Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

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

Gibran, Kahlil

The proof of gold is fire...

Franklin, Benjamin

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.

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

Saadi

Adversity is a fact of life. It can't be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it.

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)

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Bacon, Francis

10.

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

11.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

12.

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

Homer

13.

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

Johnson

14.

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

Gesser

15.

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

16.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

17.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

18.

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

19.

It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worth while is the one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

20.

Only entropy comes easy.

Mumford, Lewis

21.

Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!

Swahili Warrior Song

22.

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

23.

That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commence with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.

Pike, Albert

24.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

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

26.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Casey, M Kathleen

27.

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

Augustine, St.

28.

People are like stained -- glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within

Ross, Elizabeth Kubler

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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.

32.

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for it.

Warren, Earl

33.

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

Kempis, Thomas

34.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

35.

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

Russell, Rosalind

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Tagore, Rabindranath

39.

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.

40.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

Seneca

41.

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

42.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

43.

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Schuller, Robert H.

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.

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.

Saying, Greek

46.

We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

47.

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

48.

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

Hill, Napoleon

49.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

50.

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques