Motivational Quotes

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.

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Ward, William A.

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

Keats, John

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.

God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the cloud, the oil still in the earth. How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

Macdonald, George

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

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

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

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

Maltz, Maxwell

10.

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

Sheehan, George

11.

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

12.

Adversities do not make a man frail. They show what sort of man he is.

Kempis, Thomas

13.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

James, William

14.

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

Proverb, Chinese

15.

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.

Advisor, Heartland

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

20.

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

21.

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.

Mandino, Og

22.

The reward of suffering is experience.

Aeschylus

23.

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

Woolf, Virginia

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

27.

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

Weltman, Phil

28.

Ford, Elias A.

29.

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

Augustine, St.

30.

Just because Fate doesn?t deal you the right cards, it doesn?t mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.

Brown, Les

31.

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

Schwab, Charles M.

32.

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

Rogers, James

33.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

34.

If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.

Johnson

35.

If the going is real easy, beware, you may be headed down hill and don't know it.

36.

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

37.

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

Ziglar, Zig

38.

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture.

Burata, Mario

39.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Casey, M Kathleen

40.

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

Sting

41.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

42.

Enter through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it. But how narrow is the gate that leads to life, how rough the road, and how few there are who find it. [Mathew 7:13-14]

Bible

43.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

44.

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

45.

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

Alcott, Louisa May

46.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

47.

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

48.

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

Virgil

49.

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

50.

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

Bacon, Francis