Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Beecher, Henry Ward

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

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

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

The proof of gold is fire...

Franklin, Benjamin

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

Salk, Lee

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

Hoffman, Dustin

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

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

Wells, H.G.

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

As iron put into the fire loseth its rust and becometh clearly red-hot, so he that wholly turneth himself unto God puts off all slothfulness, and is transformed into a new man.

Kempis, Thomas

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

Shain, Merle

15.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

16.

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

17.

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.

Richter, Jean Paul

18.

In times of storm, the shallowness of the root structure is revealed.

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.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

21.

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

Propertius, Sextus

22.

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.

23.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

24.

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

Kapuscinski, Ryszard

25.

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

Alcott, Louisa May

26.

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.

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.

Winfrey, Oprah

30.

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

Bible

31.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

Horton, Doug

32.

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

Keats, John

33.

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

Horace

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.

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

Jung, Carl

36.

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

Zwanzig, Carl

37.

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

38.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

39.

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

40.

Every burden is a blessing.

Schuller, Robert H.

41.

Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them

42.

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

Maltz, Maxwell

43.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

Schweitzer, Albert

44.

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

45.

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

46.

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

47.

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

48.

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

Seneca

49.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

50.

Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!

Swahili Warrior Song