Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Horace

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

Gesser

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.

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

Woolf, Virginia

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

Holtz, Lou

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

Ford, Henry

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

Proverb, Chinese

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.

Lowell, James Russell

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

Wells, H.G.

10.

The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them

11.

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

Horace

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.

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.

The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.

Smiles, Samuel

15.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

16.

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

17.

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

18.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

19.

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.

20.

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

Hazlitt, William

21.

Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth

22.

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

Weltman, Phil

23.

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

24.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

25.

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

26.

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

27.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

28.

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.

29.

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

Russell, Rosalind

30.

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

Sheehan, George

31.

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

Proverb, Maori

32.

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.

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.

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

35.

Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so requires struggle.

Peale, Norman Vincent

36.

There will be no crown bearers in heaven who are not cross bearers on earth.

37.

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

38.

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

Propertius, Sextus

39.

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

Kennedy, Rose F.

40.

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

41.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

42.

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

Kapuscinski, Ryszard

43.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Benson, Taylor

44.

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

45.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Avon

46.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

47.

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

Gibran, Kahlil

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

Colton, Charles Caleb