Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

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.

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

Westcott, Edward Noyes

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

Horace

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

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.

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

No one would ever have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in a storm.

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

Augustine, St.

10.

When walking through the valley of shadows, remember, a shadow is cast by a Light.

Barclay, H.K.

11.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Benson, Taylor

12.

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

Hazlitt, William

13.

Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. [Isaiah 48:10]

Bible

14.

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

Peale, Norman Vincent

15.

It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

Bennet, Arnold

16.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

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

18.

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.

19.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

20.

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

Kempis, Thomas

21.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

22.

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Schuller, Robert H.

23.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Nixon, Richard M.

24.

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

Proverb, Chinese

25.

Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth

26.

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

Heraclitus

27.

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

Zwanzig, Carl

28.

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture.

Burata, Mario

29.

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

Seneca

30.

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

31.

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.

32.

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

Landers, Ann

33.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist -- it reduces him to his fighting weight.

Billings, Josh

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Gallagher, Robert C.

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.

43.

Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilization and mental culture.

Joshee, Anandabai

44.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

45.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

46.

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.

Advisor, Heartland

47.

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