Hardship Quotes

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

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Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.
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Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
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Hardships make or break people.
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Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
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Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.
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Christopher Markus
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What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.
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Charles Bukowski (Ham on Rye)
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It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warned him. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive." "Oh." Suddenly Leo didn't look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching. "I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this.
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Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
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Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
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Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life)
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The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she becomes.
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C. JoyBell C.
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Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.
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Tupac Shakur (The Rose That Grew from Concrete)
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If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.
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Criss Jami (Killosophy)
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When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.
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Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
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Waiting is one of life’s hardships.
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Lemony Snicket (The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2))
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Tell me what I must slay, what I must steal, tell me the riddle I must solve or the hag I must trick. Only tell me the way, and I will do it, no matter the danger, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost.
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Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
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Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.
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Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
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Hollowness: that I understand. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything you can do to fix it. That's what I've taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps
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Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train)
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Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!
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Jim Henson
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If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." [Meditations Divine and Moral]
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Anne Bradstreet (The Works of Anne Bradstreet (John Harvard Library))
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Per aspera ad astra, Papa,' I whispered. Through hardship to the stars.
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Ruta Sepetys (Salt to the Sea)
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Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame... at your past, which naturally has a share with everything that now meets you.
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Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
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Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.
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Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
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This is what love does. In the stories, love healed your wounds, fixed what was broken, allowed you to go on. 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 trust.
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Leigh Bardugo (Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2))
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We did not ask for this room or this music. We were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces to the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty. We have been given pain to be astounded by joy. We have been given life to deny death. We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.
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Stephen King (11/22/63)
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How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.
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Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love)
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There are many who don't wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don't wish to wake for the same fear.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher)
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Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.
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Tim Fargo
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A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.
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Criss Jami (Killosophy)
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I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.
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Barack Obama
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Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
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Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being. (109)
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Jean-Yves Leloup (Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity)
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You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.
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David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
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The moment you tell someone else is the moment you become a whiner and the world’s smallest violin starts to play. The truth is, we all have problems; we all go through hardships and pain, and my pain is paradise compared to a lot of people’s and I really have no right to whine at all.
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J.A. Redmerski (The Edge of Never (The Edge of Never, #1))
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Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It's time for that to end.
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Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
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It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.
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Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1))
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Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
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George Orwell (Animal Farm)
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There is hardship in everything except eating pancakes.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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Hardship may dishearten at first, but every hardship passes away. All despair is followed by hope; all darkness is followed by sunshine.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
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There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs β€” partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
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Booker T. Washington
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You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
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Alain de Botton
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Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.
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Langston Hughes
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This new day has greeted us with no rules; unconditional opportunity. Do not dilute the power of this new day with the hardship of yesterday. Greet this day the way it has greeted you; with open arms and endless possibility.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as oursβ€”arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.
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Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
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I'm right there, swimming the river of hardships but I know how to swim...
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Jack Kerouac (Desolation Angels)
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How unfair she'd been to assume love and money would preclude pain and hardship.
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Maggie Stiefvater (Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3))
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No one is without troubles, without personal hardships and genuine challenges. Β That fact may not be obvious because most people don't advertise their woes and heartaches. Β But nobody, not even the purest heart, escapes life without suffering battle scars.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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One day this pain and hardships will make sense to us. Just don't give up
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Teme Abdullah (Arkitek Jalanan)
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A true queen is made not in times of prosperity, but in times of hardship.
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Marissa Meyer (Archenemies (Renegades, #2))
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They don't know what a stand up guy you are."Β  "Even more so, now that I have four legs, right?
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Lisa Kaniut Cobb (Down in the Valley (The Netahs))
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If we misread the blueprint of our life, we need not be ashamed of backtracking on our chosen options. Admitting to mistakes may make us human and maybe great again. ("Sisyphus' hardship on the hill")
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Erik Pevernagie
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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.
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Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
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Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.
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Seneca
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A life can be defined by its hardships or its blessings. It’s all a matter of how you look at it.
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Penelope Ward (Stepbrother Dearest)
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We hunt as we've always done, part sport, part grocery shopping.
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Lisa Kaniut Cobb (Down in the Valley (The Netahs))
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Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.
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Elizabeth Wein (Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, #1))
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So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Sometimes we fail to recognize the direct connection between the pain in our lives and our relationship with Allah SWT
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms. They're the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one buts moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.
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Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
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Nothing in this world compares to the comfort and security of having someone just hold your hand.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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Time of difficulty test our faith, our fortitude and our strenght. During these times, the level of our imaan becomes manifest
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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The telegram was sealed – an old-fashioned touch, I thought, but then I’d never had a telegram before. I took my time opening it. I said nothing.
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Michael Wyndham Thomas (The Erkeley Shadows)
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It's easier to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes.
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Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood)
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To those who, in spite of everything, still choose goodness
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Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
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Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met, because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach.
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Paulo Coelho
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The mistake of every young person is to think they're the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world." ... "The mistake of every adult, though, is to think darkness and hardship aren't important to young people because we'll grow out of it. Who cares if we will? Life is happening to us now, just like it's happening to you.
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Patrick Ness (The Rest of Us Just Live Here)
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He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.
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Don DeLillo (White Noise)
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It is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.
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Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
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For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.
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Gary Chapman (The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts)
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My Zombie apocalypse plan is simple but effective; I fully intend to die in the very first wave. Seems more logical than undergoing all kinds of hardships only to die eventually anyway (through bites/malnutrition/or terminally chapped lips)
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Graham Parke
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Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.
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Robert M. Pirsig
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Your strength doesn't come from winning. It comes from struggles and hardship. Everything that you go through prepares you for the next level.
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Germany Kent
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As I reached the door, the constable said, β€œGood luck in Canada, son.” For a second I expected his voice to morph into Uncle Sid’s as he urged me to give his love to Rose Marie and the Mounties.
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Michael Wyndham Thomas (The Erkeley Shadows)
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.
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Reinhold Niebuhr
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...happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement....
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Aristotle
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Time is a lot of the things people say that God is. There's always preexisting, and having no end. There's the notion of being all powerful-because nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies. And time is, of course, all-healing. Give anything enough time, and everything is taken care of: all pain encompassed, all hardship erased, all loss subsumed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust thou shalt return. And if time is anything akin to God, I suppose that memory must be the devil.
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Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6))
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Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
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Charles Caleb Colton
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Life keeps throwing me curve balls and I don't even own a bat. At least my dodging skills are improving.
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Jayleigh Cape
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Oh, sorry, love. I was just getting out of the shower when I heard this loud commotion in front of my door.” Jake gave her a sloppy grin. β€œI didn’t realize there was a dress code when coming to the aid of a beautiful neighbor. I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I come running.
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Diane Merrill Wigginton (A Compromising Position)
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I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer’s saying, β€˜A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,’ has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due.
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Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
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She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel – that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Don't underestimate the power of friendship. Those bonds are tight stitches that close up the holes you might otherwise fall through.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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When you chose to follow the way of purity, did you expect it to be easy? When you decided to wait for the best, did you think that waiting would be fun? Did you think that your faith would not be tested? When you decided to take the narrow path, did no one warn you that difficulties, hardship, and tears would be part of the journey, and that you would often face rejection from others and be forced to walk alone? My daughter, that which you wait for the longest you treasure the most, and through much struggle the prize is won.
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Sarah Mally (Before You Meet Prince Charming: A Guide to Radiant Purity)
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We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.
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Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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When you leave home to follow your dreams, your road will probably be riddled with potholes, not always paved in happy Technicolor bricks. You'll probably be kicked to the ground 150 million times and told you're nuts by friends and strangers alike. As you progress you may feel lonely or terrified for your physical and emotional safety. You may overestimate your own capabilities or fail to live up to them, and you'll surely fall flat on your face once in a while.
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Kelly Cutrone (If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You)
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it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.
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Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
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The days without difficulty are the days you do not improve.
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Evan Winter (The Rage of Dragons (The Burning, #1))
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As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage'...) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.
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H.P. Lovecraft
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As much as you can, keep dunya (worldly life) in your hand--not in your heart. That means when someone insults you, keep it out of your heart so it doesn't make you bitter or defensive. When someone praises you, also keep it out of your heart, so it doesn't make you arrogant and self-deluded. When you face hardship and stress, don't absorb it in your heart, so you don't become hopeless and overwhelmed. Instead keep it in your hands and realize that everything passes. When you're given a gift by God, don't hold it in your heart. Hold it in your hand so that you don't begin to love the gift more than the giver. And so that when it is taken away you can truly respond with 'inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon': 'indeed we belong to God, and to God we return'.
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Yasmin Mogahed
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That longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure-that comes straight from the heart of God, who also longs for this. He does not want to be an option in our lives. He does not want to be an appendage, a tagalong. Neither does any woman. God is essential. He wants us to need him-desperately. Eve is essential. She has an irreplaceable role to play. And so you'll see that women are endowed with fierce devotion, an ability to suffer great hardships, a vision to make the world a better place
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Stasi Eldredge (Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul)
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Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can - working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well! Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all too-prevalent condition called "center of the universe" syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role.
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Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
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John F. Kennedy
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The captivating changes in the social space sealed by class transmigration may astound us. How clever class fugitives escape from their birth stigma or topical inheritance and how they blend slickly into a new chosen communal grouping may look impressive to most observers. Class migration always remains a challenge, but once the outgoers are at the end of the road, they can tell their life stories of adventure, bravery, or hardship with much self-esteem. How happy they are, and how good they feel when they can say with satisfaction that they have seen it all before closing brackets. (β€œSchengen”)
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Erik Pevernagie
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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…
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Jorge Luis Borges
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Crickey, love, what happened here? Are you hurt?” he asked, lifting her to her feet, the surfboard leash still wrapped around her foot. Her eyes worked their way up his torso, along the plush green towel hugging his midsection. Catherine couldn’t help staring at his well-formed abs and chest before making her way up to his concerned eyes. β€œObviously I fell,” Catherine said. β€œI think I got a splinter.” β€œLet me see,” Jake insisted, taking her hand into his. β€œIt’s small. I can take care of that in a snap.” Staring up into his deep blue eyes, Catherine could feel herself drowning in the depths of them, unconsciously resting her other hand upon his dampened chest to steady herself.
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Diane Merrill Wigginton (A Compromising Position)
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And you're right, I do love you Eden. I will follow you into eternity, or until after this weekend when we all die gruesome, painful deaths... But with every breath I have left, I will use it to love you. Because, Eden, I want this... You; I want you more than life, more than anything. There was a time when I didn't think I was strong enough to face you again, or what is between us. I was too afraid of the heartache, of being shattered again. But now, it doesn't matter, nothing matters except you. I will take an eternity of hardship, of war or fighting my father, or anything, just to hold your love again. You are everything to me, my sun, my moon, the air I breathe. Nothing exists accept you. I love you.
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Rachel Higginson (Endless Magic (Star-Crossed, #4))
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Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling.
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Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
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A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle (to repeat a thoughtful adage) religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave. In the beginning of all cultures a strong religious faith conceals and softens the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear pain and hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain that it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath; evil does not destroy faith, but strengthens it. If victory comes, if war is forgotten in security and peace, then wealth grows; the life of the body gives way, in the dominant classes, to the life of the senses and the mind; toil and suffering are replaced by pleasure and ease; science weakens faith even while thought and comfort weaken virility and fortitude. At last men begin to doubt the gods; they mourn the tragedy of knowledge, and seek refuge in every passing delight. Achilles is at the beginning, Epicurus at the end. After David comes Job, and after Job, Ecclesiastes.
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Will Durant (Our Oriental Heritage (The Story of Civilization, #1))
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We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore.
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StanisΕ‚aw Lem (Solaris)
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I feel that we are often taken out of our comfort zones, pushed and shoved out of our nests, because if not, we would never know what we could do with our wings, we would never see the horizon and the sun setting on it, we would never know that there's something far better beyond where we are at the moment. It can hurt, but then later you say "thank you." I have been pushed and shoved and have fallen out and away, so very, very, many, many times! And others around me have not! But then, the others haven't seen what I have seen or felt what I have felt or been who I have been, they can't become what I have become. I am me.
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C. JoyBell C.
β€œ
This is stupid." "Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be...better. Be heroic. Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.
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Joe Abercrombie (The Heroes)
β€œ
Life has moments that feel as if the sun has blackened to tar and the entire world turned to ice. Β It feels as if Hades and his vile demons have risen from the depths of Tartarus solely for the purpose of banding to personally torture you, and that their genuine intent of mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish is tearing you to shreds. Β Your heart weighs as heavily as leaden legs which you would drag yourself forward with if not for the quicksand that pulls you down inch by inch, paralyzing your will and threatening oblivion. Β And all the while fire and brimstone pour from the sky, pelting only you. Β  Truly, that is what it feels like. But that feeling is a trial that won't last forever. Β Never give up.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good; Love alone lightens every burden, and makes the rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable. The love of Jesus is noble, and inspires us to great deeds; it moves us always to desire perfection. Love aspires to high things, and is held back by nothing base. Love longs to be free, a stranger to every worldly desire, lest its inner vision become dimmed, and lest worldly self-interest hinder it or ill-fortune cast it down. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God, and can rest only in God above all created things. Love flies, runs, leaps for joy; it is free and unrestrained. Love gives all for all, resting in One who is highest above all things, from whom every good flows and proceeds. Love does not regard the gifts, but turns to the Giver of all good gifts. Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength; love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. Love therefore does great things; it is strange and effective; while he who lacks love faints and fails.
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Thomas Γ  Kempis (The Inner Life)