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

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

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

Rogers, Will

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

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

Benson, Taylor

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

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

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds; all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

Hale, Edward Everett

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

Horace

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

Landers, Ann

10.

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

Sting

11.

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

Collins, Kitty O'neill

12.

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

Salk, Lee

13.

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

14.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

15.

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

16.

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

17.

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

18.

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

19.

What is to give light must endure the burning.

Frankl, Viktor E.

20.

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the RIVER OF GREATNESS is always the STREAM OF ADVERSITY.

Robert, Cavett

21.

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.

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

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

Propertius, Sextus

25.

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

Saadi

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

30.

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

31.

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

32.

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

Bennet, Arnold

33.

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

34.

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

Billings, Josh

35.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Scott, Sir Walter

37.

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

38.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

39.

Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.

Brown, Les

40.

He who knows the darkness shall learn to live in the light.

41.

Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.

Gallagher, Robert C.

42.

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

Zwanzig, Carl

43.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

44.

Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.

Homer

45.

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

Hazlitt, William

46.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

47.

Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilization and mental culture.

Joshee, Anandabai

48.

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.

49.

The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

50.

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