Quotes about Challenge

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves

Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by greater and greater beings.

Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

The ultimate challenge in life is to neither allow our fantasies to bring us too much suffering nor to prevent us from living fully.

The problem is that humans have already climbed the highest mountains and sailed on their own through the wildest and loneliest stretches of ocean. But though the records have gone, the world is still full of Chichesters and Hillarys and Amundsens.

Someone who has reduced his mind and life and soul and personality to meager or minor things -- someone marked by "mikropsychia" or in Latin "pusillanimitas" -- has a petty-souled outlook on life that no one but him ingrained in him. It is not great wealth or great power that makes a man "great," but "makropsychia" or "magnanimitas," great-souledness, a distinctively aristic virtue, a primal determination to rupture the finite and reductivist structures that habits and mechanical intellect tend to erect in our lives. The lust of most people to live in a trivialized and finitized or ordinarized world is patent; it is a way of achieving security, making oneself safe from threats, challenges, criticisms. And the lust of aristoi to live in a world of greatness, of monumental issues and questions that are made of the kind of bronze that will endure for ages to come, that is also patent: it is a way for capacious souls to furnish their minds with just the right scale or magnitude of challenges, of intellectual and moral instruments with the right heft for their wills to wield.

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.

life wouldn't be worth living without love and challenge

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.

NO CHALLENGE, NO CHANGE !  Forget the no pain no gain thing.  If it's pain, then STOP!  I made up the phrase 'no challenge no change' over 15 years ago when I realized it was not the pain that made one change, but the challenge that was overcome.  It started out with references to working out and then I realized I could apply that idea to every part of my life, including motherhood, relationships, school, work, etc.  I will continue to live by this phrase and hope to instill it in my daughter as well.  It has gotten me through so many hard times, including divorce, losing my mom 3 years ago, and while being in school for the last 7 years... getting closer to that PhD every semester.  There have been an insane amount of challenges I have dealt with in my life, so my goal is that the changes that result will in turn have an insane impact, not only on myself, but my daughter, and everyone I come into contact with. 

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.

Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.

Everyone must concede that there is in existence something wiser than himself. Now there is a challenge, there is a challenge which few even investigate. We're going to do that now. Let's see what we're talking about. All troubled people, which is all people, must if they are going to be delivered from themselves, must make the concession that there is a force, an entity, a power that is higher than their own present nature.

My throat was parched and my entire body was leprous with cuts, yet my mind was exceedingly clear. I knew I was in deep s**t. I didn’t know how deep--just that I still hadn’t touched bottom.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories but it takes brave men and women to win them.

     WORK: A SONG OF TRIUMPH

Work!
Thank God for the might of it,
The ardor, the urge, the delight of it--
Work that springs from the heart's desire,
Setting the brain and the soul on fire--
Oh, what is so good as the heat of it,
And what is so glad as the beat of it,
And what is so kind as the stern command,
Challenging brain and heart and hand? ...

(excerpt of poem by Angela Morgan)

Our challenge, which is also a tremendous opportunity, is to open up to a literally life-changing way of thinking ourselves into existence.

Whatever ideas you hear, challenge it. Sometimes people just don't know what they are talking about. No matter how enthuiastic they may be

What is a Hero?  by Daisaku Ikeda

"A truley heroic way of life lies in squarely confronting and courageously overcoming the pounding vicissitudes that life always throws in our paths" - Daisaku Ikeda

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy"

I was in rehearsals, waiting behind a door to come out while a couple onstage were having a row. They started throwing furniture and a chair lodged in front of the door.

My cue came and I could only get halfway in. I stopped and said, 'I can't get in. The chair's in the way.'

And the producer said, 'Use the difficulty.'

I said, 'What do you mean?'

And he said, 'Well, if it's a drama [you're acting in], pick up the chair and smash it. If it's a comedy, fall over it.'

This idea stuck in my mind, and I taught it to my children -- that any situation in life that's negative, there is something positive you can do with it.

Aliveness
Aliveness is energy. It's the juice,the vitality, and the passion that wakes up our cells every morning. It's what makes us want to dance. It's the energy that moves a relationship from the status quo to something grander and much more expansive, something that makes our hearts beat faster, our minds, and our eyes open wider than ever before. Everything is of interest to a person who is truly alive, whether it's a challenge, a loving moment, a bucket of grief, or a glimpse of beauty.

You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.
Eleanor Roosevelt

All rising to great places is by a winding stair.

When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.