Conflict / Adversity / Courage:
The following quotes illustrate the topic's ambiguity. Use
these to establish the scope of your topic--to begin to specify the subtopics
that verbalize various differing opinions on the same issue--to begin to develop
a guide to your reading.
"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone there to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising, which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Death and sorrow will be true companions of our journey;
hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield. We must
be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible."
Winston Churchill
"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great
minds rise above them." Washington Irving
"By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity--another
man's I mean. Mark Twain
"The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good
things that belong to adversity are to be admired."
Seneca
"No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in
adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.
Anonymous
"Adversity is the first path to truth."
Lord Byron
"Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters."
Victor Hugo
"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes;
adversity not without many comforts and hopes. " Francis
Bacon
"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater.
Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it. "
William Hazlitt
"Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its
afflictions."
"I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found
myself, my work and my God." Helen Keller
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather
strength from distress, and row brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of
little minds to shrink but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves
his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
Thomas Paine
"What a new face courage puts on everything!"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious
triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor
spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey
twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." Theodore
Roosevelt
"Courage is grace under pressure."
Ernest Hemingway
"The best way out is always through."
Robert Frost, A Servant to Servants, 1914
"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of
what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to
meet it." Thucydides
Bertrand, Russell. "Religion and Science." Writing About the World. Vol. 1. Ed. Susan McCleod. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991. Pages 96-104.
Dillard, Annie. Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.
DuBois, W. E. B. The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois. International Publisher's Company, Inc., 1968.
_ _ _ The Souls of Black Folk. New York, NY: Dodd Mead Company, Inc., 1961.
Churchill, Winston. The Second World War. Vol. 5. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.
_ _ _ Triumph and Tragedy: The Second World War. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981.
Einstein, Albert. "Religion and Science." Writing About the World. Vol. 1. Ed. Susan McCleod. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991. Pages 88-96.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Heroism." Essays and Lectures. Ed.Joel Porte. New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States of America, Inc., 1983. Pages 369-382.
Fraser, Antonia. The Warrior Queens. New York: Random House, Inc., 1988.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. Ambassador's Journal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Hamlin, Garland. A Son of a Middle Border. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1968.
Lewis, David. W. E. B. DuBois: Biography of a Race. New York: Henry, Holt, and Co., 1993.
Matthiessen, Peter. Blue Meridian. New York: Random House, Inc., 1970.
McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. New York: Scribner, 1996.
McPhearson, James M. Marching Towards Freedom.
Mead, Margaret. "The Energy Crisis." Representative AmericanSpeeches 1973-1974. Ed. Waldo W. Braden. NY: The HW Wilson Company, 1974. Pages 97-118.
_ _ _ "Warfare: An Invention, Not a Biological Necessity." Writing About the World. Vol. 1. Ed. Susan
McCleod. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991. Pages 126-138.
Queen Elizabeth I of England. "Speech to her Troops at Tilbury (1588)" The College Board Advanced Placement Examination. 1992.
Rather, Dan. "Leadership in the Nineties." Representative American Speeches. Vol. 62. Ed. Owen Peterson. NY: The HW Wilson Company, 1991. Pages 56-64.
Reagan, Ronald. "The Future Doesn't Belong to the Faint-Hearted." Twentieth Century Speeches. Ed. Brian McArthur. New York, NY: Penguin Book Company, 1992. Pages 448-456.
Roosevelt, Franklin. "Message to Congress." Representative American Speeches 1942-1943. Ed. Owen Peterson. NY: The HW Wilson Company, 1991. Pages 56-64.
Stalin, Joseph. "Either We Don't or They Crush Us." Twentieth Century Speeches. Ed. Brian McArthur. New York, NY: Penguin Book Company, 1992. Pages 109-113.
Stratchey, Lytton. "Florence Nightingale." The College Board Advanced Placement Examination. 1993.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: New American Library, 1980.
Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York, NY: MacMillan Company, 1962.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Wills, Garry. Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.