Motivational Quotes

Adversity

People are like stained -- glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within

- Ross, Elizabeth Kubler

Best Quotes about Adversity

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.

A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune.

Horace

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

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

Ward, William A.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

Holtz, Lou

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

They that sow in tears shall reap joy. [Psalms 126:5]

Bible

The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

Keats, John

13.

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.

Walton, Sam

14.

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

Gibran, Kahlil

15.

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the RIVER OF GREATNESS is always the STREAM OF ADVERSITY.

Robert, Cavett

16.

The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the dark hours.

17.

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

Sheehan, George

18.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness --a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.

Bryant, William C.

19.

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

20.

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

Heraclitus

21.

Every burden is a blessing.

Schuller, Robert H.

22.

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

23.

There is in every woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

Irving, Washington

24.

Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.

France, Anatole

25.

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

Kennedy, Rose F.

26.

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

27.

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you.

Gesser

28.

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.

Alcott, Louisa May

29.

I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.

Frank, Anne

30.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Proverb, Chinese

31.

One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

Woolf, Virginia

32.

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.

Fosdick, Harry Emerson

33.

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

34.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

35.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Bible

36.

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.

37.

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

38.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

39.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

40.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

41.

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

42.

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Seneca

46.

People are like stained -- glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within

Ross, Elizabeth Kubler

47.

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

Rogers, Will

48.

Every hardship; every joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may prove itself. The great chain of necessity wherewith we are bound has divine significance; and nothing happens which has not some service in working out the sublime destiny of the human soul.

Ford, Elias A.

49.

Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed before you?

Qur'an

50.

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius