Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

We often in our misfortunes take that for constancy and patience which is only dejection of mind; we suffer without daring to holdup our heads, just as cowards let themselves be knocked on the head because they have not courage to strike back.

A man shares his days with hunger, thirst, and cold, with the good times and the bad, and the first part of being a man is to understand that.

I shake my head, but I can’t change this. I can only bear the scars, as I have always done, as I ever do.

At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did I bear it. The question remains: how?

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.

There are people who are willing to suffer and swallow their tears at leisure, and God will no doubt reward them in heaven for their resignation; but those who have the will to struggle strike back at fate in retaliation for the blows they receive.

One can summon courage and fortitude to face tragedy; irritations and frustrations are a cloud of mosquitoes that nip and sting and drive one frantic.

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

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it.

I do not murmur, even if my heart break.

Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer.

You can't avoid pain, but you can choose to overcome it.

No matter how hard it rains, withstand the pain.

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

People say, That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.

Are you the sort of person who can turn around when you have nothing left, and find that little bit extra inside you to keep going, or do you sag and wilt with exhaustion? It is a mental game, and it is hard to tell how people will react until they are squeezed.

There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.

I’d always enjoyed life, and I knew I would again. But I was going to have to slog through a lot of bad patches to get there

I survive all those battles," she growled, "and I get defeated by a stupid chunk of rock!

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

You choose to go voluntarily into the fire. The blaze might well destroy you. But if you survive, every blow of the hammer will serve to shape your being. Every drop of water wrung from you will temper and strengthen your soul.

You can and you must expect suffering.