Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Schweitzer, Albert

Best Quotes about Adversity

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.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Dickinson, Emily

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

Homer

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

Sheehan, George

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

Horace

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

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

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

10.

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

11.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

12.

The reward of suffering is experience.

Aeschylus

13.

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

14.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

15.

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

Bible

16.

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

17.

The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them

18.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

19.

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

20.

Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

21.

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

22.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

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.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

25.

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Lawrence, Thomas E.

30.

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

Heraclitus

31.

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

Billings, Josh

32.

You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home.

Movie, Apollo 13

33.

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

34.

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

Bennet, Arnold

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.

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

Seneca

37.

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

38.

There will be no crown bearers in heaven who are not cross bearers on earth.

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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.

42.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

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

44.

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

45.

The proof of gold is fire...

Franklin, Benjamin

46.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

47.

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

Woolf, Virginia

48.

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

49.

What is to give light must endure the burning.

Frankl, Viktor E.

50.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese