The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposite. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is secure enough, fixed enough for it.
One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.
An individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form and ripen. He is strong, not to do, but to live; not in his arms, but in his heart; not as an agent, but as a fact.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another ruler with trumpetings again. Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is that he has the strength to recognize - and to live with the recognition - that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. He creates himself by fashioning his own values; he has the pride to live by the values he wills.
We need to be strong in order to avoid war; and to win. A politician looks forward only to the next election. A statesman looks forward to the next generation. Any person who is over 30 and is not a conservative, has no brains.
I understand how democracy works. Quite a little bit of criticism in it, which is fine. That's fine. That's part of the process. But I have every right, as do my administration, to make it clear what the consequences would be of policy. And if we think somebody is strong or doesn't see the world the way it is, we'll continue to point that out to people.
I soak up personalities and energy. I can identify with anything because truthfully everything that makes up the world is characterized in some way in my family I feel, so my empathy is strong for mankind in general.
Many a young lady does not realize just how strong her love for a young man is until he fails to pass the approval test with her parents. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. And I am unsure about the universe.
A bully has no respect for a weakling and the way to stop a bully is not to be weak. The way to stop a bully from ever being a bully is to say: "I'm as strong as you. Anything you do to me, I can do to you." We are going for nuclear and conventional disarmament but we're going about it in the right way.
The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the balance is already shifting—force is losing its weight and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine, and more permeated with the feminine ideals—or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more evenly balanced.
People are needed to take up the challenge, strong people, who proclaim the truth, throw it in people's faces, and do what they can with their own two hands.
We're showing that there's no excuse for other nations to come together, both developed and developing, to achieve a strong global climate agreement next year.
Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.
So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.
In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle - this everyone knows. Yet no one asks accordingly.
(The real brahmin is the one who:) ... has crossed beyond duality ...knows no this shore, other shore, or both ...(is) settled in mind ... without inflowing thoughts ...is without attachment ...endures undisturbed criticism, ill-treatment and bonds, (and is) strong in patience ...(is) without anger, devout, upright, free from craving, disciplined and in his last body ...has experienced the end of his suffering here in this life, who has set down the burden, freed!