Fighting quotes
9.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside fighting — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"When you saw me in the boxing ring fighting, it wasn't just so I could beat my opponent. My fighting had a purpose. I had to be successful in order to get people to listen to the things I had to say."
"It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man."
"If you see me in a fight with a bear, pray for the bear."
"I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music, they just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male."
"I will fight with all the weapons within my reach rather than let myself be nailed to a cross or whatever."
"We need the stars... We need purpose! We need the image the Destiny to take root among the stars gives us of ourselves as a purposeful, growing species. We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we're to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize and die, we need the stars.... When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness."
"The fight for the right to life is not the cause of a special few, but the cause of every man, woman and child who cares not only about his or her own family, but the whole family of man."
"The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.… If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years."
"It may be possible to fight intolerance, stupidity, and fanaticism seperately, but when they come together there is no hope."
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."
"You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him."
"Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table."
"I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."
"People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost."
"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."
"We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard."
"Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists."
"The man who is secure within himself has no need to prove anything with force, so he can walk away from a fight with dignity and pride. He is the true martial artist--a man so strong inside that he has no need to demonstrate his power."
"I HAVE REALIZED THAT FIGHTING FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS HAS TOO OFTEN BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH MAN-HATING. IF THERE IS ONE THING I KNOW FOR CERTAIN, IT IS THAT THIS HAS TO STOP."
"When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight."
