Inner War Quotes

A man's greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.

nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.

When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.

Satan would seem to be mannerly and reasonable; making as if he would be content with one-half of the heart, whereas God challengeth all or none: as, indeed, He hath most reason to claim all that made all. But this is nothing but a crafty fetch of Satan; for he knows that if he have any part, God will have none: so the whole falleth to his share alone.

In the heart of man, there is a constant conflict between the flesh and the spirit.

life's endless war against the self you cannot live without.

There is something about human nature that just doesn't want to face the reality that we live in two worlds. We live in the physical, material world where we have jobs, read books, and go about our business. And we live in a spiritual world - and that is a world at war.

Before making peace, war is necessary, and that war must be made with our self. Our worst enemy is our self: our faults, our weaknesses, our limitations. And our mind is such a traitor! What does it? It covers our faults even from our own eyes, and points out to us the reason for all our difficulties: others! So it constantly deludes us, keeping us unaware of the real enemy, and pushes us towards those others to fight them, showing them to us as our enemies.

Neurosis is an inner cleavage-the state of being at war with oneself.

I waged war against my feelings.

Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections.

As an actor, to play someone who's at war with himself, that's so interesting.

Look at that battle you are involved in; you are caught in it: you are it.

I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?

The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the creative is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death.

I'm not a fighter, but in my mind I'm fighting every day. 'What's new? What am I doing?' I'm fighting myself. My soul is samurai. My roots aren't samurai, but my soul is.

Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?

Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

I had to fight with myself not to hurt people, some serious mental wars.

There are always two forces warring against each other within us.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.

[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts ... Every neurotic ... is at war with himself.

A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.