Quotes about adversity

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.

— Jean Cocteau

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.

— Robert Collier

What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise.

— Kitty O'neill Collins

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

— Francis Ford Coppola

If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do? I don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him? To shrug.

— Francisco D'Anconia

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

— Danny Devito

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

— Emily Dickinson

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

— Frank Herbert Dune

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

— George Eliot

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

— Duke Ellington

Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man is a god in ruins.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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.

— Henry Fielding

Failure is success if we learn from it.

— Malcolm S. Forbes

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.

— Malcolm S. Forbes

Every hardship; every joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may prove itself. The great chain of necessity wherewith we are bound has divine significance; and nothing happens which has not some service in working out the sublime destiny of the human soul.

— Elias A. Ford

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.

— Henry Ford

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.

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.

— Anatole France

I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.

— Anne Frank

What is to give light must endure the burning.

— Viktor E. Frankl

The proof of gold is fire...

— Benjamin Franklin

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

— Robert C. Gallagher

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

— Gesser

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

— Kahlil Gibran

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.

— Kahlil Gibran

Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart.

— Arnold H. Glasgow

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

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

— Hanmer Parsons Grant

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds; all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

— Edward Everett Hale

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

— Edward Everett Hale

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.

— Vance Havner

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

— William Hazlitt

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.

— Ernest Hemingway

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

— Heraclitus

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

— Napoleon Hill

In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win.

— Dustin Hoffman

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

— Lou Holtz

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

— Homer

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

— Horace

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

— Horace

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

— Horace

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

— Doug Horton

Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him.

— Edgar Watson Howe

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

— Victor Hugo

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

— Washington Irving

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.

— Washington Irving

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.

— Janet Jackson

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

— William James

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

— Johnson

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

— Samuel Johnson

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.

— Charles ''Tremendous'' Jones

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity

— Ben Jonson

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.

— Anandabai Joshee

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

— Carl Jung

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

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

— John Keats

As iron put into the fire loseth its rust and becometh clearly red-hot, so he that wholly turneth himself unto God puts off all slothfulness, and is transformed into a new man.

— Thomas Kempis

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

— Thomas Kempis

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

— Rose F. Kennedy

If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you haven't grasped the situation.

— Jean Kerr

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.

— Søren Kierkegaard

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

— King Jr. Martin Luther

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

— Henry Kissinger

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

— Ann Landers

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

— Thomas E. Lawrence

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

— Robert Leighton

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.

— George Leonard

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.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.

— James Russell Lowell

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.

— George Macdonald

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

— Malcolm X

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

— Maxwell Maltz

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

— Og Mandino

Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always a seed of good. Find it and prosper.

— Og Mandino

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.

— Og Mandino

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

— Apollo 13 Movie

Only entropy comes easy.

— Lewis Mumford

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

— John Neal

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

— Richard M. Nixon

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

— Leroy ''Satchel'' Paige

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.

— Thomas Paine

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

— Dorothy Parker

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

— Norman Vincent Peale

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.

— Norman Vincent Peale

I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.

— J. C. (James Cash) Penney

The racism, the sexism, I never let it be my problem, it's their problem. If I see a door comin' my way, I'm knockin' it down. And if I can't knock down the door, I'm sliding through the window. I'll never let it stop me from what I wanna do.

— Rosie Perez

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.

— Albert Pike

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

— Pliny The Elder

Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.

— Plutarch

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

— Plutarch

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

— Laurens Van du Post

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

— Sextus Propertius