Ordeals Quotes

• She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it.

  Margaret Sanger

  Men, States, Babe

  Margaret Sanger (2005). “Woman and the New Race”, p.100, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

  Winston Churchill

  Funny, Death, Witty

  Quoted in L.A. Times, 28 Nov. 1954

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• People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Fear, Believe, Responsibility

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

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  Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.

  William Manchester

  Country, Fighting, Marine

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• But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.

  Antonin Artaud

  Math, Understanding, Scientist

  Antonin Artaud, Susan Sontag (1976). “Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings”, p.497, Univ of California Press

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• Holding on to hope when everything is dark, is the greatest test of faith

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Dark, Tests, Holding On

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• Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.

  Timothy Keller

  Fire, Suffering, Walks

  Timothy Keller (2013). “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering”, p.16, Penguin

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• Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.

  Tahar Ben Jelloun

  Country, Egypt, Other Countries

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• We could hardly believe that after so many ordeals, after all the trials of modern skepticism, there was still so much left in our souls to destroy.

  Alexander Herzen

  Believe, Soul, Trials

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• The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.

  John Berryman

  Art, Lucky, Worst

  1972 Interview in The Paris Review, winter issue.

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• At the center of the religious life is a peculiar kind of joy, the prospect of a happy ending that blossoms from necessarily painful ordeals, the promise of human difficulties embraced and overcome.

  Huston Smith

  Religious, Joy, Promise

  Huston Smith, Phil Cousineau (2003). “The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life”, p.24, Univ of California Press

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• Fiji had experienced the ordeal of two military coups.

  Kamisese Mara

  Military, Two, Fiji

  Report to President Ganilau, May 15, 1992.

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• Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters.

  M. F. K. Fisher

  Family, Food, Memorable

  Joan Reardon, M.F.K. Fisher (2014). “The Art of Eating”, p.640, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Well, I think they're all basically the same story. Every culture in the world has them. When you strip it down and analyze it, it's the young man or girl who goes through a trial or ordeal and hits a very low ebb but manages to get guidance from a Merlin type figure.

  Liam Neeson

  Girl, Thinking, Men

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• The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

  Thomas Malthus

  Evil, Temptation, Virtue

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.6, University of Michigan Press

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• The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Aging, Grows, Greater

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• Basically, being alive means keeping yourself ready for the sky to fall in on you at any time. If you start from the assumption that existence is only an ordeal, a test we have to pass, then you’re equipped to deal with its sorrows and its surprises. If you persist in expecting it to give you something it can’t give, that just proves that you haven’t understood anything. Take things as they come; don’t turn them into a drama. You’re not piloting the ship, you’re following the course of your destiny.

  Yasmina Khadra

  Drama, Fall, Mean

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• Suffering is a call to conversion: it reminds us of our frailty and vulnerability.

  Pope Francis

  Suffering, Frailty, Conversion

  Pope Francis @Pontifex, twitter.com. March 24, 2015.

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• Fear that comes from personal experience is far more real than fear based on someone else's ordeal.

  Peg Kehret

  Real, Personal Experiences

  Peg Kehret (2015). “Escaping the Giant Wave”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

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• I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, an that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire." (From Rebecca)

  Daphne du Maurier

  Believe, Men, Fire

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• A trial is still an ordeal by battle. For the broadsword there is the weight of evidence; for the battle-ax the force of logic; for the sharp spear, the blazing gleam of truth; for the rapier, the quick and flashing knife of wit.

  Lloyd Paul Stryker

  Knives, Justice, Battle

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• Live on in your blessings, your destiny's been won. But ours calls us on from one ordeal to the next.

  Virgil

  Adversity, Blessing, Destiny

  Virgil (2006). “The Aeneid: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.119, Penguin

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• The ibtilaa' (testing) of the believer is like medicine for him. It cures him from illness. Had the illness remained it would destroy him or diminish his reward and level (in the hereafter). The tests and the trials extract these illnesses from him and prepare him for the perfect reward and the highest of degrees (in the life to come).

  Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

  Medicine, Perfect, Degrees

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• At first an ordeal and then an accomplishment, the daily run becomes a staple, like bread, or wine, a fine marriage, or air. It is also a free pass to friendship.

  Benjamin Cheever

  Inspirational, Friendship, Marriage

  Benjamin Cheever (2007). “Strides: Running Through History with an Unlikely Athlete”, p.16, Rodale

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• Robust grass endures mighty winds; loyal ministers emerge through ordeal.

  William Shakespeare

  Strength, Wind, Loyal

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