Toughness Quotes

“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.”
― Greta Garbo

“We've got a motto here-you're tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.”
― Paula McLain

“I am past scorching; not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“There’ll be guys who were in wars hearing what we did and thinking, ‘Whoa.’ You and me, we can say, ‘You got yourself some medals solider? Yeah, well, I lived through the FAYZ.”
― Michael Grant

“(On Baron von Blixen:)

Six feet of amiable Swede and, to my knowledge, the toughest, most durable White Hunter ever to snicker at the fanfare of safari or to shoot a charging buffalo between the eyes while debating whether his sundown drink will be gin or whisky.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“I didn't sign it," Neil said, looking up from his hands. He lifted his fingers to his face. He couldn't feel his tatoo, but he'd seen Kevin's often enough that he knew exactly where it was. "He gave me a contract but I wouldn't sign it. He couldn't make me. This doesn't mean anything. I'm still a Fox.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“A champion is someone who gets up when he can't.”
― Jack Dempsey

“She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“In life, toughness and roughness go together.”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough. She must have convinced herself, or be in the unending process of convincing herself, that she, her values, and her choices are important. In a time and world where males hold sway and control, the pressure upon women to yield their rights-of-way is tremendous. And it is under those very circumstances that the woman's toughness must be in evidence.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“How long you been in the infantry, sir? Anything under ten miles counts as 'almost there'.”
― Henry V. O'Neil, Dire Steps

“[A woman] will need to prize her tenderness and be able to display it at appropriate times in order to prevent toughness from gaining total authority and to avoid becoming a mirror image of those men who value power above life, and control over love.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Yes, it will be tough and that's the best part.”
― Hiral Nagda

“Tough men are tough not because they want to be tough, but because they have to be tough. Outgrow the adolescent fawning over being a tough guy, and you will become a tough man.”
― Criss Jami

“Halleck came from people who regarded a slight change of facial expression as adequate to convey the pain of a severed limb.”
― Miles Watson, Sinner's Cross

“We cannot expect to have smooth sailing in the ocean of life. Tough times forge men and women to build strength and character.
Then with the renewed toughness, one can navigate the turbulence in the ocean of life.
So, don't you dare think of giving up. This too shall pass. And you will do just fine. Keep going!”
― Avijeet Das

“Tough times forge men and women to build strength and character.”
― Avijeet Das

“There is a value to adversity. We learn more from tough times than from easy ones.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, The Unused Path: Skills for living an authentic life

“Tough as thunder, sweet as honey, that's the motto for a braveheart human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers

“I, too, have been tested by this world,” Naandini said firmly. “I am tough. Just as tough as you, whether you believe it or not. You seem to think that you are so different from us, but you’re wrong. Every one of us in this camp will do whatever it takes to win freedom, to survive.” Her round cheeks were flushed, her brows arched in defiance. “You don’t have to be kind to me. I have dealt with far worse than any insult you can fling at me or this army. But you do have to respect me. As a matter of fact, you have to respect all of us. We deserve that much.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I'm not naturally tough. I've learned to be tough through rubbing elbows with the police.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Crooked Candle

“It's time to channel Roz and Harry.”
― Annonymous

“It's too tempting to paint the picture that those who survived did so because they were tougher, but that's too simplistic of a narrative.”
― Steve Magness, Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness

“Someone isn't tough enough for cowardice.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“However little we may like it, toughness is the price of survival.”
― George Orwell, Selected Essays

“We need a guy--a good, brave guy, a guy with no nerves, and balls the size of Cadillac hubcaps, a tough, smart, shrewd guy, a James Bond guy, but Russian--to get into the basement and stop this Klimov.”
― Stephen Hunter, The Day Before Midnight

“Even without Lotty's adjuration, I would have stuck to side streets: simply moving my head between the side mirrors started the throbbing in my eye again. Spenser never complained about pain, I reminded myself, nor Marlowe, let alone Kate Fansler. Suck it up Warshawski, don't let those WASPS show up the Pollacks.”
― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back

“The journey to success is very scary, sad, hard, tough, and rough. It's not easy, but you must start it to become successful in life.”
― Onipede Ayomide