Strive Quotes - Page 21

• If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

  Herman Melville

  Eye, Heart, Men

  Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.108, Velvet Element Books

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• In any case, ideals are something we strive for; they are somewhere on the horizon of our efforts; they provide meaning and direction; they are not, however, static quotas that we either fulfill or do not.

  Vaclav Havel

  Effort, Horizon, Quota

  Vaclav Havel (2009). “To the Castle and Back”, p.285, Vintage

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• Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free. Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection. Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. In to that heaven of freedom, my father, LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Country, Wall, Father

  Rabindranath Tagore (2014). “Gitanjali: Collection of Tagore Poems”, p.39, editionNEXT.com

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• Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

  William Shakespeare

  Perfection, Mars, Wells

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1785). “The Plays of William Shakspeare ...”, p.436

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• There are the those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behaviour and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity.

  Katherine Dunn

  Brain, Behaviour, Mediocrity

  FaceBook post by Katherine Dunn from Jan 29, 2012

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• But in order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The seas, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death--these are things that unite us all. We resemble one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual, but the reality of the world is common to us all. Striving towards realism is therefore legitimate, for it is basically related to the artistic adventure.

  Albert Camus

  Dream, Rain, Struggle

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• For official record, announce instructor, the state requires no epic hero. No strive achieve personal celebrity of spotlight and applause. Lectures instructor, the state desires best ideal perform as mediocre. No gain attention showboat. No buffoon. Best effort so occur average. Suppress climbing ego. Become ordinary. Invisible.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Hero, Epic, Climbing

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• What's wrong with the world Peter? God, I don't know. Where do you start? People give up. We're defeatists and we stop striving or fighting or enjoying things. It doesn't matter what you're talking about - war, work, marriage, democracy, love, it all fails because everybody gives up trying after a while, we can't help ourselves. And don't ask me to solve it because I am the worst. I'd escape tomorrow if I could, from every single thing I've always wanted.

  Jenny Valentine

  Giving Up, War, Fighting

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• This is what it is to be human: to see the essential existential futility of all action, all striving -- and to act, to strive. This is what it is to be human: to reach forever beyond your grasp. This is what it is to be human: to live forever or die trying. This is what it is to be human: to perpetually ask the unanswerable questions, in the hope that the asking of them will somehow hasten the day when they will be answered. This is what it is to be human: to strive in the face of the certainty of failure. This is what it is to be human: to persist.

  Spider Robinson

  Forever, Trying, Essentials

  Spider Robinson (1997). “The Star Dancers”

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• Dolgan: ’Tis a wise thing to know what is wanted, and wiser still to know when ‘tis achieved. Rhuagh: True. And still wiser to know when it is unachievable, for then striving is folly.

  Raymond E. Feist

  Wise, Folly, Wanted

  Raymond E. Feist (1986). “Magician, apprentice”, Spectra Books

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• Should Disappointment, parent of Despair, Strive for her son to seize my careless heart; When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air, Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart: Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright, And fright him as the morning frightens night!

  John Keats

  Sweet, Morning, Disappointment

  John Keats (1914*). “The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats”, p.6, Рипол Классик

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• I strive for nothing if not consistency

  Brandon Sanderson

  Consistency, Ifs

  Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Mistborn Trilogy”, p.539, Macmillan

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• Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.

  John le Carre

  Heart, Angel, Self

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• Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts God has given us, and never stop learning

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Unattainable, Might, Given

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• Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day and night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust. Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your palpitating heart. The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother- dust.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Mother, Sweet, Children

  Rabindranath Tagore, “Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven”

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• The moment the world declares a person to be immortal, at that moment the person will strive to prove the world wrong. In the face of glowing press releases and reviews the most heralded women starve themselves or cut themselves or poison themselves. Or they find a man who's happy to do that for him.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Cutting, Men, Glowing

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Tell-All”, p.70, Random House

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• Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?

  T. S. Eliot

  Hope, Men, Eagles

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.78, Faber & Faber

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• we need not avoid our active lives, but simply bring to them a new vision and shift of gravity. for in the center we are rooted in god's love. in such a place there is no need for striving and impatience and dashing about seeking approval.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Vision, Needs, Approval

  Sue Monk Kidd (1987). “God's Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education. The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

  Albert Einstein

  Giving, Doubt, Balance

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.95, Princeton University Press

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• Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Pain, Sleep, Play

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism”, p.179, Shambhala Publications

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• I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures and fall into such terrors as this,' said Patricius sternly. 'Those who presume on their learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true interpretations.' The Merlin smiled gently. 'I cannot join you in that wish, brother. I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Brother, Fall, Men

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• Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.

  Tim Ferriss

  Inspirational, Excitement, Should

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• I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.

  Salman Rushdie

  Memories, Past, Temptation

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• So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men, Long, Deep Thought

  1879-80 The Brothers Karamazov, bk.5, ch.5.

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• How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Sweet, Nature, Morning

  Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.121, Race Point Publishing

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