Hardship Friendship Quotes

Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.

I am not a believer in love at first sight. For love, in its truest form, is not the thing of starry-eyed or star-crossed lovers, it is far more organic, requiring nurturing and time to fully bloom, and, as such, seen best not in its callow youth but in its wrinkled maturity. Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion–one of loyalty and divine friendship. Agape. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity, it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and time–while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to find the next real thing.

Don't underestimate the power of friendship. Those bonds are tight stitches that close up the holes you might otherwise fall through.

I didn't care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn't fun to watch.

Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.

Yuuko, speaking to Fai: To all the young ones in your group, you are no longer someone who passes through their lives and is forgotten. You have become someone very important to them. Your hardships are their hardships too.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

When words can't make it better, hold my hand and don't let go.

You brought me your darkness & I loved you with the radiant tears of a thousand suns.

I learnt my best lessons from some of the worst people & I look back now and think thank fuck I let you go, I deserved to grow.

A friend is someone who will always be there for you, in good and hard times.

Once employed, the employed's friends are reduced to creatures that he only sees when he has a new problem, or, something new to show off.

Everybody on this planet shares a handful of universal emotional realities: ambition, shame, alienation, loneliness, achievement, regret, hardship, friendship, love, heartbreak. We’ve all experienced it. The facts change, the feelings are the same.

Life’s gonna kick you in the butt; that’s what it does. But if you gotta put up with this crap, the least you can expect is that your friends will stand by you. I mean, for crying in the night, what else are friends for but to help you make right what isn’t in life? (Kira, The Mishmorat)

Perhaps there really is a good that exists; for a century of darkness to be eschewed by a single flame; for a decade of evil done to the heart to be undone by simple and unplanned acts of kindness! There must be a goodness, after all! But we don't find it when we're looking for it; not in church, not in a cathedral, not even in our own homes! We find it when we've fallen down so hard, are downtrodden so low; and there is one true friend who picks us up; or one random person who takes us in! And we realize goodness was never in the places we thought it was! It was all along in the most humble of places: bound up in the heart of a true friend.

I can love what is broken.

Some friendships are born of commonality. Others of proximity. And some friendships, often the unlikely ones, are born of survival. Rafa and his friend are comrades of hardship. They refuse to speak of the boys’ home in Barcelona. It was not a “home.” It was a hellhole, a slaughterhouse of souls. The “brothers” and “matrons” who ran the institution took pleasure in the humiliation of children. The mere memory is poison.

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement— all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual... The greatest scientific deed of her life—proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them—owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed.

Some teach you what can't be taught, by turning their back on you & helping you get internally closer to everything you externally sought.

She is intent on pleasing the men that frighten her.

You’re my prey tonight.

And they lived happily ever after” is one of the most tragic sentences in literature. It is tragic because it tells a falsehood about life and has led countless generations of people to expect something from human existence which is not possible on this fragile, imperfect earth. The “happy ending” obsession of Western culture is both a romantic illusions and a psychological handicap. It can never be literally true that love and marriage are unblemished perfections, for any worthwhile life has its trials, its disappointments, and its burning heartaches. Yet who can compare the numbers of people who have unconsciously absorbed this “and they lived happily ever after” illusion in their childhood and have thereafter been disappointed when life has not come up to their expectations and who secretly suffer from the jealous conviction that other married people know a kind of bliss that is denied them..Life is not paradise. It is pain, hardship, and temptation shot through with radiant gleams of light, friendship and love.

Welcome to Sex Media, Where Fantasy Becomes Reality!

The feeling of warmth and security, family and friendship. Laughter in grief. The feeling that imagination could overcome every hardship if you just tried hard enough.

Be you, be yourself, be happy again. Don’t let life pass by you. Don’t look back, look into the bright future. The future is as bright as the promise of God. Smile – it’s the most beautiful attire.

When you speak, be sure of what you are speaking. Don't be rambling full of words that have no integrity or truth. Nobody wants to confide in you when they doubt what you say. If you are filled with untruths, those characteristics make it hard for anyone to believe in you.

Nothing in her life makes sense. All she craves is for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together again. She is sure one day it will happen. She just doesn’t know when. She can’t fight injustice alone – for that, she needs her friends.

We all have our own road to walk. Whether rocky, curving, straight or smooth, what good is a lonely road? It’s when we run and intersect with other roads that defines our road. When road meets road do we get direction, and choices to cross into another life.

He is polite; the perfect gentleman at first. Yet she knows his kindness is an act he performs for himself to justify what he’s about to do.

The loudest silence is camera silence.

This is no place for limits.

I want him now and always, and I want our always to start right now.

When the well's nearly dry and you're not sure you have the strength to persevere, fill up on love and friendship, then take another step, and then another, until you reach your goal.

But love wasn't a spell, some kind of benediction to be whispered, a balm or a cure-all. It was a single, fragile thread, which grew stronger through connection, through shared hardship and honored trust.

Exercise helps the body grow. Enigmas help the mind grow. Hardship helps the heart grow. Goodness helps the soul grow. Pain helps the body grow. Riddles help the mind grow. Loss helps the heart grow. Temptations help the soul grow. Sleep helps the body grow. Reading helps the mind grow. Laughter helps the heart grow. Prayer helps the soul grow. Food helps the body grow. Work helps the mind grow. Friendships help the heart grow. Meditation helps the soul grow. Rest helps the body grow. Wisdom helps the mind grow. Joy helps the heart grow. Love helps the soul grow.

Their longstanding friendship turned into a deeper complicity in which there was no room for secrets, suspicion, or offense; they started from the principle that they would never hurt each other and that if this happened, it would be unintentional. They protected each other, which made their present hardships and the ghosts of the past bearable.

This is a landscape of dreams cemented in the past, of hopes gone cold, of girls and boys for rent in officially empty tower blocks, where none is truly so.

Names can hide so much.

It is not fiction. It is history. And both their histories match now.

Love, as I understand it, is learned through hardship and sacrifice, through dedication and commitment.

But he’s still my best friend, and I’ve known him for years. I’m not going to just give up on him.

Sometimes, you remember me better than I remember myself. I think that's important in a friendship - to hold reflections of people for them, be a mirror when they start fading in their own eyes.

Self-care can also just be another thing you procrastinate on and feel shitty about not doing. It can be another bullet on our to-do list, or a mask—Think positive thoughts! Document your gratitude!—that hides our messiness from ourselves and others. It is also some shamey, disingenuous bullshit to be told that if we practice deep breathing or detox from sugar, we’ll find some ease when the pain and exhaustion we’re feeling is mostly perpetuated by our culture. Your getting in your steps doesn’t make the hardship of experiencing systemic oppression or the energy suck of capitalism go away.

So, despite the fact that the process of relating to others might involve hardships, quarrels, and cursing, we have to try to maintain an attitude of friendship and warmth in order to lead a way of life in which there is enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life.

Every human being asks pertinent questions regarding how to live, what to believe in, and what we aspire to become. Throughout life, we question what desires and principles to value and prioritize – love, friendship, freedom, happiness, creativity, wealth, security. We make difficult decisions based upon what we trust constitutes ethical behavior. We balance out work and play by considering what a person’s time is worth. We encounter both joyful and unpleasant physical experiences. As we age, we modify some of our youthful assumptions and question the existence of a mystical and divine world. We engage in formal and informal educational activities, which edifying foundation support modest or dramatic shifts in our instinctive and learned behavior patterns, and alter our intellectual and emotional perspective. Each person aspires to live honorably and age gracefully despite encountering physical adversity, financial hardships, sickness, or injury.

And there was something else too, something far more important to Sentaro: Tokue’s sweet bean paste. He was determined to carry on making it, because if he did not, it would disappear from the world. Apart from its merits as bean paste, Sentaro thought of it as testimony to the life of a remarkable woman called Tokue Yoshii.

Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion-one of loyalty and divine friendship. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity, it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and time- while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to find the next real thing.

When you maximize your intelligence you minimize your sweat. When you maximize your talents you minimize your competition. When you maximize your education you minimize your ignorance. When you maximize your strengths you minimize your weaknesses. When you maximize your opportunities you minimize your regrets. When you maximize your assets you minimize your debts. When you maximize your money you minimize your lack. When you maximize your wisdom you minimize your mistakes. When you maximize your integrity you minimize your disgrace. When you maximize your patience you minimize your anger. When you maximize your joys you minimize your bitterness. When you maximize your pleasures you minimize your sorrows. When you maximize your charity you minimize your greed. When you maximize your modesty you minimize your ego. When you maximize your love you minimize your fear. When you maximize your virtues you minimize your vices. When you maximize your needs you minimize your wants. When you maximize your diplomacy you minimize your opposition. When you maximize your compassion you minimize your conflicts. When you maximize your gratitude you minimize your unhappiness. When you maximize your kindness you minimize your enemies. When you maximize your friendships you minimize your troubles. When you maximize your relationships you minimize your hardships. When you maximize your marriage you minimize your struggles.

The truth was, she wasn’t good at making friends. She’d told herself it was because she’d moved so much, had bad parents, lost her brother. But she knew others had experienced hardships and they didn’t have this issue. If anything, some of them seemed better at making friends—as if the specter of constant change or profound sorrow had revealed to them the importance of making connections wherever and whenever they landed. What was wrong with her? And then there was the illogical art of female friendship itself, the way it seemed to demand an ability to both keep and reveal secrets using precise timing.

Often the hardest struggles in life are not the big ones: death of a family member, loss of a job, or even sickness, because in these situations the problems are “big” enough where the world knows you are struggling and the collective sympathy of friends and family negate a good portion of the hardship. However, the small struggles or the cumulation of the small ones are never seen, you often struggle alone. And they are all so widespread that even if your coworker gets your work problems, your sibling understands your family problems, or your friend understands a social problem, rarely is there someone who can sympathize with the collective weight of them all.

Psychologists who study peer influence ask what it is about teenage girls that makes them so susceptible to peer contagion and so good at spreading it. Many believe it has something to do with the way girls tend to socialize.35 “When we listen to girls versus boys talk to each other, girls are much more likely to reply with statements that are validating and supportive than questioning,” Amanda Rose, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, told me. “They’re willing to suspend reality to get into their friends’ worlds more. For this reason, adolescent girls are more likely to take on, for instance, the depression their friends are going through and become depressed themselves.” This female tendency to meet our friends where they are and share in their pain can be a productive and valuable social skill. Co-rumination (excessive discussion of a hardship) “does make the relationship between girls stronger,” Professor Rose told me. But it also leads friends to take on each other’s ailments. Teenage girls spread psychic illness because of features natural to their modes of friendship: co-rumination; excessive reassurance seeking; and negative-feedback seeking, in which someone maintains a feeling of control by angling for confirmation of her low self-concept from others.36 It isn’t hard to see why the 24/7 forum of social media intensifies and increases the incidence of each.

This is a book about friendship between women, and the importance that they attach to intimacy and to looking after each other, and about how, under conditions of acute hardship and danger, such mutual dependency can make the difference between living and dying. It is about courage, facing and surviving the worst that life can offer, with dignity and an unassailable determination not to be destroyed.

There are many faces to the horrors of war-- decimation, mutilation, barbarity, and, of course, death itself. But one of the most savage and dehumanizing consequences of armed conflict is the prison system that springs up to house enemy combatants--and ordinary citizens too. These hellish camps encapsulate the lowest depths of human depravity; ruled by violence and degeneracy, political prisoners are forced to endure unthinkable conditions and unchecked cruelty--all without any chance of reprieve. Uta Christensen's latest novel, Caught: Surviving the Turbulent River of Life, chronicles this appalling consequence of war, weaving a narrative of atrocity that, despite its artful inventions and complex characters, is so starkly based on grim realities... that one cannot help but shudder. Caught tells the story of Janos, a young German boy kidnapped by the Nazis during WWII--and forced into a Russian prison camp. There, Janos must survive against all odds, fighting off starvation and death at every turn as the years march on... and he becomes a man. It is, in fact, within the hardships of this very crucible, that Janos thrives, overcoming the frailties and ignobilities of existence to discover friendship, compassion, and love--making him into the apotheosis of an upstanding, self-reliant citizen: a true model to all his fellow countrymen. Told in flashbacks, Caught: Surviving the Turbulent River of Life explores the intricate nature of suffering and memory, delving into the complexities of how the past--even the most vicious episodes--informs the present... and the very nature of the self. Uta Christensen, with striking prose and a poetic sensibility, brings the darker chapters of history to life in such a way that one is instantly captivated by a concurrent horror and pity, a sense of tragedy, but too a catharsis in overcoming, in human resilience and beauty itself. A truly breathtaking novel, Caught is a tour de force of literary perfection; poignant, unremitting, and painfully real, this book is essential reading for all those willing to face hard truths--and grow from them.

There's something about knowing a person for most of your life that makes it impossible to un-know them.

She wanted to explain that those who stayed behind, despite the hardships, enjoyed lasting friendships and wider social networks, while the ones who migrated for good remained incomplete, jigsaw puzzles missing a critical piece.

People who go through a lot, are the kindest people you can find, because they are always considerate of others.

Soldiers can be very selective and friendships can take a while but we should always be brothers and sisters even only seconds after meeting one another. We may not share all moments but we share hardships and a brutal understanding of doing what needs to be done.

the places we go to escape the distractions and obligations and stressful busyness of our everyday are not where we build our lives. And it is in the mundane, the hardship, and the realness of life that what we’ve built is tested and refined.

we long to be known, not just for our wins or talents or the good we do in the world, not just for how we overcome hardship, but for our pain and struggle while we are suffering, for our failures and shortcomings. We want to be known so we can be accepted and loved just because we are here. We all want to be enough.

The true prize, we all knew, was that we were together, a friendship melded out of devastating diagnoses and hardship, facing death as one, never letting one another give up, picking one another up when we couldn’t take another second

And seeing my lack of amendment, I became extremely vexed about the many tears I was shedding over my faults, for neither were my resolutions nor were the hardships I suffered enough to keep me from placing myself in the occasion and falling again. They seemed fraudulent tears to me. . . . The whole trouble lay in not getting at the root of the occasions and with my confessors who were of little help. For had they told me of the danger I was in and that I had the obligation to avoid those friendships, without a doubt I believe I would have remedied the matter. For in no way would I have endured being in mortal sin even for a day should I have understood that to be the case.

Sometimes sharing your pain helps the hurt and the guilt become more bearable. You need to feel that way. I need you to feel that way.

I'm just not sure that I'm good enough for her. She's a top shelf drink, I'm a house poured shot.

As a Navy SEAL, you understood the word “frontline” to mean the place where you met the enemy. The frontline was where battles were fought and fates decided. The frontline was a place of fear, struggle, and suffering. It was also a place where victories were won, where friendships of a lifetime were forged in hardship. It was a place where we lived with a sense of purpose. But “frontline” isn’t just a military term. You have a frontline in your life now. In fact, everyone has a place where they encounter fear, where they struggle, suffer, and face hardship. We all have battles to fight. And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: it’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work. If you want to win any meaningful kind of victory, you’ll have to fight for it.

In the stillness, our eyes do all the silent talking. Our chests move with heavy breathing and desire pours out through our pores. It's unmistakable.

Sometimes sharing your pain helps the hurt and the guilt more bearable. You need to feel that way. I need you to feel that way.

Now, I have used the word “struggle” and “fight” in the previous passages. But it’s a mistake to think that the moral struggle against internal weakness is a struggle the way a war is a struggle or the way a boxing match is a struggle—filled with clash of arms and violence and aggression. Moral realists sometimes do hard things, like standing firm against evil and imposing intense self-discipline on their desires. But character is built not only through austerity and hardship. It is also built sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits. When you love a person deeply, you want to serve them and

What had become of the girl who sought out British Socinian texts all on her own, argued over Swedenborgian theology with adults three times her age, read the New Testament thirty times in one summer, and taught herself Hebrew so that she could make her own translation of the Old Testament? There had been many obstacles. Because of financial hardship, she had been “thrown too early” into the working world, teaching long hours when she might have studied and written more. And there was the fact of her sex. Without the option of college or a profession, Elizabeth had not known how or where to apply herself. She had looked to men of genius to confirm her talents and grown “dependent on the daily consolations of friendship.” She could see now that she had “constantly craved . . . assurances” that should have “come from within.” Yet

clear enough. I asked Birenbaum what he was ultimately trying to preserve by keeping Walden technology free. Was it the land, the cabins, and the lake, and leaving those spaces undisturbed by the outside world? Or were his efforts to keep the digital barbarians at the gate driven by a desire to preserve something deeper, that universal truth that not only made Walden what it was, but drove the Revenge of Analog in all its various forms? Birenbaum didn’t hesitate to answer. “We look at the heart of what we do, and it is interpersonal relationships,” he said. Any debate about technology’s use came down to a simple binary question: will it impact interpersonal relationships or not? “This camp could be wiped out by a meteor tomorrow, and we could rebuild across the road and we’d still be Walden,” he said. What mattered were the relationships and the uniquely analog recipe that enabled their formation. First, you place lots of people together, and have them relate to one another with the guidance of caregivers, who encourage and enforce mutual respect. Next, you mix in a program that creates various stresses, frustrations, and challenges that campers need to confront. This ranges from the simplest task of getting to breakfast on time to ten-day canoe trips in the harsh Canadian wilderness where twelve-year-olds might be expected to carry a 60-pound canoe on their head for a mile or more in the pouring rain, as blackflies gnaw at their ankles. These situations eventually lead to individual perseverance and self-respect . . . what most people call character. And that character is the glue that allows the relationships built at camp to last a lifetime, as my own friendships formed at Walden have. “You go a bit out of your comfort zone, endure a little hardship, people push you and help you to succeed, and you end up with friendships, confidence, and an inner fortitude that ends in a sense of belonging to a greater, interdependent community,” Birenbaum said. “This is one of the most basic aspects of the human condition.

I don’t believe that women care all that much about male friendship, however, to be to a man, primarily and only a-friend-who-is-a-woman is a major gesture that she can make both for him and for herself, for the mere fact that she wins him over with a completely uncommon weapon that has very little contact with her very recognisable and primordial female seductiveness, at the same time catching him in a trap from which he can escape only as a proven and frequently disgraced coward. To make a man your friend really is an exploit worth of admiration, because of all the hardships that, by way of being an authentic feat, it entails.

The frontline was where battles were fought and fates decided. The frontline was a place of fear, struggle, and suffering. It was also a place where victories were won, where friendships of a lifetime were forged in hardship.

(...) poucas vezes a gente encontra pessoas cuja alegria não seja somente digestiva.

It's when we are in the deep trenches that we truly grow, our character is strengthened and our faith is tested! We all face times in our life where we have struggles, experience hardships, lose friendships, or simply lose hope. No matter what, God has got you, but you have to believe! You have to know in your heart that everything will work out. The trick is keeping a positive attitude through all of it, and putting your trust in God. I am praying that you find hope, peace and you are victorious in your battles! Never give up!

Surely the daily routine of war, its moments of fear, boredom, exhaustion, hardship, and horror, saved them from ever romanticizing the experience.

Vivien's friendship with Larry however was pure and untainted. It bore no signs of betrayal and bitterness. It had endured the trials of life and the hardships he bore. Like a a camel endured the parching sun in the desert until an oasis could be found.

Landlords were nasty, irrespective of religion. Yet in my personal relationships with people, I made friends easily and suffered few disappointments, at that time. I tried to be as forthcoming to them as they were to me, friendship being a two-way street. Being a realist as well as an optimist, I expected things to be tough, but that they would work out in the long run. This philosophy of life carried me over great hardships, actually to this day. I just took care of things, one at a time, and trusted my luck.

Yet, we had gone through similar times before and much worse, and had learned how to cope, how to do without. The spirit of unity and pride in achievement of the State compensated for the daily hardships. In those times, hope was our constant companion; old friendships and new kept us going. We were open and helpful and trusting. On Friday nights or on Saturdays or holidays - people got together, drank tea, ate cookies and talked, talked, discussed endlessly. We had finally arrived, we were finally at home, we had finally survived and most were on the point to finally start a family. Interestingly, men and women, who had lost their mates, their children, during the war, in the preceding years in Europe, re-married and created new families.

Life had its enjoyable aspects, too and we found pleasure and relaxation in company, friendship, romantic attachments as well as intellectual stimulation. To be widely read, well informed on world affairs and to have a "Weltanschauung" (an outlook on the world) an opinion on world affairs counted very highly. I am not sure that we competed with one another, but we encouraged and inspired one another and moved ahead, in spite of all the difficulties or because of all the hardships. Yes, we were a worthwhile generation.

At some point you have to figure out who you are. Are you someone who picks themselves back up? Are you someone who learns how to handle hardship and losing friendships, and keep going? Do you know how to find your people and let yourself have fun? And if you don't learn about that in seventh grade with everyone else, then...when will you learn it?

The way Sean and Oren told me, a complete stranger, about their pain from loss was revealing. Neither of them has community supporting them. Neither of them has close friends encircling them in love and care. Grief is a wreckage. And in so many ways, it is something we experience utterly alone. But without the company of loved ones, our path toward reclaiming life and healing in the midst of grief, or any hardship, is perilously hindered.

The claim that the modern world has reduced poverty is made by measuring poverty with criteria from the past that do not correspond to present-day realities. In other times, for example, lack of access to electric energy was not considered a sign of poverty, nor was it a source of hardship. Poverty must always be understood and gauged in the context of the actual opportunities available in each concrete historical period.

In Xenophon's summary of the allegory [Prodicus' "Choice of Heracles'' ] the young Heracles has sat down at a crossroads, not knowing which path to follow through life. As he sits deliberating, two women appear to him. Their physical appearance is a study in contrasts, and they are clearly villainness and heroine. Evil (Kakia) is overfed, plump, rouged, and all powdered up. She wears revealing clothes and is vain, viewing herself in a mirror and turning around to see if she is being admired. Virtue (Arete), on the other hand, wears simple white; her only adornments are purity, modesty, and temperance. These apparitions proceed to give speeches in praise of the life that they can give Heracles. Evil speaks first-an ominous choice, since in such debates, the first speaker typically loses. She offers Heracles a life of free, effortless pleasure. There will be no delights that he will not taste, no difficulties that he will not avoid. He need never worry about wars and affairs. All he need trouble himself about will be what food or drink to take; what to look at, hear, smell or touch for his pleasure; what partner he might enjoy, how he might sleep softest, and how he can obtain all these with the least toil (aponOtata). If ever there are shortages, he will not suffer ponos or hardship either in body or soul. Rather "you will enjoy those things that others work to produce, and you will not hold back from profiting everywhere." Evil tells Heracles her name, but adds confidentially that to her friends she is known as Happiness (Eudaimonia). Very different is the tone and substance of Virtue's argument. For while Evil would have Heracles live for himself alone and treat others as means to his self-gratification, Virtue begins by saying that she knows Heracles' parents and nature: Heracles must live up to his Olympian heritage. Therefore she will not deceive him with "hymns to pleasure." Evil's enticements are in fact contrary to the divine ordering, "for the gods have given men nothing good without ponos and diligence." There follows a series of emphatic verbal nouns to hammer home this truth: if you want divine favor, you must worship the gods; if you want to be admired, you must do good works for your friends; if you want to be honored, you must benefit your city and Greece; if you want the earth to bear crops, you must cultivate the land. Flocks require tending, war demands practice. And if you want strength (Heracles' trademark), you must accustom your body to serve your will, and you must train "with ponoi and sweat:' At this point, Evil bursts in to deplore such a harsh lifestyle. She is immediately silenced, however, as Virtue argues that duality is essential to a sense of fulfillment and even to pleasure itself. For paradoxically, ponos (pain, struggle) makes pleasure pleasurable. Evil's vision of happiness is one of continual and languid orgy-food without hunger, drink without thirst, sex without desire, sleep without weariness. But as experience shows, continual partying soon loses its zest, even if one goes so far as to cool expensive drinks "with snow" in summertime. By contrast, Virtue's own followers have no real trouble in satisfying their desires. They do so not by committing violence against others or living off others' labor, but by simply "holding off until they actually do desire" food or drink. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is free. Furthermore, Virtue appeals to Heracles' native idealism. What hedonists have ever accomplished any "fine work" (ergon kalon)? None, for no beautiful or divine deed is ever done "without me [Virtue] ." Therefore, wherever there are energetic, effective people, Virtue is present: she is a helper to craftsmen, a guard of the household, a partner in peacetime ponoi, an ally for the works (erga) of war, the best support of friendship. To choose Evil would be shameful and not even extremely pleasurable, while with Virtue one will lead the most varied and honorable life.

What does it mean, all these tiny actions, these hidden secrets, these fragile humans with their hardships and friendships and fuckships that survive the slog-sprint through time? Don't you all realize? We all end up dust.

It is so pleasant to have Friends near in whom you have perfect confidence and implicit trust! How the hardships and troubles of life are lessened and divided by the aid and services of true friends and also the joys and blessings of life increased and multiplied by having Friends to impart them to and enjoy them with us. I have been wonderfully blessed in the number and character of the dear, kind friends God has raised up around me and I try to feel grateful and thank him daily for so blessing me--and oh if I could feel worthy of them I would be so happy, but they are my friends, nevertheless, and among them all I do not feel that I have any worthier or truer or more generous and kind than you and your highly esteemed wife. Major Fabricus C. McCalla (1807-1873) to Daniel Brown Pence (1804-1891), Letter dated December 23, 1872

When I say I loved Anthony, I don't mean this beautifully pleasant, supportive togetherness, laughing and being there for each other, helping each other through all the hardships of life like in the movies. I mean love the way two dysfunctional street kids running amok in Hollywood loved. Inseparable, down to party, ultimately having each other's backs, but hurtful to each other. Betrayal, fear, passive-aggressive emotional blackmail. I have never felt more hurt by anybody than Anthony, and we have spent huge swaths of our friendship in states of distrust and anger. Is that what having a brother is like? It's what I know.

There are wood ships and there are steel ships, there are hardships and there are warships but the most important ship is friendships

character is built not only through austerity and hardship. It is also built sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits.

Prayers to deities preserved from the ancient Near East share many of the same themes as Biblical prayers. Individuals sensed guilt and divine abandonment (see notes on Ps 6:1, 3; 13:1; 32:4; 51:1, 5); they felt physical suffering (see notes on Ps 22:14, 17; 38:2–3), emotional pain and shame (see notes on Ps 6:6; 25:2) and loss of friendship (see note on Ps 31:11); and they faced death (see note on Ps 16:10). At times their afflictions involved legal entanglements accompanied by slander and curses (see notes on Ps 17:2; 41:5–6; 62:4). They responded with cries for a divine hearing (see note on Ps 55:17) and justice (see the article “Imprecations and Incantations”). In ancient Mesopotamia, letters written to gods and deposited in the temple also served to bring requests before the deity. The use of rather generic names in these letters, as well as their transmission through the curriculum of scribal schools, suggests that anyone could relate his or her experience with those recorded in these prayers. In later tradition, similar prayers were cited orally by a priest rather than deposited in the temple. Much of the language of these prayers and letters, including the Biblical psalms, was general and metaphoric, allowing these texts to serve as examples for others to use in their specific circumstances. While the details of hardship might have differed, the emotional experiences and theological thoughts could be shared by anyone. As in Biblical psalms, the Mesopotamian prayers include protests of innocence, praise to the deity and vows to offer thanks for deliverance. Often specific attributes of the deity are named that correspond to the affliction and desired deliverance of the worshiper. Such elements function within the lament as motivation for the deity to respond to the worshiper’s plight. ◆ Key Concepts • Many psalms are an expression of emotion, and God responds to us in our emotional highs and lows. • Psalms is a book with purpose. • Psalms 1–2 embody the message of the book.

Minerva McGonagall is many things: gifted witch, stern Hogwarts professor, lifelong Quidditch enthusiast and occasional tabby cat. If there’s one thing she’s not, it’s an open book. There’s really no better way to get to know someone than hearing about their parents, their childhood, their first love, and their stubbornly held grudges. So it’s with great joy we follow J.K. Rowling’s writing back to the Scottish Highlands, where we can glimpse McGonagall’s life as she found joy, friendship, magic and a job at Hogwarts.

Stand tough. You can only become the kind of person you admire through surviving hardship. As human beings, we usually only learn to take life seriously when our world comes into question. So although a mob attack might seem like a worst-case scenario, recognize that it’s actually an opportunity for growth and self-discovery. Then act upon it. Never apologize. This means having the courage of your convictions, right when the pile-on is at its most intense. At this point, it might be tempting to wave the white flag of surrender and apologize, but don’t do it. This is the precise moment when you must keep going with your head held high. Accept that you’ll lose friends. Everything clicks once you start figuring out who you are, but the process of self-discovery is often painful, requiring you to let go of people. Fight hard to maintain your friendships, especially the old ones, but don’t be anyone’s doormat. At some point you may have to let someone go. This is very sad, but embrace it like you would any breakup. And believe it or not, you’ll make new friends who’ll accept you exactly for who you are.

Some of the most valuable life lessons are not learned from school, university, or people. You will learn them from the things you buy, the things you have, and the things you love.

An important note about Roxannah's background. In my conversation with Dr. Jessica Sanderson (please see Author Acknowledgements), what became obvious to me was that childhood wounds cause us to break down differently. The same wound can cause one person to break toward control, while another breaks toward fragility. We break toward hyper-vigilance, catastrophic thinking, workaholism, or worthlessness. Our deepest wounds can wear a thousand faces. But The Queen's Cook is a not a book about childhood trauma. It is the story of a woman who through hardship finds friendship, love, and a life-changing relationship with God.