By Category: Perserverance
“Thus the unfamiliar, the outré, the monstrous, became familiarized - a kind of joke, a child's bogeyman, a cultural reference. 'Ordinary life' is an obsessive habit: something which must continue, even in the midst of war or catastrophe. Women in cities devastated by earthquake, their houses in ruin, still peg out their washing to dry in the sun.”
-The Eye Opener, Brian Aldiss
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“Nothing in the world can replace persistence.
Talent won't replace it: there's nothing more common that great talented man who have failed.
Genius won't replace it: it's almost proverbial the case of a genius who doesn't get rewarded.
Education won't replace it: the world is full of educated people drifting.
Only persistence and decision are omnipotent.”
-Anonymous
Recommended by Paula.
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“I don't know, perhaps it's a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I'll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs, I don't know, that's all words, never wake, all words, there's nothing else, you must go on, that's all I know, they're going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they're going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn't last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on, I'll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.”
-The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett
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“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”
-Actuelles, Albert Camus
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“In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to continue and endure.”
-Heart Warrior Chosa
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“Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never.”
-Sir Winston Churchill
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“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so...There she is with another hour before her.”
-The Hours, Michael Cunningham
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“One man scorned and covered with scars still strive with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.”
-The Impossible Dream (The Quest), Joe Darion
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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.”
-Organizing For Social Change: A Mandate For Activity In The 1990s, Frederick Douglass
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“I'm a soldier, these shoulders hold up so much
They won't budge, I'll never fall or fold up
I'm a soldier, even if my collar bones crush
or crumble, I will never slip or stumble.”
-Soldier, Eminem
Recommended by nikola.sydney.
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“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.”
-Harvey Fierstein
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“Life and death, energy and peace. If I stop today it was still worth it. Even the terrible mistakes that I made and would have unmade if i could. The pains that have burned me and scarred my soul, it was worth it for having been allowed to walk where I've walked, which was to hell on earth, heaven on earth, back again, into, under, far in between, through it, and above.”
-Gia
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“The world has started spinning backwards.
Only the acceleration has increased.
When you noticed, it was dark before your feet.
You were standing at the edge of a cliff.
You can't pull back.
Even if you turn pale nothing will happen.
With the light you've sharpened to the utmost,
you continue persistently even if the end of this path is
the end of the world.
There's more to life
than money or honor.
You will forever pretend not to understand.
It's frightening to notice and get hurt.
Your dream at that time, your wishes,
They were all granted, but...
Faster than everyone, you even pass the wind.
Higher than everyone, you even pierce the clouds.
Even if you live too quickly.”
-Too Late, Ayumi Hamasaki
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“brave love, dream
not of staunching such strict flame, but come,
lean to my wound; burn on, burn on.”
-Firesong, Sylvia Plath
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“'Then why are you going there?'
'Because I haven't tried it before. That's all there is left to try. It's somewhere to go. Just to keep moving... You know,' he added suddenly, 'I don't think it will be any use. But there's nothing to do in the East except sit under some hedge and wait to die. I don't think I mind it much now, the dying. I know it would be a lot easier. Only I think it's a sin to sit down and let your life go without making a try for it.'”
-Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
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“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.”
-Henry Rollins
Recommended by Tricia.
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“Fade in, start the scene
Enter beautiful girl
But things are not what they seem
As we stand at the edge of the world
"Excuse me, sir,
But I have plans to die tonight
Oh, and you are directly in my way
And I bet you're gonna say it's not right"
My reply:
"Excuse me, miss
But do you have the slightest clue
Of exactly what you just said to me
And exactly who you're talking to?"
She said, "I don't care, you don't even know me"
I said, "I know but I'd like to change that soon, hopefully"
Yeah, we all flirt with the tiniest notion
Of self conclusion in one simplified motion
You see the trick is that you're never supposed to act on it
No matter how unbearable this misery gets
"You make it sound so easy to be alive
But tell me, how am I supposed to seize this day
When everything inside me has died?"
My reply:
"Trust me, girl
I know your legs are pleading to leap
But I offer you this easy choice-
Instead of dying, living with me"
She said, "Are you crazy? You don't even know me."
I said, "I know, but I'd like to change that soon hopefully"
Yeah, we all flirt with the tiniest notion
Of self conclusion in one simplified motion
You see the trick is that you're never supposed to act on it
No matter how unbearable this misery gets
I would be lying if I said that things would never get rough
And all this cliche motivation, it could never be enough
I could stand here all night trying to convince you
But what good would that do?
My offer stands, and you must choose
"All right, you win, but I only give you one night
To prove yourself to be better than my attempt at flight
I swear to god if you hurt me I will leap
I will toss myself from these very cliffs
And you'll never see it coming"
"Settle, precious, I know what you're going through
Just ten minutes before you got here I was gonna jump too"
Yeah we all flirt with the tiniest notion
Of self conclusion in one simplified motion
You see the trick is that you're never supposed act on it
No matter how unbearable this misery gets”
-Self-Conclusion, The Spill Canvas
Recommended by Ray.
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“'I shared a dark suspicion,' Kemp says, 'that the life we were leading was a lost cause, we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.'”
-The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson
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“Courage isn't the absence of fear - it is the presence of fear, yet the will to go on.”
-Mark Twain
Recommended by Angela.
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“Fight till you can fight no more, scream till you can scream no more, breathe till you can breathe no more. Then listen to your heartbeat in the darkness.”
-Ali Solenarian Van Dam
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