Challenge

"Principal Skinner: Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa but then the stupider students would be in here complaining furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation."

"Lisa Simpson: It's too hard. My hand is slipping. I can't do this, Bart. I'm not strong enough."

"If not, resolve, before we go, That you and I must pull a crow. Y' 'ad best (quoth Ralpho), as the Ancients Say wisely, have a care o' the main chance."

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

"There is no correlation between material and spiritual misery. Only to the lowest and dullest levels of society can one preach the formula for all human happiness and wholeness as the well-named "animal ideal," a well-being that is little better than bovine. Hegel rightly wrote that the epochs of material well-being are blank pages in the history book, and Toynbee has shown that the challenge to mankind of environmentally and spiritually harsh and problematic conditions is often the incentive that awakens the creative energies of civilization. In some cases, it is not paradoxical to say that the man of good will should try to make life difficult for his neighbor! It is a commonplace that all the higher virtues attenuate and atrophy under easy conditions, when man is not forced to prove himself in some way; and in the final analysis it does not matter in such situations if a good number fall away and are lost through natural selection."

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."

"James Howard "Fats" Brown: Believe me, I've only been doing my job. Someone has to keep the flame. Someone has to weed out those who haven't got what it takes. You see, the champions, the legends, they serve as a purpose, a challenge, an incentive."

"Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly."

"Norrin Radd: Those to whom no distant horizons beckon ... for whom no challenges remain ... though they have inherited a Universe ... they possess only empty sand!"

"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."

"The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare. If you cannot be present even in normal circumstances, such as when you are sitting alone in a room, walking in the woods, or listening to someone, then you certainly won't be able to stay conscious when something "goes wrong" or you are faced with difficult people or situations, with loss or the threat of loss. You will be taken over by a reaction, which ultimately is always some form of fear, and pulled into deep unconsciousness. Those challenges are your tests."

"When such challenges come, as they always do, make it a habit to go within at once and focus as much as you can on the inner energy field of your body. This need not take long, just a few seconds. But you need to do it the moment that the challenge presents itself. Any delay will allow a conditioned mental-emotional reaction to arise and take you over."

"I never in my life Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms."

"There I throw my gage, To prove it on thee to the extremest point Of mortal breathing."

"But thou liest in thy throat; that is not the matter I challenge thee for."

"An I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I'ld have seen him damned ere I'ld have challenged him."