Streltsy

“ And, after the death of Split-Nose, there was but one other man that dared rise up and speak his mind, and that man was Hair-Face. 'Where is the strength of the strong?' he asked. 'We are the strong, all of us, and we are stronger than Dog-Tooth and Tiger- Face and Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw and all the rest who do nothing and eat much and weaken us by the hurt of their strength which is bad strength. ”

“ Who dreamed her face the world might not surpass,
Strength is her neighbour, but he boasts no more,—
And over them the wind cries out, "Alas!"
Would you seek beauty, seek it underground;
Would you find strength—the strong are underground ”

“ The weakling to his breast, through the great might
Of Pity, grown to strength, he took the deep
With that light load in his arms.
But as he went,
The strength greater than human, the strong limbs
Which bore long time unfaltering the great pain
And burden of our life ”

“ It was in her surrendering helplessness that she lay most powerful. It was, perhaps, the penalty of his dominant and undisciplined strength; for, like all strong men, he could pay tribute only to weakness. ”

“ WHICH IS THE STRONGER? What is strength,—the brute hardness of iron, or the more delicate strength of steel? Which is the stronger,—the physical frame that can strike the harder blow, or that which can endure the greater strain and yet last longer? “Man can lift a heavier weight,” says a writer on physiology, “but woman can watch more enduringly at the bedside of her sick child.” ”

“ Among their roll of gifts; for Strength she yearns.
For Strength, her idol once, too long her toy.
Lo, Strength is of the plain root-Virtues born:
Strength shall ye gain by service, prove in scorn,
Train by endurance, by devotion shape.
Strength is not won by miracle or rape.
It is the offspring of the modest years,
The gift of sire to son, thro’ those firm laws
Which we name Gods; which are the righteous cause,
The cause of man, and manhood’s ministers. ”

“ Strength—her soft, passionate strength—came back to her fingers and she clung to him. "You're mine!" she whispered to him. "Mine! Mine! Mine!"
And he, holding her, told her: "Of course I'm yours, of course." ”

“ When work is chosen that only sturdy limbs can do; and that work is gradually approached, and persistently stuck to, by-and-by the sturdy limbs come. But when all that these limbs are called on to do is light, jerky work; and there is none of the spur which youthful rivalry and pride in superior strength bring; what wonder is it that you do not find many strong legs and arms? ”

“ My strength is as the strength of ten,
⁠Because my heart is pure. ”

“ And with that strange passivity of the nerves which nature mercifully sends to those who have learned submission to suffering, to those whose strength is the strength, not of resistance, but of endurance, she felt that as long as she sat there, relaxed and motionless, she had in a way withdrawn herself from the struggle to live. ”

“ This penury, all unexpected, has taken its seat in the heart where plenitude seemed to reign. The fees which I paid to delusion for just nine years of my youth have now to be returned with interest to Truth till the end of my days.
What is the use of straining to keep up my pride? What harm if I confess that I have something lacking in me? Possibly it is that unreasoning forcefulness which women love to find in men. But is strength mere display of muscularity? Must strength have no scruples in treading the weak underfoot? ”

“ Nevertheless, where Strength is, there is hope:—it may be said more truly than of the breath of Life; which is perhaps but the bucket of breath, muddy with the sediment of the well: whereas we have in Strength a hero, if a malefactor; whose muscles shall haul him up to the light he will prove worthy of, when that divinity has shown him his uncleanness. ”

“ The name roughly signifies ‘the strength of weakness,’ and thus it arose. It was noted that the boughs of a willow were not broken by a heavy fall of snow when strong trees cracked beneath the weight. And why? Being pliant they bowed their weakness and the snow slipped off. My son, recall the Rule. ‘I have no strength. I make submission my strength.’ As with the soul so it is with the body. How shall I sum up this art of attack and self-defence? It is the perfect control of the mind resisting defeat. It is to use weakness in such a way that it masters brute strength. ”

“ It is not in your power to bend me—cold and hard and strong as you may think yourself. I can be cold and hard and strong, too, as you will find. What if I tell you, as I do, that you shall never set eyes on me again if you do not give way? ”

“ If thou art strong, and he is weak, descend from thy strength, and enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes—thy heart beat as in his bosom. ”

“ The moment it is conceded that a delicate body can be made a robust one; that moment it is plain that there can be great gain in the comfort and usefulness of the possessor of that body not only during all the last half of her life, but through the first half as well. ”

“ Thus could the Earth with strength her lover dower,
And very near to victory could bring.
So when I feel thy tender hand in mine,
I, too, dear love, against the world could stand,
Courage divine comes with thy lightest touch.
Afar from thee Antæus-like I pine,
But strength returns now as I clasp thy hand.
Ah! that so slight a thing should mean so much. ”

“ If I could only learn 'to suffer and be strong'—in that source lies my weakness. I am only one of the many thousands of my sex who have had such struggles. I do not wish to shirk the duty imposed on me, but if more strength were given me to bear it. ”

“ Strength carried to such a point as this is a fascination; without seeming to take you captive, it makes you its prisoner; it does not enchant you, but it holds you spellbound. His ideal is the extraordinary, the gigantic, the overwhelming, the incommensurable. ”

“ If you have bodily strength, you can apply it at a suitable place and have a self-consciousness or pride of it; if, on the contrary, your strong body has you, then it pricks you everywhere, and at the most unsuitable place, to show its strength: you can give nobody your hand without squeezing his. ”

“ Without strength—and by strength I mean health, vitality, and a general sense of physical well-being—life is but a gloomy business. Wealth, talent, ambition, the love and affection of friends, the pleasure derived from doing good to those about one, all these things may afford some consolation for being deprived of life’s chief blessing, but they can never make up for it. ”

“ My strength is as the strength of ten,
⁠Because my heart is pure. ”

“ Lucy.
Ah, don't be too hard upon yourself. You're so afraid of letting your tenderness appear.
Alec.
The only way to be strong is never to surrender to one's weakness. Strength is merely a habit like everything else. I want you to be strong, too. ”

“ What though my shrinking flesh complain,
And murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain,
When I am weak, then I am strong
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-man prevail. ”

“ If it requires almost unlimited strength to obtain a firm foothold at any time in the whirlpool of fashion and custom, it will require strength superhuman to rise in a struggle in which you have once sunk, and it will take all your strength of will power, all your keen sense of honor and justice, all your sweet natural purity and self conscious pride to always hold that queenly head erect and walk firmly among the slippery pitfalls that unseen may lie along your every path. ”

“ If I had more strength I could stay longer—but strength is what we need to hold the wings of our soul closely down, and when the physical chain grows weak, all that is waiting comes nearer. Spiritual strength grows greater, and the waiting soul plumes its wings for flight. It does not seem so far, and Louis, Emily, when my visible presence goes from you, your prayers will come to me. ”

“ The Delian and the Pataran both.
Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight;
Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong
By the just gods, who surely hate
The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong. ”

“ Relief was never quite near at hand for kings, queens, comedians and other such people, and though you might be yourself not exactly one of those, you could yet, in leading the life of high pressure, guess a little how they sometimes felt. It was truly the life of high pressure that Strether had seemed to feel himself lead while he sat there, close to Chad, during the long tension of the act. ”

“ Once achieved and installed it may always be trusted to make the poor seeker feel he would have blushed to the roots of his hair for failing of it; yet, how, as its virtue can be essentially but the virtue of the whole, the wayside traps set in the interest of muddlement and pleading but the cause of the moment, of the particular bit in itself, have to be kicked out of the path! All the sophistications in life, for example, might have appeared to muster on behalf of the menace—the menace to a bright variety—involved in Strether’s having all the subjective “say,” as it were, to himself. ”

“ Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible. ”

“ Because, from the weakness of her body she has more obstacles to overcome. Her power arises from an inward strength that lasts long, and shines most brightly in the darkest hour of trial. Mere bodily strength, without this power of soul, is often cowardly and useless. ”

“ The current of a mighty strength was in him, dominant, compelling, that strength which in some mysterious way has a volition of its own, apart from him who possesses it, bending men and events to his uses. ”

“ And in addition to all this, his was that super-strength that is the dower of but one human in millions—a strength depending not on size but on degree, a supreme organic excellence residing in the stuff of the muscles themselves. ”

“ Strength should be a unit; and after having for seven years measured myself with misfortune and vanquished it, and risen, to gain literary royalty, every night with a will more determined than that of the night before, I have, I think, the right to call myself strong. ”

“ So, because he was slowly gaining the strength to think of others before himself,—and of strength this is the surest test,—and because the tenderness of a strong man is greater than all the tenderness of a woman, he soothed her and brought her peace ”

“ But this temper of mind is not formed for endurance. As a sick person finds comfort in a new posture at first, but after a time the posture becomes restrained and wearisome; thus, after mustering fortitude, patience, the calm spirit of philosophy, and the tender one of piety, and finding relief, suddenly the heart rebels, its old desires and old habits recur, and we are the more dissatisfied from being disappointed in those modes of support in which we trusted. ”

“ Those few moments in which, by sheer force, he had held back the falling wall, had saved the child’s life, and she liked even the physical strength which he had shown, as a strong woman is pretty sure to like strength in a man. ”

“ Think, too, how great must have been that strength which could have thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found barely sufficient to drag it down! ”

“ He has great physical strength, but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face flitted the terror that must come to any man at first sense of being in the angry clutch of one stronger than he. ”

“ Are not we much like them? Do we not use up our strength in useless effort? Then, how often we rush off to the gymnasium or to the drug-store in the vain hope of regaining our strength. New strength is not to be found in either place. It is within ourselves all the time. Stop the expenditure and permit re-cuperation through concentration. Don't go lie down. Don't take a nap. Stop right where you are and bring the thought down to one thing, strength. For the moment allow the body to remain still. ”

“ That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed By fear or favour of the crowd.
Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; That, under Thee, we may possess Man's strength to comfort man's distress. ”

“ That is the phantom that one ought to lay, if it can be laid. And is there hidden somewhere any well of healing, any pure source of strength and refreshment, from which we can drink and be calm and brave? That is a question which each has to answer tor himself. For myself, I can only say that strength is sometimes given, sometimes denied. ”

“ There are six sources of strength and weakness.
"Beauty, a long beard, size, height, robustness, grace, courage, daring,—these eight, in which men surpass their fellows, are therefore passports to failure. ”