Sometimes life presses, and in that press we find our shape. As Winston Churchill insisted: “It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”

“Make a virtue of necessity.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer

“If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.” ~ David Rockefeller

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” ~ Plato

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” ~ William Pitt

“The essential building block is… the true love that is impossible to define for those who have never experienced it and unnecessary to define for those who have.” ~ Isaac Asimov

“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.” ~ Roger von Oech

“Necessity never made a good bargain.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity.” ~ Albert Camus

“It seems necessary to completely shed the old skin before the new, brighter, stronger, more beautiful one can emerge… I never thought I’d be getting a life lesson from a snake!” ~ Julie Ridge

“Necessity does everything well.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The superfluous is very necessary.” ~ Voltaire

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” ~ Pablo Picasso

“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.” ~ Maya Angelou

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed… The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.” ~ Abigail Adams

“Make yourself necessary to somebody.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We do what only lovers can: make a gift out of necessity.” ~ Leonard Cohen