#severance

The thirst we shared for one another made it clear that the distraction would only come from deprivation. Charlotte was always on my mind. In my dreams, her name balancing fatally on my lips at all times, the scent of her drove me on through my everyday tasks. It was in denying myself of her soft skin and intoxicating presence that I truly began to lose touch. ↗

— Shawn Kirsten Maravel

#volition #young-adult-series #dreams

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from inanition, not stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#difficulty #diligence #perseverance #experience

So since I'm still here livin', I guess I will live on. I could've died for love-- But for livin' I was born. ↗

— Langston Hughes

#life #love #perseverance #death

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. ↗

— Charles Jones

#life

It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up again. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#men

We fail to prevail with unconverted men because of our more fundamental failure to prevail with God in prayer. ↗

— John R. Mott

#prayer #men

Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#expectations #perseverance #writing #art

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#character #failure #perseverance #character

Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#dreams

Grappling with fate is like meeting an expert wrestler: to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown. The only thing that counts is whether you get back up. ↗

— Deng Ming-Dao

#fate #perseverance #taoism #wrestling #harmony