Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Bible

Best Quotes about Adversity

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.

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

Gesser

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

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

Horace

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

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

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

Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

Horton, Doug

10.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

11.

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

12.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

Angelis, Barbara De

13.

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

Keats, John

14.

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.

15.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

16.

Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us--and those around us -- more effectively. Look for the learning.

Allenbaugh, Eric

17.

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.

18.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

19.

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

20.

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

Rogers, James

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.

Only entropy comes easy.

Mumford, Lewis

23.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Dickinson, Emily

24.

Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

25.

When walking through the valley of shadows, remember, a shadow is cast by a Light.

Barclay, H.K.

26.

It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

Byron, Lord

27.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

28.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

29.

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

Jung, Carl

30.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

31.

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

32.

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

Propertius, Sextus

33.

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

Grant, Hanmer Parsons

34.

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

Collins, Kitty O'neill

35.

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

36.

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

37.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

38.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

39.

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

Bible

40.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

41.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.

Scott, Sir Walter

45.

The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.

Weltman, Phil

46.

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

Proverb, Chinese

47.

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

Horace

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.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

50.

You have endured worse things; God will grant an end even to these.

Virgil