he yelled.
Channing flipped him the bird without turning around. In fact, she ran away from him like her boot heels were smoking.
He was going to paddle that sassy little ass but good. — Lorelei James

Because you see, when you're a strong person, people often look to you to take care of them. People look to you for help. People look to you for strength.
And when your life spins out of control, it's as if their lives are tied to your own and will come crashing down with yours. — Nessie Q.

A Democrat has to show the toughness to govern. People don't doubt that Republicans will be tough. — Al From

People are going through tough times. I want to say to them, "Live your joy." I know I can tell them that because I went through a lot of hard times. I had a choice of either succumbing to the hard times or figuring it out. — Bonnie St. John

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

But what slayed Robert was that for all these years, all his adult life, he'd never believed in relationships and commitment. They were highly overrated as far as he was concerned. Some people's entire lives revolved around love ... finding it, keeping it. People had written poetry about it, had sacrificed for it, had even died for it. And he'd never been able to understand why. Why would anyone want to invest themselves in such a fickle emotion that sounded too good to be true because it was too good to be true. When the going got tough, even when someone claimed to love and be committed to the people in their lives, they really only honored that commitment when things were good. — M.L. Rhodes

A real man fights those holding him down, not people with less power. You making me feel bad won't make you tough. It makes you pathetic especially when I was being gentle with you. — Bijou Hunter

You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me. — Spike Lee

In good times, people turn to Left wing parties, in bad times, they say, well, possibly Left-wing parties can't make those tough decisions ... We've got to buck that trend — Ed Miliband

Sometimes people expect that I'm going to be tough. It's not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time. — Tina Fey

People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban. They're also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time. — Hamid Karzai

The first time probably people really were aware of me, I unfortunately had the title of Showtime's Funniest Person in America. And that's a really tough title to travel around with when you're not even known. — Ellen DeGeneres

I used to think i was tough, but then i realized i wasn't. i was fragile and i wore thick fucking armor. and i hurt people so they couldn't hurt me. and i thought that was what being tough was, but it isn't. — James Frey

Thoughts are things. Negativity is what kills you ... It's tough to do, but you've got to work at living, you know? Most people work at dying, but anybody can die; the easiest thing on this earth is to die. But to live takes guts; it takes energy, vitality, it takes thought ... We have so many negative influences out there that are pulling us down ... You've got to be strong to overcome these adversities ... that's why I never stop. — Jack LaLanne

I'm active even on bad days; it's tough to pin me down. People ask me if I'm a morning or night person. I'm an all-the-time person. I like drinking coffee, but I do it with lots of milk because my energy levels are high even without caffeine. You could call me Obelix, except I don't have a belly. — Bipasha Basu

When a lot of athletes get done playing, they end up in some really tough positions. They have a hard time transitioning because their identity is wrapped up in who they are as a player and what they do rather than who they can be in Christ. We desire to help people understand the invitation that God has given each one of us as Christ followers to be a part of this global redemptive story. If you can't give your life to something with meaning and purpose of that magnitude then there's nothing there. — Aaron Kampman

I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that's a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it's going to offend people. Tough. — Daniel Dennett

In 2008, people who invested in hedge funds needed capital badly, but many of the funds would not return their money. However, I gave money back to any investor who requested it. It was the bottom of the market and a pretty tough time. — Carl Icahn

Unless you do the same thing, it's tough for stereotypes to stick. That said, whatever you've done that's most popular at a given moment is what people think "you do." — John C. Reilly

When innocent people find themselves in situations that require the presence and protection of people like me, their reaction more often than not is as much bewilderment as fear. Mortality is tough to process. But — Jeffery Deaver

People can and often do ignore or deny their common humanity with others, or deny, at least implicitly, that their common humanity commits them to sympathy or compassion for those less advantaged than themselves. Indeed, such an attitude towards one's fellows can be represented as tough, uncompromising, positively heroic: the supermen versus the wimps. But just as this ruthless world may be chosen - as it is chosen by the current rulers of the globalised neo-liberal market - so if may also be rejected. — David Smail

When I did Yoda, me and three other people worked our asses off, and I was sweating every single day, it was tough as hell. Now that it's CGI, 24 people work on Yoda, and I get all the credit
I do nothing. — Frank Oz

It's been a little tough just because we've been playing so much. Your lives are getting a little more complicated than they were straight out of college when we first started. People are starting to get married, have families and all, it becomes more of a challenge. It's not an easy lifestyle. — Barry Privett

Football is my base; that's where I learned to be tough. I was a strong safety, and that's what I do: I hit people. The mentality is football, the wrestling is precision. — Christian Kane

People think of Jews as the Woody Allen stereotype, the nebbishy kind of thing, but that's not the kind of Jews I know. I know plenty of Israelis and plenty of tough guys that are Jewish. So, I think it makes sense that Jews play metal. — Scott Ian

Some people who know me might say, 'He's not a great example of a nice person; he's a malicious, tough and ruthless guy.' But when the day is done, as long as I've held to my values and been true to my family and my God, it won't matter what anyone else thinks. — Dave Checketts

To be the leading man it's about the celebrity and the looks, and it's tough to do that. People who do it great are people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith - they're built for that. I ain't. I'm more of a character guy. — Jamie Foxx

So many people comment that I'm much more mature than average. In this business, you can get taken advantage of if you're not aware and you're not tough. — Amanda Bynes

Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them.
Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around?
That's Montana. — Sherman Alexie

He actually does the opposite. He says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."1 If Jesus wanted to grow a church, didn't he know telling people they need to daily pick up an instrument of torture, death, and shame wasn't the way to do it? Jesus opposed the pharisaical legalism of his time, but he also opposed the watered-down, flimsy, cultural religion. He was essentially saying, "I know my miracles are awesome. I know I have immense power. But don't follow me for the wrong reason. The cost is high. The road to follow me is tough, it's painful, it hurts, and you might even face death, but I promise there is joy on the other side. Do you want in? — Jefferson Bethke

Some people think a martial artist has to be tough against everybody - that's not true at all. A martial artist has to be strong against bad people. But we must also be able to know and understand the feelings, moods and mentalities of good and bad individuals before we can comprehend when to be strong and when to be gentle. — Tsutomu Ohshima

I wanna be in action movies, I wanna be the tough guy ... I wanna scare people. — Richard Schiff

The people who really know me understand that I have a tough exterior, but I'm actually just a hippie at heart. — Erin Wasson

The only time I get sick of making people laugh is when I'm in a non-writing-joke mode, and I just can't seem to come up with anything new that's funny. That's a tough place to be as a comedian. — Bill Burr

I think that when you're kind of just shoved out there and you have to be tough and you're facing tough people and people are saying bad things about you, that all of a sudden, you have to become a little less sweet. — Farrah Fawcett

Why me? Why did this happen? How could I be in Westlife and then have nothing to show for it financially at the end of it? But it's like, why not me? That's just life. It's tough. There's a lot more problems in the world. There are a lot of people who would wish to God they had my problem instead of having a sick child. — Shane Filan

I want people to know that I am tough on illegal immigration and we are working to provide needed border security. — David Dreier

To be thoroughly lazy is a tough job,
but somebody has to do it.
Industrious people build industry.
Lazy people build civilization. — Kazuaki Tanahashi

People don't realize that one picture for you is just one picture. But for me, I take a thousand pictures a day. That adds up. It's tough getting somewhere on time when you have to stop that much. — Chumlee

Kind of," I said, "still, think about this. Everyone's built the same. It's like we're all riding together on a broken airplane. Of course there are lucky people, there are also unlucky people. There're tough people, and weak people, rich people, and poor people. However, not a single person's broken the mold with his toughness. We're all the same. Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll want to get stronger. Even if you're just pretending. Don't you think? — Haruki Murakami

When people come to me and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face the next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off. — Geoffrey Rush

I don't want to stop legal immigration to this country. In fact, I would like to reform and increase immigration in some important ways. Our current immigration laws are upside down - they make it tough on the people we need to have here, and easy for the people we don't want here. This country is a magnet for many of the smartest, hardest-working people born in other countries, yet we make it difficult for these bright people who follow the laws to settle here. — Donald J. Trump

Change is always preceded by a little pain. Some people can change and they don't have to go through so many painful things. But I think that I'm of a personality that I'm a little stubborn, so it's tough for me. — Mel Gibson

The personality problem is so tough when you're not able to pay people. It's bad enough when you can pay people, but, when you have people working for free, often their motivation is diminished considerably. — John Badham

I love how my sport reaches out to people with the music and story lines, the glory of standing up for three or four minutes of tough, arduous, gravity-defying skating and all the stuff that goes with it. — Kurt Browning

There's a vulnerability about Rose, even a sweetness in her eyes, but there's no mistaking her priorities. Smart, tough, determined, she is essential, but rarely the dog that people melt over or want to take home. Yet she's a great dog. — Jon Katz

People have no idea how physically tough doing a film is. — Ridley Scott

Part of living, part of becoming a wise man or a wise woman, is to get to that point where you can have a friend for whom you are genuinely happy when he or she has a success. That's tough. Very few people get to that point. With writers it's next to impossible. You can't really bless a writer who's as good as yourself. — Norman Mailer

Freelancing is tough. It can be very difficult, in fact. It can wear people down, making them lose sight of what they used to love because they have to do everything else just to get by. — Mason Hipp

My job is to get people back to work and make tough decisions. I've been willing to do it. — Rick Scott

People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. — S.I. Hayakawa

God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man. — Darrin Patrick

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think. — Brene Brown

As we weep for what we have lost, and as we grieve for family and friends and we confront the challenge that is before us, I want us to remember who we are. We are Queenslanders. We're the people that they breed tough, north of the border. We're the ones that they knock down, and we get up again. — Anna Bligh

You have to love what you do. Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn't passionate about what they're doing. People who love what they're doing don't give up. It's never even a consideration. It's a pretty simple formula. — Donald Trump

Some people make a bad bed, they just have to lie in it. — Virginia Euwer Wolff

I don't think I am that tough, actually. Well, tough in the sense that I don't take any rubbish, and that doesn't make me very popular, frankly. I mean, because some people say something to me, and I just tell them off. I mean, why should I put up with it? — Zaha Hadid

Joe Jackson is a great man. The problem that people have with my father is that he tells it like it is. He's just straight up and doesn't beat around the bush. Tough love. — Tito Jackson

Hard times don't last, darlin'. But hard people do. You gotta hang tough. — Julie Ann Walker

Tough times never last, but tough people do. — Robert H. Schuller

It was the world of Southern, rural, black growing up, of folks sitting on porches day and night, of folks calling your mama, 'cause you walked by and didn't speak, and of the switch waiting when you got home so that you could be taught some manners. It was a world of single black older women schoolteachers, dedicated, tough; they had taught your mama, her sisters, and her friends. They knew your people in ways that you never would and shared their insight, keeping us in touch with generations. It was a world where we had a history. — Bell Hooks

the invention of beer. Picture a bucket of barley left to soak overnight to soften the tough outer husk. Wild yeast would have found its way into the bucket, and someone would have thought to taste the strange, foamy mixture that resulted from the yeast going to work on all those sugars. There it was: beer! Yeasty, bubbly, mildly intoxicating beer. The priorities of people in the waning years of the Stone Age must have undergone a rapid reshuffling as society organized itself around the need to reproduce this glorious mishap on a larger scale. — Amy Stewart

I'm a little too belligerent. I cuss and swear at people. I yell at umpires and maybe I'm a little to tough at home sometimes. I don't sign as many autographs as I should and I haven't always been that good with writers. — Thurman Munson

The real difficulty for smaller films, when they're made independently and it's time to go for a distributor, sometimes if it's a tough film and the people who financed it need their money back right away, it's much easier and lucrative to take a DVD deal. — Willem Dafoe

On a film crew, you can see very quickly that some people who are working with you are stronger than you. Then you have to have the humility to listen to them. And because very often they have better ideas than yours, it can be tough on the evil ego. But it makes a better film. — Denis Villeneuve

I always am a firm believer in you compensate people for their job, and so I did give them bonuses. We accomplished a lot in Congress, we passed health care reform. There were threats against their lives; they had a tough two years. They'd forgone any cost-of-living increase or any bonus before. — John Salazar

When people write things on the Internet about me that aren't true, it's tough to deal with. Even if you're the most mellow person in the world, stuff like that bothers you eventually. — Phillip Phillips

For most people, attaining the intellectual clarity and emotional detachment that investing requires is tough. — Guy Spier

Thanks, Molly. It's been a tough night. Some idiot's started selling Metamorph-Medals. Just sling them around your neck and you'll be able to change your appearance at will. A hundred thousand disguises, all for ten Galleons!" "And what really happens when you put them on?" "Mostly you just turn a fairly unpleasant orange color, but a couple of people have also sprouted tentaclelike warts all over their bodies. As if St. Mungo's didn't have enough to do already! — J.K. Rowling

Looking back, I remember my family laughing a lot. We were never the kind of people that dwelled on hard times. My family laughs when things are tough. Growing up like that, I got used to making jokes about things that were difficult. So when I started doing stand-up, that's what I went towards. — Cristela Alonzo

It's sad. There's a lot about this industry that a lot of people don't know about and don't find out about. There are a lot of tough things and trials and stuff that you're faced with. Sometimes, God has other plans for people. Sometimes bands can't stick through it. It depends on the situation. Keep praying for the bands that you like, seriously, because a lot of things will try to get in the way of being together. We've been blessed with not deal with those yet, but if we ever did ... ? — Trevor McNevan

I'm just one woman away, my mother, from being the same as Mike Tyson. I would've ended up like him if my mama had not been so tough and strong. A lot of people, including Mike, don't know I came from the ghetto. They think I'm too nice and proper. But that's the way my mama raised me - to look people in the eye and respect them. — Evander Holyfield

I'm not perfect, I'm not an angel, but I try to live a certain way because it brings honour and respect to my mother. I tell people that when they look at me, they're looking at nothing but a big, overgrown, tough mama's boy. That's who I am. — Mr. T

Kids are tough sometimes. There are moments when I'm so frustrated and don't feel like we understand each other. When I hit a moment like this and words of aggravation are on the tip of my tongue, this is what I say to myself:
You have been given the unbelievable honor of taking care of and loving the next generation of people. Your work with them is hands down the most important work you'll ever do. Think about how many people these children will come in contact with in their life time. The messages and love you give them or don't give them will be your voice in the future. Think about that when you're aggravated or tired. Every word you speak over them matters. Your voice and the unspoken energy you're sending them are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Speak to them as if they are Kings and Queens and you are on stage in front of thousands of people -because that's how they deserve to be treated.
Give them the best of you. — Brooke Hampton

People hand over the power to you withimmense faith. It's your job to ensure tough implementation of laws. — Raj Thackeray

People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom. — Gary Vaynerchuk

We are neck and neck but there will be a very - it will be a very tough campaign in the last ten days. We must be very open and sincere with the Greek people. They should know what they could really expect. I think all of these old political logic is dead. We have to be honest, open and determined to get the Greeks out of this crisis. — Dora Bakoyannis

I never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish. — Nora Roberts

So, I guess people figure it's not as hard to lose your mother when you never got along anyway. But they're wrong. They're dead wrong. It's always hard to lose your mother. Always. If you loved her, if you hated her. If she smothered you, if she ignored you. It doesn't matter. She's your mother. Your mother. That's just a very tough bond to break. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

I've been a prima-donna. I was taken care of since I was 13. That's why I am the way I am today. I was spoiled, like a brat. I had anything I wanted. That's crazy to be that way all your life. Everybody's taking care of you, but manipulating you at the same time. Very few people have a life like that. Most people have to work like slaves their whole lives. I've never had a job in my life. What I know how to do is hurt big, tough men - in the street and off — Mike Tyson

For there are fashions in myth, and the world-conquering West of the nineteenth century needed a philosophy of life in which realpolitik - victory for the tough people who face the bleak facts - was the guiding principle. Thus the bleaker the facts you face, the tougher you seem to be. — Alan W. Watts