Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Holtz, Lou

Best Quotes about Adversity

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

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.

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

Aesop

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

Sheehan, George

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Schuller, Robert H.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Hill, Napoleon

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

Seneca

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

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

Gallagher, Robert C.

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

Horton, Doug

13.

Some people bear three kinds of trouble -- the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones they expect to have.

Hale, Edward Everett

14.

What is to give light must endure the burning.

Frankl, Viktor E.

15.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

16.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

17.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.

Gibran, Kahlil

18.

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

19.

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

Kapuscinski, Ryszard

20.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Jung, Carl

21.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

Schweitzer, Albert

22.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed before you?

Qur'an

27.

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.

28.

I got in trouble with the police, and that was a rude awakening. That was it. I'd seen the bottom of the pit, and it was time to scrape myself out of it.

Adams, Bryan

29.

You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut.

Maltz, Maxwell

30.

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

Schmidt, Walt

31.

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

Ziglar, Zig

32.

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

Walton, Sam

33.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Keats, John

37.

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.

38.

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

Ward, William A.

39.

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

40.

Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always a seed of good. Find it and prosper.

Mandino, Og

41.

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

Propertius, Sextus

42.

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

Wells, H.G.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

47.

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

Tagore, Rabindranath

48.

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

49.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

Angelis, Barbara De

50.

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