Strength

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength. ~~ Henry Ward Beecher

In a democracy only those laws which have their basis in folkways or the approval of strong groups have a chance of being enforced. ~~ Abraham Myerson

The strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of its homes. ~~ Confucius

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. ~~ Dag Hammarskjold

Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength. ~~ Charles Lamb

If I were asked … to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people [the Americans] ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women. ~~ Alexis de Tocqueville

Once I had the strength but no wisdom; now I have the wisdom but no strength. ~~ Persian proverb

War begun without good provision of money beforehand for going through with it is but as a breathing of strength and blast that will quickly pass away. Coin is the sinews of war. ~~ Francis Rabelais

If your strength is small, don't carry heavy burdens. If your words are worthless, don't give advice. ~~ Chinese proverb

Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. ~~ Unattributed

One cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose. ~~ Jean Anouilh

No man should be praised for his goodness if he lacks the strength to be bad; in such cases goodness is usually only the effect of indolence or impotence of will. ~~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength. ~~ August Wilson

Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle. ~~ Viscount William Lamb Melbourne

The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong. ~~ Georges Bidault

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. ~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Happiness is a resultant of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other. ~~ Norman Bradburn

Men are made stronger on realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own arm. ~~ Sidney J. Phil

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. ~~ Carlos Castaneda

God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me. ~~ Thomas H. Huxley

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength that will always spring up if thou wilt always look there. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others. ~~ Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Men don't show emotion, except rage, because it takes strength to show soft emotions. Most men don't have that kind of strength. They keep things inside. Then they kill someone. ~~ George Carlin

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become. ~~ Brooke Foss Westcott

The strongest human instinct is to impart information, the second strongest is to resist it. ~~ Kenneth Graham

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that perseverance means a strong will and obstinacy means a strong won't. ~~ D. W. Jerrold

You can't really be strong until you see a funny side to things. ~~ Ken Kesey

Canada is a collection of ten provinces with strong governments loosely connected by fear. ~~ Dave Broadfoot

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed. ~~ William James

The heart is not on the left side of the chest. It's about in the center with its strongest portion on the left side, thus, it can be heard slightly better from the left. ~~ Deane Jordan [1001 Facts Somebody Screwed Up]

Detour: something that lengthens your mileage, diminishes your gas, and strengthens your vocabulary. ~~ Oliver Herford

Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

O! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant. ~~ William Shakespeare

It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit that you don't know all the answers. ~~ John P. Loughrane

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong. ~~ Thomas Carlyle

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. ~~ Helen Keller

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office. ~~ H. L. Mencken

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong. ~~ Winston Churchill

The strength of criticism lies only in the weakness of the thing criticized. ~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do. ~~ Elbert Hubbard

We are now at the point where we must decide whether we are to honor the concept of a plural society which gains strength through diversity or whether we are to have bitter fragmentation that will result in perpetual tension and strife. ~~ Justice Earl Warren

Things will probably come out all right, but sometimes it takes strong nerves just to watch. ~~ Hedley Donovan

There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. ~~ Han Suyin

I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. ~~ Leo Buscaglia

Chinatown [in Honolulu was] intentionally burned in 1900 … to stop the spread of bubonic plague. Only three buildings were planned to be burned … but strong winds helped fan a fire that destroyed 40 acres of homes and businesses. ~~ Ed Cassidy

One of the elements of a happy home is a careful attention to courtesy. Family affection may be strong and devoted, but it is hard to realize it when the manner is hasty, the speech sarcastic or fault finding. ~~ The Old Farmers Almanac (1882)

I know that moment when you go in to apologize to your kid and you end up hectoring him. I've known that as a father and I've known that as a son. I found myself having a real strong reaction to that. ~~ Harrison Ford

All change represents loss of some kind; that's why some of us resist it so strongly. ~~ Unattributed

Love and respect woman. Look to her not only for comfort, but for strength and inspiration and the doubling of your intellectual and moral powers. Blot out from your mind any idea of superiority; you have none. ~~ Joseph Mazzini

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come. ~~ Victor Hugo

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. ~~ George Eliot

Gentleness springs from great strength. ~~ R. E. Phillips

Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength. ~~ St. Francis de Sales

Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear. ~~ Dave Barry

A worthy wife is her husband's joy and crown; the other kind corrodes his strength and tears down everything he does. ~~ The Bible

There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are sheared with scars. ~~ E. H. Chapin

Sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey develop muscles. That's why Americans have the strongest eyes in the world. ~~ Robert Orben

Spirit … has 50 times the strength and staying power of brawn and muscle. ~~ Unattributed

[Career advice:] Spend 4 hours developing your strengths for every hour spent correcting your weaknesses. ~~ Dennis Wiater

The man who listens to Reason is lost; reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

Gravity is not the same throughout the world. It tugs at different intensities in different places, depending upon the subsurface density. The gravity is measurably stronger in Hawaii … than in Maine. Colorado is very light … ~~ Deane Jordan ["1,001 Facts Somebody Screwed Up"]

Patience and the passage of time do more than strength and fury. ~~ Jean de La Fontaine

Knowing what goes on behind my placid exterior, I have a strong suspicion of what goes on behind yours. ~~ Richard Needham

As a rule men are foolish, ungrateful, jealous, covetous of others' goods, abusing their superiority when they are strong and rascals when they are weak. ~~ Voltaire

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands -- and then eat just one of the pieces. ~~ Judith Viorst

Don't wish me happiness -- I don't expect to be happy … it's gotten beyond that somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor -- I will need them all. ~~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh (see Said Who?)

The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong. ~~ Marlene Dietrich

The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see. ~~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I would not say I believe, I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God. ~~ Carl Jung

The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone. ~~ Henrik Ibsen

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. ~~ Max Lerner

The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves. ~~ Shirley Chisholm

Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt. ~~ James Baldwin

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. ~~ John Keats

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. ~~ Douglas MacArthur

Marred pleasure's best, shadow makes the sun strong. ~~ Stevie Smith

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. ~~ Michel Foucault

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the [20th] century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term in office. ~~ Desmond Morris

No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim. ~~ Boris Pasternak

There are some women … in whom conscience is so strongly developed that it leaves little room for anything else. ~~ Sylvia Townsend Warner

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion. ~~ Eric Hoffer

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind. ~~ William Hazlitt

Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been one to him. We have already paid the price. ~~ Elie Wiesel

To become oneself, with all one's strength. Difficult. A bomb, a speech, a rifle shot -- and the world can look a different place. And then where is this "self?" ~~ Christa Wolf

The fact that I have no remedy for the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong possibility that yours is a fake. ~~ H. L. Mencken

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency -- the belief that the here and now is all there is. ~~ Allan Bloom

Habit is stronger than reason. ~~ Santayana

The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces obstinacy, it sharpens the sense of alienation and strengthens the power of resistance. ~~ Nietzsche

There is not greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in the circle of his own connections. ~~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Everything science has taught me -- and continues to teach me -- strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace. ~~ Wernher von Braun

The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. They are bottomless. They are insatiable. They are always parched and always bitter. They are everyone's concern and like vampires they suck our life's blood. ~~ Bette Davis

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. ~~ Desiderata (Author Unknown)

We reckoned we could make it because there were four of us. None of us could've made it alone, because Paul wasn't quite strong enough, I didn't have enough girl appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. ~~ John Lennon

What man is strong enough to reject the possibility of hope? ~~ Paul Auster

A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. ~~ David Collier

How much easier to make pets of our friends' weaknesses than to put up with their strengths. ~~ Elizabeth Bibesco

Continuous effort -- not strength or intelligence -- is the key to unlocking our potential. ~~ Liane Cardes

The age of strong belief is over, the good is no longer always very good. ~~ D. L. Coles

The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government: the mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. ~~ Walter Bagehot

Do continue to believe that with your feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate in yourself this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it. ~~ Rainer Maria Rilke

It is not the strength, but the duration, of great sentiments that makes great men. ~~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The perfection preached in the Gospels never yet built up an Empire. Every man of action has a strong dose of optimism, pride, hardness and cunning. But all these things will be forgiven him, indeed they will be regarded as high qualities, if he can make of them the means to achieve great ends. ~~ Charles de Gaulle

Strength is a matter of the made-up mind. ~~ John Beecher

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals. ~~ Charles Caleb Colton

Three passions, simple by overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ~~ Bertrand Russell

I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right. ~~ Tallulah Bankhead

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived lives of the parents. ~~ Carl Jung

… the qualities I cherish in the people I love -- their wit, humor, courage, loyalty, faith, compassion, mercy -- are not ultimately the work of the flesh. These things outlast the body; they live on in the memories of family and friends, live on forever by inspiring others to be kind and loving. Humor, faith, courage, compassions -- these don't rot and vanish; they are impervious to bacteria, stronger than time or gravity; they have their genesis in something less fragile than blood and bone, in a soul that endures. ~~ Dean Koontz [Seize the Night]

I have come back again to where I belong: not an enchanted place, but the walls are strong. ~~ Dorothy H. Rath

Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we are going to show. ~~ Mignon McLaughlin

You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. ~~ Pablo Picasso

Here's my strength and my weakness, gents, I loved them until they loved me. ~~ Dorothy Parker

Eighteen is a good time for suffering. One has all the necessary strength, and no defenses. ~~ Sir William Golding

It is easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [Essays, "Self-Reliance"]

My strength is made perfect in weakness. ~~ II Corinthians. XII. 9

Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic … ~~ Herman Melville

That which does not kill me makes me stronger. ~~ Friedrich Nietzsche