Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Holtz, Lou

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

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

Lawrence, Thomas E.

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

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

Gibran, Kahlil

Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.

Winfrey, Oprah

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

Collins, Kitty O'neill

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

Johnson, Samuel

10.

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

Proverb, Maori

11.

The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.

Weltman, Phil

12.

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

13.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

14.

Your dips an falls do not confound me, half as much as your heights astound me.

15.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

16.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Avon

17.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

18.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

19.

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

Hazlitt, William

20.

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

21.

Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so requires struggle.

Peale, Norman Vincent

22.

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

23.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

24.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

25.

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

Horace

26.

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

27.

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

Ziglar, Zig

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

Tagore, Rabindranath

31.

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

Ward, William A.

32.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.

Hemingway, Ernest

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

Sheehan, George

36.

The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the dark hours.

37.

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

38.

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

Russell, Rosalind

39.

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

Maltz, Maxwell

40.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

41.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

42.

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

Horace

43.

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

44.

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

45.

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.

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Seneca

50.

If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you haven't grasped the situation.

Kerr, Jean