Ian Thorpe Quotes

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.

You have to learn how to fight through when it sucks and it's really hard.

I haven't met anybody who hasn't been able to describe years and years and years of very, very difficult struggle through the whole process of achieving anything whatsoever. And there's no way to sort of get around that.

Strength and struggle travel together.

If the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way.

I'm right there, swimming the river of hardships but I know how to swim.

... "You may not see the ocean, but right now we are in the middle of the ocean, and we have to keep swimming.

My parents believe in the principle of ‘sink or swim,’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger ― or it kills you.” From “The Education of Robert Nifkin

They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of man.

Wherever there's hope there's a trial.

The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.

Life's pretty tough . . . you're lucky if you live through it.

They say behind mountains are more mountains.

Everything's been a struggle for me.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal... I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn't have power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired.

I've always believed in survival.

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

These years of the Ecole Normale were an ordeal. Nothing was handed to me on the first try.

When you have to cope with a lot of problems, you're either going to sink or you're going to swim.

Nobody's going to give you everything on a silver tray. It's going to be difficult.

No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you.

Nothing comes easily for me.