Motivational Quotes

Adversity

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

- Dune, Frank Herbert

Best Quotes about Adversity

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)

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.

Hazlitt, William

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

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

Seneca

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

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.

Jones, Charles ''Tremendous''

10.

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

Horace

11.

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

Gesser

12.

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

13.

No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.

14.

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.

15.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

16.

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

Warren, Earl

17.

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

18.

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

19.

The reward of suffering is experience.

Aeschylus

20.

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

21.

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

Woolf, Virginia

22.

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

Propertius, Sextus

23.

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

Horace

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

32.

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

33.

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

Keats, John

34.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

35.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

36.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Paine, Thomas

37.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

38.

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.

Saying, Greek

39.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

40.

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

41.

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

Collins, Kitty O'neill

42.

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

43.

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

44.

I didn't know I'd have to be torn down before I could be built up.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

Salk, Lee

48.

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

49.

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

Seneca

50.

I got in trouble with the police, and that was a rude awakening. That was it. I'd seen the bottom of the pit, and it was time to scrape myself out of it.

Adams, Bryan