Motivational Quotes

Adversity

Tribulation will not hurt you, unless as it too often does; it hardens you and makes you sour, narrow and skeptical.

- Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

Best Quotes about Adversity

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

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

Homer

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

Billings, Josh

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

Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.

Scott, Sir Walter

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

Schmidt, Walt

Adversity is the first path to truth.

Byron, Lord

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Seneca

Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions.

Wells, H.G.

10.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

Coppola, Francis Ford

11.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

12.

No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.

13.

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

Westcott, Edward Noyes

14.

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

Johnson

15.

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

Seneca

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

Kennedy, Rose F.

19.

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.

20.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Dune, Frank Herbert

21.

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

Proverb, Maori

22.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

Horace

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.

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.

Alcott, Louisa May

25.

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

26.

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

Brown, Les

27.

I didn't know I'd have to be torn down before I could be built up.

28.

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

Salk, Lee

29.

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

Maltz, Maxwell

30.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

31.

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

32.

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Stumbling is not falling.

Proverb, Portuguese

36.

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

37.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

38.

The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.

Propertius, Sextus

39.

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

Bennet, Arnold

40.

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

Walton, Sam

41.

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

Bible

42.

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

Bacon, Francis

43.

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

44.

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

45.

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

46.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

Horton, Doug

47.

Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us--and those around us -- more effectively. Look for the learning.

Allenbaugh, Eric

48.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Ash, Mary Kay

49.

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

Heraclitus

50.

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