Motivational Quotes

Adversity

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

- Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Best Quotes about Adversity

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, Shake well before using. That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.

Havner, Vance

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

Sheehan, George

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

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

Salk, Lee

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you.

Gesser

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

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

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.

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

Propertius, Sextus

10.

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

Russell, Rosalind

11.

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

12.

Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them

13.

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.

14.

The reward of suffering is experience.

Aeschylus

15.

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Parker, Dorothy

16.

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

Devito, Danny

17.

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

Gibran, Kahlil

18.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

Angelis, Barbara De

19.

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

Landers, Ann

20.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Seneca

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Hill, Napoleon

24.

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

Barclay, H.K.

25.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Roethke, Theodore

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Horace

31.

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

Proverb, Italian

32.

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

33.

Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains

Cady, Emilie

34.

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

35.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Jung, Carl

36.

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

37.

In times of storm, the shallowness of the root structure is revealed.

38.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

Pliny The Elder

39.

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

40.

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

Schmidt, Walt

41.

Some people bear three kinds of trouble -- the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones they expect to have.

Hale, Edward Everett

42.

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.

Grant, Hanmer Parsons

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.

Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

45.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

46.

A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity.

Saadi

47.

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise.