Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.

Ransom, Ralph

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

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

Johnson, Samuel

Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

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

10.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

Seneca

11.

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.

Fielding, Henry

12.

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

13.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

14.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

Colton, Charles Caleb

15.

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.

16.

In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win.

Hoffman, Dustin

17.

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

18.

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

Devito, Danny

19.

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

20.

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

Jung, Carl

21.

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture.

Burata, Mario

22.

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

23.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Dickinson, Emily

24.

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

25.

In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.

Collier, Robert

26.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

27.

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for it.

Warren, Earl

28.

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

Collins, Kitty O'neill

29.

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.

30.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

Russell, Rosalind

31.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

Horace

32.

We all know that sponges grow in the ocean but I wander how much deeper the ocean would be if that wasn't the case.

33.

I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.

Penney, J. C. (James Cash)

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Ward, William A.

37.

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

Buckham, James

38.

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

Bacon, Francis

39.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Hill, Napoleon

40.

The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.

Propertius, Sextus

41.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

42.

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

Zwanzig, Carl

43.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Casey, M Kathleen

44.

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

45.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

46.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Two frogs fell into a bowl of cream. One didn't panic, he relaxed and drowned. The other kicked and struggled so much that the cream turned to butter and he walked out.

50.

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

Sheehan, George