Motivational Quotes

Adversity

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

- Augustine, St.

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Woolf, Virginia

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Jung, Carl

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

Tribulation will not hurt you, unless as it too often does; it hardens you and makes you sour, narrow and skeptical.

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

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

I used to hurt so badly that I'd ask God why, what have I done to deserve any of this? I feel now He was preparing me for this, for the future. That's the way I see it.

Jackson, Janet

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

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

10.

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

Kennedy, Rose F.

11.

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.

12.

Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions.

Wells, H.G.

13.

If you're on thin ice, you might as well dance.

14.

Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.

15.

Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilization and mental culture.

Joshee, Anandabai

16.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

17.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

18.

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

19.

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

20.

What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise.

Collins, Kitty O'neill

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.

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

Seneca

23.

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

24.

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

Ward, William A.

25.

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

Gesser

26.

Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. [Isaiah 48:10]

Bible

27.

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

28.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

29.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

30.

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.

31.

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

Tagore, Rabindranath

32.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

33.

When a man gets to despair he knows that all his thinking will never get him out. He will only get out by the sheer creative effort of God. Consequently he is in the right attitude to receive from God that which he cannot gain for himself.

Chambers, Oswald

34.

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

35.

God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the cloud, the oil still in the earth. How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

Macdonald, George

36.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

37.

No one would ever have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in a storm.

38.

The one who prosperity takes too much delight in will be the most shocked by reverses.

Horace

39.

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.

40.

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture.

Burata, Mario

41.

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

42.

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.

Grant, Hanmer Parsons

43.

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.

Mandino, Og

44.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

45.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.

Hemingway, Ernest

46.

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

47.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

48.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

Devito, Danny

49.

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door -- or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.

Tagore, Rabindranath

50.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay