Fortuitousness

“ 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. ”

“ And so, once again, looking out upon our ordinary life, what shall we need to put backbone into life? What do we need to give a little more strength to it, to enable us to be braver and firmer and stronger? ”

“ To comprehend this courage is needed, and, as a condition thereof, a surplus of strength: for precisely in degree as courage dares to thrust forward, precisely according to the measure of strength, does one approach truth. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ He would reach what would seem to be the very limit of his endurance, but if he held on, and would not rest, would not yield, this curious new vigor would come to him, this feeling of triumph, as if he had passed the boundary of normal endeavor and had become superhuman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, instead of delicate gracefulness, are colossal strength, ponderous mass, profound impressiveness; a bent back that has carried the burden, hands that have labored, head bowed in vast depth of thought. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all these modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and acquiescence. They desired strength; and to them to desire strength was to admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statu quo. ”

“ 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. [120]
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. ”

“ JOY.
"The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Nothing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sinfulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle, face it, ’tis God’s gift.
Be strong, be strong, be strong!
Be strong!
Say not the days are evil—who’s to blame? ”

“ Where before I crouched a slave!
'Tis so glorious to be conscious
Of a growing power within
Stronger than the rallying forces
Of a charged and marshaled sin!
Never in those old romances
Felt I half the thrill of life
That I feel within me stirring,
Standing in this place of strife.
O those olden days of dalliance,
When I wantoned with my fate;
When I trifled with the knowledge
That had well-nigh come too late.
Yet, my soul, look not behind thee;
Thou hast work to do at last;
Let the brave toil of the present
Overarch the crumbling past.
Build thy great acts high and higher ”

“ 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. ”

“ I too must go, to keep my troth;
And if the eye at times should brim,
'Tis human weakness, give me strength
My work appointed to fulfil,
That I may gain the crown at length
The gods give those who do their will. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Be that as it may, I argued with myself, in the height of my calamitous situation, upon the subject of fortitude and dejection, courage and cowardice and, notwithstanding the serious aspect of affairs, found myself listening to the suggestions of pride what a paltry thing to yield, while strength is left to struggle! ”

“ Though we are not now the strength which in old days moved Earth and Heaven, that which we are, we are. One equal temper, of heroic hearts, made weak by time and by fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ”

“ And I will begin with courage, and once more ask, What is that common quality, which is the same in all these cases, and which is called courage? Do you now understand what I mean?
LACHES: Not over well.
SOCRATES: I mean this: As I might ask what is that quality which is called quickness, and which is found in running, in playing the lyre, in speaking, in learning, and in many other similar actions, or rather which we possess in nearly every action that is worth mentioning of arms, legs, mouth, voice, mind;—would you not apply the term quickness to all of them? ”

“ His whole drift having been that care and effort and gain and pressure of the world are sapping human strength, he ends with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, which exhibits human strength in its freshness and vigor.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ But I am strong, stronger than many men who earn their living by exhibiting to the vulgar feats of strength. Impelled by fear of death, I exerted my reserve of force, and driving will and muscle into one supreme united effort I tore the death grip from my neck and flung the Arab off. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, when vigor alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile material weight, triumphed over manly strength, and falling upon the body, drove out the mind. ”

“ Vitality, like the vitality of youth upon mountain tops, pulsed and whirled about them, pouring into them the currents of a rushing glorious life, undiluted, straight from the source. In his little person he felt both the keenness of sharp steel and the vast momentum of a whole ocean. Thus he describes it. And the more clearly he uttered in his thoughts the sound given to him by his leader, the greater seemed the influx of strength and glory into his heart. ”

“ The surprising strength and endurance exhibited by lunatics and delirious persons often show that the amount of power which can be commanded by the will under an ordinary stimulant by no means equals the latent strength. ”

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

“ CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1912 BY RALPH WALDO TRINE
[Pg 5] Thoughts are forces—like builds like and like attracts like. Thoughts of strength both build strength from within and attract it from without. Thoughts of weakness actualize weakness from within and attract it from without. Courage begets strength, fear begets weakness. And so courage begets success, fear begets failure. ”

“ From morn till night, from night till morn, do thou
Undaunted ’gainst brute evil stand.
Be strong, O man of earth, be strong!
Grip steadily to that noble task
To fight the want that argues in thy soul
To let each sinning be the last.
Be strong, O man of earth, be strong! ”

“ That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail—are these not talents?—are they not, in the present state of the world, among the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts? ”

“ This superiority of strength must produce various effects; for instance, a greater boldness,—that is, more courage; a greater sense of superiority,—that is, less desire of revenge; a greater opinion of security,—that is, more frankness, less suspicion, policy and cunning. ”

“ Large.—With this organ large, a person will be of an unmovable character, firm in his resolutions, and constant in his principles. He attends little to exhortations or examples, his conduct is uniform, and his exertions may be calculated on in all the various situations of life. With Combativeness and Self-esteem large, he will never relinquish a pursuit while a hope of success remains, and with but moderate Cautiousness and Causality, will be deaf to all remonstrance or advice. With large Benevolence and Conscientiousness, he will seek for independence, yet be just and benevolent. ”

“ In certain sympathetic studies he is revealed in his strength and his weakness, by those who are able to get behind much that is superficially unattractive to the solid endurance and courage and helpfulness beneath it all. ”

“ The feats of intellectual or physical strength, the surprising exploits of special sensation and mind-power, performed by individuals under the influence of any condition which suspends the sense of pain, weakness, or fatigue, are explained by the circumstance that unsuspected reserves of power and endurance are placed at the disposal of the will. ”

“ Learn to realise the exceeding greatness of the power that will clothe your weakness. 'Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, for that He is strong in might, not one faileth.' That is wonderful, but here is a far nobler operation of the divine power. It is great to 'preserve the ancient heavens' fresh and strong by His might, but it is [Pg 80] greater to come down to my weakness, to 'give power to the faint,' and 'increase strength to them that have no might.' And that is what He will do with us. ”

“ Still, courage and physical endurance, however rude and uncouth in outward aspect, as well as heroism of a higher mental or moral order, ever possessed, and ever will possess, a strange and uncontrollable fascination; and the associations, social, political, or religious, attendant upon the more prominent of the bloody struggles of the past, excite, in a most powerful degree, the emotional as well as the imaginative elements of our being. ”

“ There is strength in this, and strength is the only thing one respects. I actually believe that under unusual circumstances, in a period of great deeds, what seems to be your weakness would reveal itself as extraordinary power. ”

“ But it brings its own antidote; and here is my point, — that all kinds of power usually emerge at the same time; good energy, and bad; power of mind, with physical health; the ecstasies of devotion, with the exasperations of debauchery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From your strength I make sure of my own strength, from your tenderness I gather compassion, and from your steadfastness I gain the hope that leads me onward, the belief that enables me to face each day bravely and with a smile. ”