Motivational Quotes

Adversity

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

- Heraclitus

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

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

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

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

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

Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

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.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

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

10.

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

11.

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

Augustine, St.

12.

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

Walton, Sam

13.

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

Kennedy, Rose F.

14.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

15.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, This is a misfortune but To bear this worthily is good fortune.

Aurelius, Marcus

16.

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

Rogers, James

17.

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

Proverb, Chinese

18.

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

Billings, Josh

19.

It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES. The beliefs are the direct cause of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other. The first step is to see the connection between adversity, belief, and consequence. The second step is to see how the ABCs operate every day in your own life.

Seligman, Martin E. P.

20.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

21.

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

Devito, Danny

22.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

23.

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

24.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

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

Zwanzig, Carl

26.

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

Horace

27.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

28.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

29.

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

30.

Only entropy comes easy.

Mumford, Lewis

31.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Tagore, Rabindranath

32.

Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes.

Aesop

33.

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

Kempis, Thomas

34.

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

35.

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

Johnson

36.

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

Johnson, Samuel

37.

There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat.

Lawrence, Thomas E.

38.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

39.

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

Bennet, Arnold

40.

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

41.

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

Heraclitus

42.

A reasonable amount o fleas is good for a dog -- keeps him from brooding over being a dog, maybe.

Westcott, Edward Noyes

43.

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

44.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

45.

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

46.

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

Homer

47.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

48.

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

Sting

49.

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