Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

Johnson, Samuel

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

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Bennet, Arnold

You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

Schmidt, Walt

The reward of suffering is experience.

Aeschylus

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

They that sow in tears shall reap joy. [Psalms 126:5]

Bible

10.

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

11.

All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.

Ransom, Ralph

12.

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

13.

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

Barclay, H.K.

14.

If your cup seems too bitter, if your burden seems to heavy, be sure that it is the wounded hand that is holding the cup, and that it is me who carried the cross that is carrying the burden.

15.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

Devito, Danny

16.

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

17.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

18.

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

Russell, Rosalind

19.

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.

Walton, Sam

20.

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

Billings, Josh

21.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

22.

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

Sheehan, George

23.

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

Rogers, James

24.

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

Seneca

25.

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.

26.

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.

Cocteau, Jean

27.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

28.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Dickinson, Emily

29.

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

Hazlitt, William

30.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Landers, Ann

31.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

32.

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

Kapuscinski, Ryszard

33.

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.

34.

Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them

35.

If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you haven't grasped the situation.

Kerr, Jean

36.

A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity.

Saadi

37.

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

Zwanzig, Carl

38.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

39.

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

40.

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

Wells, H.G.

41.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Casey, M Kathleen

42.

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

Gesser

43.

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

44.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, grow, grow.

Talmud, The

48.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

49.

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.

50.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy