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Stubbornness is a refusal to change one’s ideas, opinions or behaviour in spite of attempts to do so

• Stubbornness: Unreasonably, often perversely unyielding; bullheaded. Dictionary.com
• Stubborn: Refusing to change your ideas or to stop doing something. Merriam Webster
• Closed-mindedness,  Determination,  Perseverance

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Stubbornness strongly believes it is right

• They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. Edmund Burke
• Thanks to God that he gave me stubbornness when I know I am right. John Adams
• I’m not stubborn. My way is just better. Maya Banks
• Let go of the need to be right

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Stubbornness is a strong will while obstinacy is a strong won’t

• Obstinate: Stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so. Oxford Dictionary
• He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. Herman Melville

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What we call firmness in ourselves, we call stubbornness in others

• Stubbornness we deprecate, Firmness we condone, The former is our neighbors trait, The latter is our own. John Wooden
• Pig-headed stubbornness is the perseverance of somebody we don’t like. Robert Elliot Gonzales

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Some argue stubbornness can be a sign of weakness

• Stubbornness is the strength of the weak. Johann Kaspar Lavater
• Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind. Somerset Maugham

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Stubbornness is fed by foolish pride

• Some people would rather die in their pride, than live in their humility. Anthony Liccione
• Reading their books over and over again, people continue making mistakes; they are so proud of their religious robes. But what is the use of bathing at sacred shrines of pilgrimage, when the filth of stubborn pride is within the mind? Sri Guru Granth Sahib
• Pride,  Vanity,  Foolishness

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Stubbornness can run rampant over reason and intellect …

• Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis. John Dewey
• Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a reasonable motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for that of reason and conscience. Henri Frederic Amiel
• The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity. Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Reason

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… and therefore, can lead to stupidity

• Stubborn and ardent clinging to one’s opinion is the best proof of stupidity. Michel de Montaigne
• In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. Simone de Beauvoir
• Stupidity

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Stubbornness often tends to be ignorant

• Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice is hard. Adlai E. Stevenson
• Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance. Anthony J. D’Angelo
• Obstinate people can be divded into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish. Aristotle
• If men were stubborn just in proportion as they were right, stubbornness would take her seat among the virtues; but men are generally stubborn just in proportion as they are ignorant and wrong. Henry Wheeler Shaw
• Ignorance

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People often tend to be most stubborn in their opinions …

• Obstinacy in opinions holds the dogmatist in the chains of error, without hope of emancipation. John C. Granville
• Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless. Jeffrey R. Holland
• Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish. Aristotle
• We form opinions and then spend our entire lifetime validating what we believe to be true. This rigidity is sad, because there is so much we can learn from points of view that are different from our own. It’s also sad because the stubbornness it takes to keep our heart and mind closed to everything other than our own point of view creates a great deal of inner stress.
• Opinion

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… often leading to closed mindedness …

• A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging and feels threatened by any request to consider anything. Ayn Rand
• Fear, anger, stubbornness, and distrust portray themselves as your rescuers. Actually, these energies only make you more closed off. Tell yourself: Nobody ever solved a situation by panicking; no one ever solved a situation by refusing to hear new answers; no one solved a situation by shutting down… Deepak Chopra
• Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.  Glen Beaman
• Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind. Somerset Maugham
• Who is so deaf or so blind as he that wilfully will neither hear nor see? English Proverb
• Closed-mindedness

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… and small mindedness

• A small mind is obstinate. A great mind can lead and be led. Alexander Cannon
• Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view. François de la Rochefoucauld
• A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness. Robert Southey

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Some argue in favour of stubbornness

• I know of no higher fortitude than stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds. Louis Nizer
• One single vision fills all minds: that of our independence endangered. One single duty imposes itself upon our wills: the duty of stubborn resistance. King Albert II
• It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. Albert Einstein

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Stubbornness can lead to determination and persistence …

• There’s a fine line between stubbornness and the positive side of that, which is dogged determination. Jeb Bush
• If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two will probably do. Fred Saberhagen
• Persistence is stubbornness with a purpose. De Vos Richard
• Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits. Robert Brault
• Persistence: Firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. Oxford Dictionary
• Determination,  Perseverance

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… thereby realising ideas and accomplishing things

• You need a stubborn belief in an idea in order to see it realised. James Dyson
• Everything I’ve accomplished I’ve accomplished through the grace of God and pure stubbornness. Mary Fairchild
• The fundamental qualities for good execution of a plan is first; intelligence; then discernment and judgment, which enable one to recognize the best method as to attain it; the singleness of purpose; and, lastly, what is most essential of all, will-stubborn will. Marshal Ferdinand Foch
• Achievement

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Stubbornness can be a sign of intelligence

• Time has a way of demonstrating that the most stubborn are the most intelligent. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
• Intelligence

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Stubbornness is the sister of constancy

• Constancy: The quality of being faithful and dependable. Oxford Dictionary
• Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good. Sir Thomas Browne
• Obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigor and stability. Michel de Montaigne
• Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.  Glen Beaman

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The truth is that stubbornness can be both positive or negative, depending on how you use it

• Being stubborn can be a good thing. Being stubborn can be a bad thing. It just depends on how you use it. Willie Aames
• Stubborn people get themselves in a lot of trouble, but they also get things done. Anna Paquin
• Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good. Sir Thomas Browne

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There comes a time when even positive stubbornness becomes stupidity

• ..there is a difference between being convinced and being stubborn. I’m not certain what the difference is, but I do know that if you butt your head against a stone wall long enough, at some point you realize the wall is stone and that your head is flesh and blood.  Maya Angelou
• In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. Simone de Beauvoir
• Stupidity

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Transcend stubbornness by leaving some space for change

• True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. Akhenaton
• Write down your five most stubborn positions and see if you can soften them. Richard Carlson
• Change

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Transcend stubbornness through compassionate self- awareness

• Compassionate self-awareness leads to change; harsh self- criticism only holds the pattern in place, creating a stubborn and defensive Basic Self. Be gentle with yourself as you would with a child. Be gentle but firm. Give yourself the space to grow. But remember that the timing is in god’s hands, not yours. Dan Millman
• Compassion,  Self-awareness

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Transcend stubbornness by admitting it when you’re wrong

• The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man’s strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:”I was wrong.” will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes. Jim Anderson
• Mistakes

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Be stubborn in pursuit of your vision, but remain open minded

• Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. Friedrich Nietzsche
• One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process. Simon Sinek
• Vision,  Open-mindedness,  Let go of attachment to results

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Combine a stubborn will with acceptance of what is

• One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying. Morris West
• Acceptance

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The most powerful stubbornness of all is patient and determined

• Freddie once told me that I was the worst kind of stubborn-because I wasn’t stubborn at all. I was patient. Patient, but determined. A stubborn person could be distracted, or tricked. But not me. I just held on and on and on, never giving up until I got my way, long after everyone else stopped caring. April Genevieve Tucholke
• Patience,  Determination

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Hope, at its best, can be stubborn

• Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. Anne Lamott
• Humanity must never lose hope. Our present conflicts and differences are difficult but not hopeless.  We cannot expect people of such different races, cultures, languages, ways of life and beliefs, who have lived for thousands of years separated from each other to suddenly love each other and work together harmoniously.  It takes time and patience.  We must work on it stubbornly and not throw in the towel.  Robert Muller
• Hope

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The heart can be stubborn …

• The heart is stubborn. It holds onto love despite what sense and emotion tells it. And it is often, in the battle of those three, the most brilliant of all. Alessandra Torre
• Man’s worst ill is stubbornness of heart. Sophocles
• The heart

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… especially its longings

• Human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow. George Eliot
• Desire

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Hatred can be hugely stubborn

• Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death. Jean de la Bruyere
• I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. James Baldwin
• Hate

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Facts are stubborn

• Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence. John Adams
• Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. Dr. Laurence J. Peter
• The facts of life are very stubborn things. Cleveland Amory
• Facts are stubborn things. Ronald Reagan
• Facts

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Illusion tends to be stubborn

• The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Albert Einstein
• Illusion

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Children can be notoriously stubborn

• The clash between child and adult is never so stubborn as when the child within us confronts the adult in our child. Robert Brault
• The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene. Robert Brault

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Our romantic partners can be stubborn, but not everyone sees that as a negative thing

• What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other… but for two people to have met their match and yet they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other. Barbra Streisand
• What I love about my wife is that she’s a really strong-minded, stubborn, fiery woman. I find her sexier than anything else. Christian Bale
• Romantic love

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• “I don’t know how you persist in being so stubborn.” “It’s a superpower. I was bitten by a radioactive mule.” Shannon Hale
• A man will do more for his stubbornness than for his religion or his country. Edgar Watson Howe
• Facts are stubborn things but statistics are more pliable. Mark Twain
• I’m not stubborn. My way is just better. Maya Banks
• Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Mules and human jackasses are proverbially stubborn. Thomas Chandler Haliburton
• Never try to outstubborn a cat. Robert A. Heinlein
• Persistence is stubbornness with a purpose. De Vos Richard
• She’s so stubborn she’d argue with a stop sign.
• Some folks as they grow older grow wise but most folks simply grow stubborner. Josh Billings
• Stubborn isn’t a word I would use to describe myself; pigheaded is more appropriate. Michael Bloomberg
• The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene. Robert Brault
• Well, I’m stubborn and wrong, but at least I know it. Vanessa Carlton

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