Motivational Quotes

Adversity

It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES. The beliefs are the direct cause of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other. The first step is to see the connection between adversity, belief, and consequence. The second step is to see how the ABCs operate every day in your own life.

- Seligman, Martin E. P.

Best Quotes about Adversity

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Paine, Thomas

If your cup seems too bitter, if your burden seems to heavy, be sure that it is the wounded hand that is holding the cup, and that it is me who carried the cross that is carrying the burden.

If you want to win anything -- a race, your self, your life -- you have to go a little berserk.

Sheehan, George

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.

Gallagher, Robert C.

He who knows the darkness shall learn to live in the light.

A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity.

Saadi

In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way.

Leonard, George

Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.

Ward, William A.

10.

Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape.

Richards, Mary Caroline

11.

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

Zwanzig, Carl

12.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Landers, Ann

13.

There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.

14.

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.

Saying, Greek

15.

You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home.

Movie, Apollo 13

16.

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Schuller, Robert H.

17.

The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.

Smiles, Samuel

18.

Seligman, Martin E. P.

19.

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

Ziglar, Zig

20.

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds; all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

Hale, Edward Everett

21.

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches

Weil, Simone

22.

Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth

24.

Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always a seed of good. Find it and prosper.

Mandino, Og

25.

It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worth while is the one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

26.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Tagore, Rabindranath

27.

Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

28.

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.

Neal, John

29.

The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.

30.

What is to give light must endure the burning.

Frankl, Viktor E.

31.

Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.

Brown, Les

32.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Post, Laurens Van du

33.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

34.

Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so requires struggle.

Peale, Norman Vincent

35.

I didn't know I'd have to be torn down before I could be built up.

36.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Bacon, Francis

37.

You have endured worse things; God will grant an end even to these.

Virgil

38.

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

Epictetus

39.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

40.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

41.

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.

Peale, Norman Vincent

42.

That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commence with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.

Pike, Albert

43.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.

Gibran, Kahlil

44.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

45.

The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

Your dips an falls do not confound me, half as much as your heights astound me.