Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Heraclitus

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Schuller, Robert H.

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

Horace

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

Keats, John

I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.

Penney, J. C. (James Cash)

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

Aesop

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.

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

Devito, Danny

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

Brown, Les

10.

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

Gallagher, Robert C.

11.

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

12.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Seneca

13.

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

Sheehan, George

14.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

15.

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

16.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

17.

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

18.

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

19.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

20.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

21.

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

Ziglar, Zig

22.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

23.

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

Proverb, Chinese

24.

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

Virgil

25.

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

Ward, William A.

26.

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.

27.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

28.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Rogers, James

32.

Only entropy comes easy.

Mumford, Lewis

33.

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

Homer

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

The proof of gold is fire...

Franklin, Benjamin

37.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Avon

38.

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

Woolf, Virginia

39.

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.

Peale, Norman Vincent

40.

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

41.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

42.

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

43.

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

Augustine, St.

44.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

45.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

46.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

47.

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

48.

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

49.

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.

Grant, Hanmer Parsons

50.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo