Motivational Quotes

Adversity

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise.

- Beecher, Henry Ward

Best Quotes about 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

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

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.

Schwab, Charles M.

Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.

Homer

A reasonable amount o fleas is good for a dog -- keeps him from brooding over being a dog, maybe.

Westcott, Edward Noyes

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

Qur'an

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

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.

10.

As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it.

Horace

11.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

12.

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.

13.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

14.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist -- it reduces him to his fighting weight.

Billings, Josh

15.

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

Kennedy, Rose F.

16.

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

17.

Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them

18.

Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes.

Aesop

19.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

Horton, Doug

20.

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

Seneca

21.

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

22.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

23.

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

24.

We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

Beecher, Henry Ward

25.

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

26.

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

Heraclitus

27.

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.

Shain, Merle

28.

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

29.

Adversity is a fact of life. It can't be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it.

30.

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

Gesser

31.

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.

32.

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

Holtz, Lou

33.

It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

Bennet, Arnold

34.

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

Grant, Hanmer Parsons

35.

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise.

Beecher, Henry Ward

36.

You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut.

Maltz, Maxwell

37.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

38.

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.

Sting

39.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

40.

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

41.

Some people bear three kinds of trouble -- the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones they expect to have.

Hale, Edward Everett

42.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Scott, Sir Walter

43.

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

Ziglar, Zig

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

Every burden is a blessing.

Schuller, Robert H.

47.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

Seneca

48.

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

49.

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

Russell, Rosalind

50.

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