Quotations

“It all depends upon the amount of force in your own soul.”

Emphasising inner strength as a determinant of achievement · Essay, Obstacles

“Although it handles me so roughly yet I am not at all amated by it.”

Meeting hostile criticism without being intimidated by it · Letter to Sir Edward Harley, 3 May 1673

“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”

Presenting hardship as a severe but formative teacher · Speech at a New York press banquet, 15 December 1851

William Cullen Bryant

“She is indeed rocks set in a blue sea, she is the sea itself, breaking and tortured and torturing, but never broken.”

Evoking Sappho as an enduring artistic presence shaped by suffering yet resistant to destruction · Essay, The Wise Sappho

Hilda Doolittle

“She never complained and even when my eldest brother advanced in strength she persisted on his regular attendance at school.”

Remembers his mother's endurance and commitment to education · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“Perseverance too, without which patience is a mere passive endurance.”

Distinguishing active persistence from merely enduring difficulty · Essay, Wings and the Child, Part II, Chapter IV: The Magic City

E. Nesbit

“Do not sit down by the roadside and say you have been hindered by these difficulties, that is to confess yourself weak.”

Rejecting defeatism in the face of difficulty · Essay, Obstacles

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“Grace under pressure.”

His celebrated shorthand for courage expressed through composure in adversity · Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 20 April 1926

Ernest Hemingway

“The cat may fall low, but he is always unbroken.”

Celebrating the independence and resilience he associated with cats · Essay, Cats and Dogs

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

“Whether I succeed or not, it would be dastardly to give in. A bold countenance often carries off an indifferent cause, but no one will defend him who shows the white feather.”

Affirming perseverance even when success is uncertain · Journal, 15 April 1829

Sir Walter Scott

“Only strong people can undertake to live alone.”

Original: Det er bare sterke folk som kan ta på seg å leve alene. — Acknowledges the deep fortitude required to endure solitude · Personal observation (Norwegian)

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

“We must be confident that life is fundamentally good, that even after frightening disasters, the earth is bathed in a flood of strength whose sources are eternal.”

Original: Vi må tro på at livet dypest sett er godt, at jorden selv etter de forferdeligste katastrofer skylles av en strøm av kraft hvis kilder er evige. — A stirring expression of ultimate optimism and resilience in the face of hardship · Nobel Banquet speech, 1903 (Norwegian)

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

“The weakness of strength is to believe only in strength.”

Original: La faiblesse de la force est de ne croire qu'à la force. — Power becomes vulnerable when it cannot recognise forms of influence other than force. · Cahiers (French)

Paul Valéry

“Regard the troubles and cares you encounter as the punching bags of fate, given you to develop your spiritual muscle.”

Using a vivid physical metaphor for the strengthening power of adversity · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“Without health, no energy; without energies, no struggle. Seldom does the faineant become the Saint; the vigorous sinner often. He that sins strongly has the stuff of sanctity, rather than the languid sinner.”

Arguing that bodily vigour is essential even to spiritual struggle · Essay, Health and Holiness (1905)

Francis Thompson

“A wrong done to the weak should be an insult to the strong.”

A compact moral principle of solidarity with those who lack power. · Speech, Woman's Political Future, 1893

Frances E. W. Harper

“The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men.”

Associating practical success with hopefulness and a resilient spirit · Sermons for the Times

Charles Kingsley

“He has been made strong in tribulation. He has constrained oppression to give him wings.”

Turning hardship into spiritual lift rather than defeat · Foreword, The Wings of Oppression, 1921

Leslie Pinckney Hill

“The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us.”

Claiming that women resist analysis · Play, An Ideal Husband

Oscar Wilde

“A free heart cannot be broken by pillars or columns.”

Original: Pfeiler, Säulen kann man brechen, aber nicht ein freies Herz. — Inner freedom is presented as more resilient than structures that appear physically strong. · Maxims and Reflections (German)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe