Adversity Quotations

Adversity Quotations26 of 63 from the Kall database

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CHALLENGE, COPING, PRACTICE
"It is circumstances which show what men are. Therefore, when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you might ask. So that you may become an Olympic Conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. ...no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist."
Epictetus


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


FATE/FORTUNE, SUFFERING
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger."
Nietzsche

"Night brings out stars as sorrows show us truths."
Bailey, TRUTHS AND SORROWS

COPING, STRESS, STABILITY, SINE WAVE, CHANGE, FORTUNE
"Be not elated by fortune, be not depressed by adversity."
Cleobulus

LEARNING, ADVERSITY, OLD AGE
Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.
Aristotle


ADVERSITY, GRIEF, PAST
What has passed and cannot be prevented, should not be grieved for.
Big Elk, Maha Chief from Commonplace book of Prose, 1830

BEST, CHALLENGE
You are at your very best when things are worse.
Jeff Bridges says in movie Starman, describing humanity

PROSPERITY, FRIENDS
In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.
John Churton Collins 1848-1908

It's in adversity that great courage shines.
Phillipe Ne'ricault Destouches, L'Ambitieux, Act V, Sc.II (168-1754

CHAOS, DISORDER, PROBLEMS, TROUBLE, OPPORTUNITY, CATASTROPHE,
"What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune."
Disraeli, Endymion

"There is no education like adversity."
Disraeli, Endymion

SINE-WAVE, YIN-YANG
The swiftest steed to bear you to your goal is suffering... Nothing is more gall-bitter than suffering, nothing so honey sweet as to have suffered. The most sure foundation for this perfection is humility, for he whose nature here creeps in deepest depths shall soar in spirit to highest height of deity; for joy brings sorrow and sorrow brings joy.
Meister Eckhart

SURVIVAL, COPING
"As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around."
Goldsmith, Oliver, The Captivity

We encounter the grinding wheels that sharpen our mental blades many places in life. Adversity, school, parents, spiritual guides, books, experience are all sharpening teachers. As we grow older, to stay sharp we must find new grindstones to whet and sharpen our potential and keep us at our brightest, most penetrating best.
Kall, Robert

TROUBLE, HASSLES, PERSPECTIVE
"When we put our misfortunes in one scale of the balance, each of us lays, in the other, all that he deems to be happiness. The savage flings feathers and powder, and alcohol into the scale; civilized men some gold, a few days of delirium; but the sage will deposit therein countless things our eyes cannot see-- all his soul, it may be, and even the misfortune that he will have purified."
Maeterlinck, Maurice, WISDOM and DESTINY

STRENGTH, TROUBLE
A woman is like a tea bag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.
Nancy Reagan

EXPERIENCE
Nothing makes a man broad minded like adversity.
Will Rogers

OPTIMISM, COPING
My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.
Taoist saying


Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being free from flatterers
S. Johnson

Watch a man in times of... adversity to discover what kind of a man he is; for then at last, words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off..
Lucretius, On The Nature of Things

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
ALBERT CAMUS
Oh, isn't life a terrible thing, thank God?
DYLAN THOMAS
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity till he has tasted adversity.
SA'ID

When times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.