Tougher Quotes & Sayings

The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough. — Joe Strummer

People who ought to die of shock and exposure don't die of shock and exposure, et cetera, et cetera. The human frame is tougher than one can imagine possible. Moreover, in my experience, a physical shock is more often fatal than a mental shock. — Agatha Christie

However, if you fail to prepare, you will either go through stress to win your race or you may quit when the battle becomes tougher than you ever imagined. — Israelmore Ayivor

I feel reviewers are tougher on comedies in general. They don't take them seriously, and the ones that get great reviews are not necessarily the ones that I like. — Bobby Farrelly

Explore your limits and get to know yourself. You'll never feel more real than after the hardest workout, the longest run, the toughest week, or the best race of your life. Constantly make your own standards tougher. — Luke Watson

I thought you needed to be tougher. But I've been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn't the kind of protecting that anybody wants. — Holly Black

To continue to be one of the world centres for scientific research, we have to stand up and be counted in support of researchers, go on marches and demonstrations, and back even tougher action by the police and the courts against these terrorists. — Jack Straw

What happened to your face?" Blue asked.
Adam shrugged ruefully. Either he or Ronan smelled like a parking garage. His voice was self-deprecating. "Do you think it makes me look tougher?"
What it did was make him look more fragile and dirty, somehow, like a teacup unearthed from the soil, but Blue didn't say that.
Ronan said, "It makes you look like a loser."
"Ronan," said Gansey.
"I need everyone to sit down!" shouted Maura. — Maggie Stiefvater

It's the rule of the wilds. You must be bigger, and stronger, and tougher. A coldness radiates through me, a solid wall that is growing, piece by piece, in my chest. He doesn't love me. He never loved me. It was all a lie. "The old Lena is dead." I say, and then push past him. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone. You must hurt or be hurt. — Lauren Oliver

A housewife deserves to be honored as much as a woman who earns her living in the marketplace. I consider bringing up children a responsible job. In fact, being a good housewife seems to me a much tougher job than going to the office and getting paid for it. — Betty Ford

The world is a tougher place to live in than it was back then, as we come into the computer age. — Joe Cocker

Mentally than the other guy, and you're tougher mentally because — John Grisham

The thing is the game is getting tougher and tougher and we have to ask a lot of our bodies. — Amelie Mauresmo

I think the tougher the challenge the better. — Jim Otto

I just read that one scene for Emily in New Moon, and it was pretty simple and straightforward. They liked that I did it really natural. They were like, "That was great!," even with what little I had. Sometimes just having those little scenes are a lot tougher than if you have five pages because you have to go from 0 to 100 in a snap. — Tinsel Korey

A show that no one thought had a chance has just finished its fifth year: Charmed. I think it's tougher for the younger networks, so I think they have a little more patience for the sake of the show. But who knows? — Aaron Spelling

If we don't make tough decisions today our children are going to have to make much, much tougher decisions tomorrow. — Paul Ryan

In fact, writing for younger adults is tougher. They remember everything and if they spot a problem, they'll be sure to let you know. — Michael Scott

No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a legend. It would be even tougher to marry one. — Tallulah Bankhead

The tougher the problem, the sweeter the victory — Sunday Adelaja

She blames herself. I hurt from knowing that I hurt her. Even when we know all of these other people are to blame. My friends. The media. Not her. Not me.

I can't help myself. I continue the cycle and I say, "I don't want to hurt you."

Lily is quiet for a moment before she says, "I'm tougher than you think. You just need to believe in me. You know, like a fairy."

I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. The jubilant chorus from Peter Pan fills my ears.

I look up at her, tears in both our eyes. Is that how we end this? I trust that I can share my grief with her and that she won't crumble beneath the pain?

She nods to me like go on. I can handle it. — Becca Ritchie & Kristia Ritchie

If you absolutely love it more than anything in the world, don't give up. You gotta keep working hard because it's a lot tougher than it looks. — Riker Lynch

You have to be tougher. You have to learn the way to beat your path through, to make yourself felt, and make yourself necessary. — Grace Coddington

Tennis was never work for me, tennis was fun. And the tougher the battle and the longer the match, the more fun I had. — Jimmy Connors

Pseudoscience is almost always recognizable from a distance, and easy to confirm on close examination. Science is, however, not immune from hubris, and bad science can be tougher to spot. Those of us who make a living from science or science media must display scientific integrity. We must constantly test our assumptions and fight the siren song of consensus when our data tells us to be contrarian. We must remain independent of political or religious bias in evaluating our work. We must admit when we are wrong, and remain willing to evolve when verifiable data demands change. We must admit when we are uncertain, remain humble in advances, and offer courageous and independent advice grounded in science. — K. Lee Lerner

Hard times only feel bad. In truth, they serve us so very well. They make us tougher. They connect us to our dormant potential. Yes, they make us feel uncomfortable. Yes, they create confusion within our minds and provoke fear within our hearts. But the reality of the matter is that the conditions that challenge us the most are the very conditions that lead to our greatest growth. And to our most fulfilling achievements. — Robin S. Sharma

It's funny, our beauty standard has become harder and tougher because we live in a tough age. I don't think anyone wants to walk down the street and feel vulnerable. You want to walk down the street and feel like you're in control. — Tom Ford

The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body. — Henry David Thoreau

To resist the social pressure now put even on one's leisure time, requires a tougher upbringing and a more obstinate willfulness about going one's own way, than ever before. — Robert Graves

Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are the hardest to cope with in silence. Once asked they do not evaporate and leave the mind to its serener musings. Once asked they gain dimension and texture, trip you on the stairs, wake you at night-time. A black hole sucks up its surroundings and even light never escapes. Better then to ask no questions? Better then to be a contented pig than an unhappy Socrates? Since factory farming is tougher on pigs than it is on philosophers I'll take a chance. — Jeanette Winterson

Victory in physical battles requires strength, muscles, and skill; but the fight is never tougher and victory is never sweeter than in the battles over self. — John Bytheway

The best, most successful managers in the modern era are those who can keep a player happy even if he is not in the team. Given the size of the squads and the use of rotation nowadays, that's tougher than it's ever been. — Gary Lineker

I always thought security was a joke at New York airports, and in U.S. airports to begin with. You can go through any European or Middle Eastern airport and things are a lot tougher. — Richard Drew

That is the rule of the Wilds: You must be bigger and stronger and tougher. You must hurt or be hurt. — Lauren Oliver

I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the tougher job. He has to set up the jokes in just the right way. — Michael Dirda

It's a tough world to find yourself in, but an even tougher one to be yourself in — Chris Colfer

The only thing I have no control over is the politics that goes on within the record company. It's always been the same, but it's far tougher now, because record companies are run by financial people; before, they were run by creative people. — Enrique Iglesias

The earlier stuff is more like "this is happening to me," but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don't know where that voice comes from, like, "I've been down the road, we've been there and done that." That's sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style. — Stephen Malkmus

It's true that we can't help the circumstances we're born into and some of us start out in a much tougher place than other people. But just because we started there doesn't mean we have to end there. — Michael Oher

One trouble with growing old is that it gets progressively tougher to find a famous historical figure, who didn't amount to much when he was your age. — E.W. Howe

It's not about the powers, man; it's that we aren't kids anymore. Look what we've been
through. Look what we've done. Look at yourself, surfer dude. We've done something none of our
parents have even come close to. We didn't take over their boring world; we took over a world about a
thousand times tougher. If we walk out of this alive, we won't have to bow our heads to anyone. — Michael Grant

I have ideas of subjects and atmospheres that I love. I either want to go in a tougher, stronger direction or do the opposite: simple ballads. — Charlotte Gainsbourg

It's okay.' I rubbed my stomach.'These abs have been known to bring down much tougher girls. I won't tell anyone you want me. — Nyrae Dawn

New York City is a very tough place. I'm tough, too. When people give me a punch in the nose, I react by getting even tougher. — Ivana Trump

I don't think Wayne Rooney would be affected if you booed him, that's just how he is, but others go under. They really suffer with it. I think I'm somewhere in the middle ... now. I've become tougher as I've got older. — Frank Lampard

There is no tougher job in corporate America than running an airline: Despite the huge amounts of equity capital that have been injected into it, the industry, in aggregate, has posted a net loss since its birth after Kitty Hawk. Airline managers need brains, guts, and experience - and — Warren Buffett

There remains a natural career progression even though the tougher job climate seeks to delay it. — Miles Anthony Smith

Tougher'n a boiled owl. — Stephen King

What saved me was that I found gentle, loyal and hilarious companions, which is at the heart of meaning: maybe we don't find a lot of answers to life's tougher questions, but if we find a few true friends, that's even better. They help you see who you truly are, which is not always the loveliest possible version of yourself, but then comes the greatest miracle of all - they still love you. They keep you company as perhaps you become less of a whiny baby, if you accept their help. — Anne Lamott

Everybody said I was good, but being known and not having a big film success is almost tougher than being completely new. It just kind of turned my life around and was definitely a highlight. — Jack Nicholson

I like both athletic girls and girly girls. It depends on their personality. I like girls who can go out and play sports with me and throw the football around, but you don't want a girl who's too much tougher than you. I like brainy girls who can respond to what I'm saying. — Josh Hutcherson

When it's one animal, you really do have a tougher time because you've gotta commit to story structures that maybe are difficult to find the range in the animal to tell those stories. There are only so many things they do, if they're living in the natural world, that we can appreciate. There are plenty of things that they do that we don't appreciate. — David Douglas

I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think. — Maurice Sendak

Shoes made of glass? That wouldn't be very safe,' the man said. 'They're actually midnight crystal. Much tougher than glass and, thanks to a clear polymer lining that adapts to the shape of your foot, a lot softer too. Glass shoes would just be silly. — Justin Richards

In my experience sometimes the darker the material that you're doing, the more necessary it is to have some sort of levity around. I've worked on more lighthearted pieces that have been more brutal and tougher to make. — Nick Stahl

A tough life can be defeated only by the tougher person! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I think for a film that has real theatrical potential a sales agent is key. For a film that may find it tougher in the American marketplace, such as many of the docs in the world competition that may not be competing for deals - any subtitled film has a harder time in this marketplace - for those films I don't know that a sales agent necessarily helps for the kinds of smaller deals that may or may not be offered. — Thom Powers

I've learned ... That life is tough, but I'm tougher. — Andy Rooney

See that's where you're wrong baby. When you find your man, it's almost too easy. Gettin' married and havin' a mortgage, kids and a business to run and findin' a way to stay in love day in day out, that's the tougher part. But the beginning' ... that parts easy as pie. That's why they call it fallin' because it happens before you have time to stop yourself. — Rachel Hollis

Legal immigration is a much tougher group of people to stereotype and to identify as potential new Democrat voters. — Rush Limbaugh

There is nothing nicer than playing someone who is cooler, tougher, more virtuous and sexier than yourself and thinking, 'I can be anyone.' — Jason Isaacs

One thing I've always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they'll tell you, 'We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.' — Bill Gates

The farther down the road you go the tougher they get and I live at the end of the road! — Edward L. Morse

It's tough to change friends, and it's even tougher to admit when a friendship has run its course, but it can be an important part of growth, too. Friends come and go and, when you change, oftentimes the things you have in common are no longer in alignment, especially if those things are of a time-wasting or unhealthy nature. We have a finite amount of time - the most valuable resource on this planet - and you have 100 percent control over how that time gets spent. Surround yourself with people who want you to be better, and you will see yourself start to level up faster than ever before. — Steve Kamb

With female-oriented movies, unless it's something like 'Bridesmaids' or a romantic comedy, you've got to really worry about your opening weekend. And I'm always telling stories about women, not younger women, and it's just a much tougher audience to get to the movie theater. — Callie Khouri

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough.
But I was tougher. — Judy Blundell

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that I was going to need a lot of help, and for a long time. (Even this morning.) What saved me was that I found gentle, loyal and hilarious companions, which is at the heart of meaning: maybe we don't find a lot of answers to life's tougher questions, but if we find a few true friends, that's even better. — Anne Lamott

Contemporary cultures present no tougher challenges to Christianity than did the fall of Rome, the collapse of the medieval synthesis, the breakup of the unity of Christendom in the sixteenth century, or the French Enlightenment. Christian teaching today must be pursued amid a similar collapse of modern assumptions. — Thomas C. Oden

I know that it's easier to portray a world that's filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence. What's a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show that you can have a positive impact on your world. To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder. — Jim Henson

When things are tough, you get tougher. — Chrissie Wellington

There were a lot of gifted amateurs in my day. Most of the kids now play fantastically well. I think there are so many bands around now who might get there, but it's a tougher journey. — Nick Mason

Phoenix was a tougher record, a little more commercially accessible record. — Dan Fogelberg

I go wild on a stage. Some folks have measured us an image. They pretend us to be saints. And that image is much tougher to keep up with. Because that's not who we are. — Donnie Wahlberg

Life is tough - and you have to be tougher than life to change the world. — Sebastian Pinera

I would like Obama to be tougher on going up against the Republicans, I don't think he should try to be so moderate. — Rose McGowan

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else. — Bette Davis

However, the economics of our business continued to deteriorate. We barely escaped bankruptcy a year ago, and in the aftermath of that escape we had to make some even tougher decisions. — Gerard Arpey

I've come to realize we're all two different people. Our younger, innocent self that's inevitably mangled along the highway of life, and our tougher adult personal that evolves from the wreckage. — Phil Stern

I like to wear less make-up and be tougher. The primp stuff is exciting for people, but it's less exciting for me. It's definitely fun, but I like low maintenance. — Maggie Q

As if one tiny choice by someone unimportant could make that much difference! History had to be a bit tougher than that. It all sprang back eventually, didn't it? He was sure he'd read something about that, somewhere. If it wasn't like that, no one would ever dare do anything. — Terry Pratchett

You will attract the younger generation and they might well prove tougher than the older generation. What we are trying to do is to look at the future and see what we can do to bring some stability back to people's lives. — Ian Botham

What I love about Indiana Jones is he always bites off slightly more than he can chew. The guy he's fighting is always slightly tougher than he is, but he just refuses to give up. And that's what makes Indiana Jones a hero: not his superpowers, but his refusal to be beaten. — Neil Cross

We have come to the edge of the abyss and now it is time for a bold step forward. There is a political view that the tougher you are, the more credible you are. — Ed Balls

The ventures that keep things light and fun, easy to understand, that have a compelling story, a sexy retail product, will have an easier time getting people to rally around them and contribute. A start-up doing something that's difficult to communicate or doesn't offer any kind of retail product will have a tougher go at it. — Jessica Jackley

As a director, you're a bit of a dictator. But I feel that you're a better director if you're open to other people's ideas. It means that it's tougher: you have to be in a choosing process; you have to put the ego aside. As long as everybody's aiming in the same direction ... I'm open to my main partners in the film crew. — Denis Villeneuve

As a child there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one ... each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment. — Mark Lawrence

I think America needs lots of tough people. Not just me. I think America needs to get tougher, all of us. — Chris Christie

Do you ever think that people who find it tougher to say what they're feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they're the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose? — Claire Cross

My past is not pleasant; I grew up in a very tough town, Waterbury, Connecticut. I grew up in New York, too, but Waterbury was tougher. — Dylan McDermott

Maintaining marriage seems to be tougher than fatherhood: apparently it's the most difficult thing in the world. — Kelly Slater

We need to do more to conserve fuel or face tougher choices such as steep price increase or even quantitative restrictions. — Veerappa Moily

I'm like a bumper car. When I did an infomercial I was fodder for every TV comedy show. I couldn't get a job. People said I was a huge joke. I've been a joke so many times. I've been on my way out since I started, but I'm strong-willed. My mother is so much tougher than I am and my grandmother is so much tougher than my mother. — Cher

I fucking messed up. I fucked up. I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't important. Kenny leaned back. He didn't seem in the least bothered by Jett's outburst - they had remained friends through tougher shit than that. — J.C. Reed

The harder they resist us, the tougher will be our response. — Sergei Udaltsov

I have read a great deal about what animals dream, but none of it has ever really satisfied me. I believe they dream exactly the way we dream, and about everything in their lives
that they have good dreams and bad dreams in almost direct proportion, as we do, to whether their lives have been more good than bad. Unfortunately, because the majority of animals have it so much tougher than we do, I believe that the majority of dreams, except in the most fortunate petdom, are bad. — Cleveland Amory

I would love the chance to ask follow-up questions of Susan Rice because David Gregory apparently did not avail himself of that opportunity. Greta, I just listened to the clip - I get tougher questions in the Bojangles drive-through than he asked her. — Trey Gowdy

Time will scar my wound and I'll emerge from my fugue tougher, if not healed. — Karen Marie Moning

I was born 'Harmony,' and it was weird because when I was a little kid, I was picked on so much that when I was 13, I changed my name to Harmful. I thought it was a tougher name, so I had it legally changed. And then, I don't know, it just didn't seem to catch on, so ... legally, my name is still Harmful, but I just said I'll go back to Harmony. — Harmony Korine

A heart's a heart, in a child or a man. You are tougher than you feel right now. Your roots are deep, your canopy's spread wide. You're going to show everyone what it means to be a king. — Shannon Hale

There is no tougher job in America than being a cop on the beat in a major city in this country, big and brawling. — Mark Shields