Motivational Quotes

Adversity

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

- Pliny The Elder

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

Sheehan, George

As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it.

Horace

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

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.

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

Brown, Les

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.

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

Kapuscinski, Ryszard

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

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.

Schwab, Charles M.

10.

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

11.

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

Johnson

12.

We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

Beecher, Henry Ward

13.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Landers, Ann

14.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

15.

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

Holtz, Lou

16.

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

Russell, Rosalind

17.

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.

Shain, Merle

18.

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

19.

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

Devito, Danny

20.

All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.

Ransom, Ralph

21.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

22.

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.

Richter, Jean Paul

23.

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

Schmidt, Walt

24.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

James, William

25.

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

26.

Things were bad but now they are OK.

Seymour, Harold J.

27.

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

Ward, William A.

28.

Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth

29.

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

30.

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

31.

I used to hurt so badly that I'd ask God why, what have I done to deserve any of this? I feel now He was preparing me for this, for the future. That's the way I see it.

Jackson, Janet

32.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

Seneca

33.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

34.

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.

Neal, John

35.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Avon

36.

They that sow in tears shall reap joy. [Psalms 126:5]

Bible

37.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Dickinson, Emily

38.

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

Horace

39.

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

Aesop

40.

If you're on thin ice, you might as well dance.

41.

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

42.

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches

Weil, Simone

43.

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

Westcott, Edward Noyes

44.

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

Woolf, Virginia

45.

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.

46.

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

Homer

47.

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

48.

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

Walton, Sam

49.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

50.

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