Ali Smith Quotes

... combines a limited outlook with strong qualities of resistance.

I have never yet met a successful person who hasn't had to overcome either a little or a lot of adversity in his or her life. If life there is a lot of lumps and bumps... a lot of throttling up and a lot of throttling down.

The older you get the stronger the wind gets and it's always in your face.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

I had to fight my whole life to break out of my circumstances. That's just part of my makeup.

Everyone's got a boulder in their life of one sort or another that they need to overcome. For most people, it's not a literal one, but there are certainly metaphorical ones.

For some people, life is the process of knocking through walls to get out. For others, it is the building of walls.

Problems, obstacles, and challenges can either become the markers of our limits and limitations, or they can become the springboard into a whole new world.

Life's fulfillment finds constant obstacles in its path; but those are necessary for the sake of its advance. The stream is saved from the sluggishness of its current by the perpetual opposition of the soil through which it must cut its way. The spirit of fight belongs to the genius of life.

I've had much more down in my life than I've had up. And much more struggle. First of all, when I went into the film school everybody said, "What are you doing? This is a complete dead-end for a career."

This world and life of ours are filled with inequalities. The worst possible use to make of this fact, however, is to allow resentments to possess us. All of us have imagined limitations, but we have also the privilege of pushing them aside, and spreading our lives out! We never know any of our limitations until we put ourselves to the test. There are always "growing pains" working within us.

Everyone wants to be an overcomer, but nobody wants anything to overcome.

The doors of opportunity swing on the hinges of opposition!

Wherever there's a human being there's going to be somebody that tries to hold you back.

Not everything in the world is easy or powerful.

What is life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its tip of triumph and power?

A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every page I have turned in life.

You have to compete in life because if you don't have no competition - no competition, no spirit, you know, you'll fall under the slightest struggle.

I’m interested in what people do with the chaos in their lives and how they respond to it, and simultaneously what they do with what they feel like are limitations. If they push against these limitations, will they wind up in the realm of chaos, or will they push against limitations and wind up in the world of freedom?

Everything has boundaries. the same holds true with thought. you shouldn't fear boundaries, but you also should not be afraid of destroying them. that's what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries. what's really important in life is always the things that are secondary.

The mere fact that you have obstacles to overcome is in your favor.

Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.

Nobody’s journey is seamless or smooth. We all stumble. We all have setbacks. It’s just life’s way of saying, ‘Time to change course.’

Everything in this world is designed to oppose your forward movement!

What use would wings be to a man bound in iron fetters? They would only drive him to even greater despair.