A Quote by Lloyd Alexander

Life's a forge - Yes, and hammer and anvil, too. You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand proudly to it. Metal's worthless till it is shaped and tempered. More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.

Lloyd Alexander

Quote Topics

Against Anvil Any Face Fear Forge Hammer Happening Know Labor Life Luck Metal More Pounding Proving Scarce Shaped Stand Tempered Than Till Too Well Worthless Yes

Quote Author

Lloyd Alexander
American - Writer
January 30, 1924 - May 17, 2007

Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Never was the victory of patience more complete than in the early church. The anvil broke the hammer by bearing all the blows that the hammer could place upon it. The patience of the saints was stronger than the cruelty of tyrants.

Charles Spurgeon

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Emily Dickinson

The country blacksmith who employs no journeyman is never conscious of any conflict between the capital invested in his anvil, hammer and bellows, and the labor he performs with them, because in fact, there is none.

Leland Stanford

I would rather be the hammer than the anvil

Erwin Rommel

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer.

George Orwell

The anvil is not afraid of the hammer.

Charles Spurgeon

You must be either the servant or the master, the hammer or the anvil.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The song 'If I Had a Hammer' is geared toward people who don't have a hammer. Maybe before I had a hammer I thought I'd hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening. But once you get a hammer, you find you don't really hammer as much as you thought you would.

Ellen DeGeneres

The hammer and the anvil are the two hemispheres of every true reformer's character.

J. G. Holland

Sometimes we are so busy being the hammer or the anvil, that we forget who really needs the shaping.

Neal A. Maxwell

In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.

Voltaire

The Bible stands apart from all other books, and has survived and will survive all the attacks of its enemies. It is like the electric torch that shines over the water of New York Bay, struck by the wing of many a seabird that dashes against it in its reckless flight, but still shining on unmoved while the foolish and reckless assailant falls bleeding and wounded at its feet. It is an anvil which has worn out many a hammer of hostile criticism, while the anvil still remains unshaken amid the wreck of all that have assailed it.