Conquer Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Conquer. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.
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Bette Midler
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Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?" "Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?" "Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart.
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Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
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When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
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Nelson Mandela
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Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
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Ben Okri
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Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: - I shall not fear anyone on Earth. - I shall fear only God. - I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Patience is a conquering virtue.
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Geoffrey Chaucer
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When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.
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Fred Rogers
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Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.
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Rabindranath Tagore (Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore)
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I ask not for any crown But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within.
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Louisa May Alcott
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I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.
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Woody Allen
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I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.
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Aristotle
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If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.
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Amit Ray (Om Chanting and Meditation)
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I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own. It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.
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David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
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History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?
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Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
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I am very happy Because I have conquered myself And not the world. I am very happy Because I have loved the world And not myself.
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Sri Chinmoy
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Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault.
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Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
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...for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.
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Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
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Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
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Bertrand Russell (Unpopular Essays)
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Neither love nor evil conquers all, but evil cheats more.
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Laurell K. Hamilton (Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #11))
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Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
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Gaius Julius Caesar
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Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth. [Verse 223]
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Gautama Buddha (The Dhammapada)
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...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
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William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury)
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Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.
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Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
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Unconditional Love conquers all!
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Aimee Cabo Nikolov (Love is the Answer God is the Cure)
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His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, His hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he's really divine, The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2))
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Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Hocus Pocus)
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She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings.Β 
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Atticus Poetry (Love Her Wild)
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To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacles.
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T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
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The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
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William Blake
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I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
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Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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RenΓ© Descartes
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Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
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Oliver Goldsmith (She Stoops to Conquer)
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If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.
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Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad)
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There is no denying that there is evil in this world but the light will always conquer the darkness.
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Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
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A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.
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Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
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It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
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Voltaire
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Sometimes I have the urge to conquer large parts of Europe.
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Patricia Briggs (Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega, #1))
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Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.
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Mae West
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No one knows what you have been through or what your pretty little eyes have seen, but I can reassure you ~ whatever you have conquered, it shines through your mind.
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Nikki Rowe
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There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.
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Charles Baudelaire
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The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete... Remember, to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person might not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
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Bob Moorehead (Words Aptly Spoken)
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A woman laughing is a woman conquered.
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NapolΓ©on Bonaparte (In the Words of Napoleon: A Collection of Quotations of Napoleon Bonaparte (English and French Edition))
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I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do ...
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Eleanor Roosevelt
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One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.
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Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
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VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI. By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the Universe.
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Alan Moore (V for Vendetta #2)
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We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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Happiness is like those palaces in fairytales whose gates are guarded by dragons: We must fight in order to conquer it.
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Alexandre Dumas
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It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.
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Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
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That kind of love should've been able to beat sickness. That kind of love should've conquered anything.
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Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
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You are so confident," he says to me. "You're stubborn and resilient. So brave. So strong. So inhumanly beautiful. You could conquer the world.
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Tahereh Mafi (Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2))
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To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.
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Adolf Hitler
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He seemed very pleased with himself for surviving a near-death experience. I could practically hear him chanting to himself: I overcame. I conquered. I’m a man etc etc.
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Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
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Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?
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Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets/Cien sonetos de amor)
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So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.
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Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
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Amor vincit omnia, et nos cedamus amori. Love conquers all things, so we too shall yield to love.
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Virgil (Eclogues)
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One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.
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Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
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He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty" - Lao-tsu
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Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
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Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one β€” himself. Better to conquer yourself than others. When you've trained yourself, living in constant self-control, neither a deva nor gandhabba, nor a Mara banded with Brahmas, could turn that triumph back into defeat.
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Gautama Buddha
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When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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If you conquer yourself, then you conquer the world
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Paulo Coelho (Aleph)
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You have two choices, to conquer your fear or to let your fear conquer you.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
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NapolΓ©on Bonaparte
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Like Alexander the Great and Caesar, I’m out to conquer the world. But first I have to stop at Walmart and pick up some supplies.
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Jarod Kintz (The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.)
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He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.
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Confucius
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The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.
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Neal Shusterman (Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1))
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In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are.
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Robert Louis Stevenson
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Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
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Eleanor Roosevelt
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The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.
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Dalai Lama XIV
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Love can conquer everything but reality. Which will win every stinking time.
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J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
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Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.
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Terence McKenna
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An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.
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Madalyn Murray O'Hair
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Over time, any deception destroys intimacy, and without intimacy couples cannot have true and lasting love.
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Bonnie Eaker Weil (Financial Infidelity: Seven Steps to Conquering the #1 Relationship Wrecker)
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Our thoughts make us what we are.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a fury slinging flame. Be near me when my faith is dry, And men the flies of latter spring, That lay their eggs, and sting and sing And weave their petty cells and die. Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day.
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Alfred Tennyson (In Memoriam)
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There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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No matter what happens, always be yourself.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw stars.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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A broken friendship that is mended through forgiveness can be even stronger than it once was.
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Stephen Richards (Forgiveness and Love Conquers All: Healing the Emotional Self (Inspiration Mini-Series))
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the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry (Dale Carnegie Books))
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When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it,or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance. I am very certain now that, as I said therein, if I truly become what I wish to be, the burden will fall away. The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one’s whole being, is that you alone control nothing.
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Henry Miller (A Literate Passion: Letters of AnaΓ―s Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953)
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I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.
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Chanel Miller (Know My Name: A Memoir)
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Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
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Robert A. Heinlein
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You can even say that I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or maybe just plain too ugly ... you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I couldn't conquer these feelings by acting indecisive. I found the only way to get the better of them was by adopting a forceful, concentrated drive.
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Audrey Hepburn
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An enemy, Ender Wiggin," whispered the old man. "I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher.
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Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
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The struggles we endure today will be the β€˜good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
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Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
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Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.
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Joe Abercrombie (Red Country)
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Each of us will have our own Fridaysβ€”those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered deathβ€”Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.
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Joseph B. Wirthlin
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Earthlings, full of diversity, generally weren't hostile toward each other. The Earth was like a big insect jar. Insects put into a jar together tended not to fight unless the jar was agitated enough. If the jar owners put different types of ants in the same jar without agitating their habitat enough, they might just work together to overthrow the jar owners and build a happy society where everyone was equal and free. And we can't have that. Gotta keep shakin' that jar.
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Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
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THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated
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Thomas Paine (The Crisis)
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Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.
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Martin Luther
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I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
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Charlie Chaplin
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The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest wish increases, until it subsumes the cosmos. Finally, the mind breaks the bounding sphere of the cosmos to a realization transcending all experiences of form - all symbolizations, all divinities: a realization of the ineluctable void.
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Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces)
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Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
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Emma Goldman (Marriage and Love)
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All men fear death. It’s a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman’s heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal. I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. Until it returns, as it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it.
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Woody Allen
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I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
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John Adams (The Letters of John and Abigail Adams)
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This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!
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William Shakespeare (Richard II)
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Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is. When I was a child, I didn't understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn't comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite--I'd be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn't have access to the body's emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology. It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again.
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David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))