Penelope Fitzgerald Quotes

If someone is trying to stop you from enjoying your life by impeding on yours, and telling you that your life is not the right way, then by all means, I'm the first one to say, "Fight for your rights, fight for who you are and for what you believe in." But you better be the stronger person. Just be aware and attentive to everything that's happening in life and know that there are gonna be people that are going to stop you and going to enjoy stopping you from getting to your goals. But just continue to be strong and outwit them.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

Without the strength to endure the crisis, one will not see the opportunity within. It is within the process of endurance that opportunity reveals itself.

We are reviled but we do not intend to speak evil in return. We are in desperate straits but do not despair. We are persecuted but not forsaken. It’s easy to humiliate and crush people who are open, but when I am weak, then I am strong.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Yet there is a dignity in the human spirit which can become most clearly visible in the moment of defeat and disaster.

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

some of us have so much defeat in our past that we feel we lost the race before we knew it started.

Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.

We learn to fight and to grow strong by fighting.

Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always a seed of good. Find it and prosper.

I don't believe in failure. I believe every setback is an opportunity to learn, regroup, get stronger, and try again. This is my motto: Rejection is God's protection. When people feel that they have failed, it's usually because somebody or something caused them to feel that way and taste defeat. I refuse to dwell on that. Yes, it sucks at first, and the feeling is valid, but it all happens for a reason. Let go.

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, "Oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away; I rose right where I'd been knocked down." That's how you get to know yourself.

Cold as winter, strong as stone; She faced the darkness all alone. A silver goddess; a reflection. A mirage; a recollection. No return; no turning back. The past is gone, the future, black. Serpents gather in their nest, And she stands above the rest. Shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow. The moon is risen; she stands below. She views her world through the eyes of others. Black and white; there are no colors, As she looks down upon a shattered youth. A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth.

I am Defeated all the time, yet to Victory I am born.

Women are never so strong as after their defeat.

Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Everything can be taken from you in a second, but the human spirit is so strong. War can teach you so much about evil, and so much about good.

You are fortunate if you have learned the difference between temporary defeat and failure, more fortunate still if you have learned the truth that the very seed of success is dormant in every defeat that you experience.