Quotes about adversity

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

— Chinese Proverb

A stumble may prevent a fall.

— English Proverb

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.

— English Proverb

Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us.

— Italian Proverb

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

— Maori Proverb

Stumbling is not falling.

— Portuguese Proverb

Any port in a storm.

— Scottish Proverb

Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed before you?

— Qur'an

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.

— Ralph Ransom

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.

— Mary Caroline Richards

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.

— Jean Paul Richter

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.

— Rabindranath Tagore

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the RIVER OF GREATNESS is always the STREAM OF ADVERSITY.

— Cavett Robert

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

— Theodore Roethke

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

— James Rogers

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.

— Will Rogers

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

— Elizabeth Kubler Ross

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

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.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

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

— Rosalind Russell

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

— Saadi

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.

— Lee Salk

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

— Dorothy L. Sayers

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.

— Greek Saying

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

— Walt Schmidt

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome --to be got over.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

— Robert H. Schuller

Every burden is a blessing.

— Robert H. Schuller

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.

— Charles M. Schwab

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

— Albert Schweitzer

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

— Sir Walter Scott

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

— Sir Walter Scott

It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES. The beliefs are the direct cause of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other. The first step is to see the connection between adversity, belief, and consequence. The second step is to see how the ABCs operate every day in your own life.

— Martin E. P. Seligman

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

— Seneca

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

— Seneca

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

— Seneca

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

— Seneca

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

— Seneca

Things were bad but now they are OK.

— Harold J. Seymour

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.

— Merle Shain

Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.

— William Shakespeare

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

— George Sheehan

For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.

— Sirach

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.

— Samuel Smiles

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.

— Sting

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

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

— Publius Cornelius Tacitus

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

— Publius Cornelius Tacitus

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

— Rabindranath Tagore

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, grow, grow.

— The Talmud

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

— Mark Twain

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

— Source Unknown

The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.

— Source Unknown

Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.

— Source Unknown

We need tough days to drive us to our knees.

— Source Unknown

We all know that sponges grow in the ocean but I wander how much deeper the ocean would be if that wasn't the case.

— Source Unknown

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.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

He who knows the darkness shall learn to live in the light.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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.

— Source Unknown

If your knees are knocking, kneel on them.

— Source Unknown

If you're on thin ice, you might as well dance.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them

— Source Unknown

You have endured worse things; God will grant an end even to these.

— Virgil

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

— Sam Walton

Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.

— William A. Ward

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for it.

— Earl Warren

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

— Simone Weil

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

— H.G. Wells

The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.

— Phil Weltman

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

— Edward Noyes Westcott

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow as Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me the pot's at the other end.

— Bert Whitney

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.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.

— Oprah Winfrey

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

— Virginia Woolf

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

— Zig Ziglar

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

— Carl Zwanzig

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.

— Bryan Adams

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

— Heartland Advisor

The reward of suffering is experience.

— Aeschylus

Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes.

— Aesop

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

— Louisa May Alcott

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.

— Eric Allenbaugh

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

— Barbara De Angelis

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

— Mary Kay Ash

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

— St. Augustine

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, This is a misfortune but To bear this worthily is good fortune.

— Marcus Aurelius

Every silver lining has a cloud.

— Avon