George Monbiot Quotes

No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you've survived a deep tragedy.

You're going to have highs and lows, but it's how you get through the lows.

Dark clouds may hang on me sometimes, but I'll work it out.

A lot of times when you go through a very traumatic situation and it's emotionally difficult to deal with you come back spiritually stronger. It changes you in a way.

Sometimes to go forward you've got to go to the depths of your own personal despair and claw yourself back. From that point, no matter what happens, you know you can do it.

It takes a lot of energy and creativity to make such screwed up lives carry on. And the kind of will people have to survive, year after year, dealing with that stuff, is weirdly impressive.

I don't think that you can let the storms of life overwhelm you. When you do that, you are no better than the craziness that caused you to be under attack.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Human beings have enormous resilience.

There's moments where I want to break down and cry, but not give up.

I'm not used to crying. It's a little difficult. All my life I've had to fight. It's just another fight I'm going to have to learn how to win, that's all. I'm just going to have to keep smiling.

What I learned for myself... is that no matter what the circumstances, people survive.

Obviously, resilience matters. I was no stranger to adversity, but it's different when it's personal. Not something I would recommend.

Strength doesn't mean an absence of pain.

Being knee-deep in sadness or suffering and refusing to look down - to me, that represents something more powerful than someone who's never gone through difficulty.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

The stuff I've seen and lived and survived. Gun to my head, cops coming to your house. I had the confidence of telling myself that I'm going to make it. Everything I've been through, I could've had a mental breakdown, but I kept it together. If I didn't have that confidence I wouldn't have made it. That confidence has nothing to do with basketball.

I think I was as mentally tough as I've ever been. I felt like I handled the situation both on and off the court extremely well. I felt like I needed to.

It's gonna take the man in me to conquer this insanity.

If you're strong enough on the inside, you can handle anything that comes at you on the outside.

What they don't know is that I went over the edge years ago, and lived to tell the tale.

It is not just a person's physical constitution, their intellegence, their education, or even their social conditioning that enables them to withstand hardship. Much more significant is their inner development. And while some may be able to survive through sheer willpower, the ones who suffer the least are those who have a high degree of patience and courage in the face of adversity.

My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself - not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest.

If you live in an oppressive society, you've got to be resilient. You can't let each little thing crush you. You have take every encounter and make yourself larger, rather than allow yourself to be diminished by it.

Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.