Quotes About Adversity

Human beings of today are more fragile, whereas people born in wartime, during the Second World War, eventually became the great players like Pele. They were fantastic players.

After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. When I attended fourth grade, I had to learn Russian as my first foreign language in school. I found this quite difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, but as time went on, I seemed to do all right.

The adverse economic events following the First World War turned me toward economics.

I remember eating in school in the years after the Second World War. Most of my friends had miserable portions of Spam with an inedible, glutinous pudding served in containers we called 'coffins.' As a vegetarian, I had a lump of loathsome cheese and some bread.

Born in 1936, I experienced the Second World War as a child in the city of Gelsenkirchen-Buer. This area was heavily bombed, but fortunately, all members of my family survived the war and post-war period.

My father fought behind Japanese lines in the second world war and it traumatised him. Everybody who knew him from before said he was the life and soul of the party - fun to be with - but after the war he was different.

Some of our best and unexpected discoveries have been born out of crises - from the Second World War, for example, came Alan Turing's decoding machine, widely considered as the precursor to modern day computers and artificial intelligence.

My schooling was disrupted by the shortage of labor during World War I. It meant foregoing high school. Then, late in 1921, I entered upon a short course in agriculture at South Dakota State College. I managed to enter college in 1924, and I was permitted to complete my college work in three years.

When I returned to the United States after three years of World War II service, my total assets consisted of one wife, one small daughter, $276 in the bank, and an idea. The idea was for an export business to supply items badly needed everywhere in Europe.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

I grew up in an era when money was not readily available. We were into the post-Depression years and World War II.

I'd say my mother made more of a difference to me than anyone else did. I know that's a conventional and perhaps mundane answer, but my family was blown apart at the start of World War II.

I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic.

No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.

Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.

My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.

The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.

I had old bunk beds that my dad got from Seabrook Farms. They were first used by German prisoners during World War II, who were sent to work the farms during the war. The metal beds with their thin mattresses could easily be used as a jungle gym and I loved them.

The women of Afghanistan, left behind as their men fought, did what the women of World War II did - used their wits and resourcefulness to preserve some semblance of civilization.

Our World War II generation met the challenges of their time.

My family moved from Rangoon to Rawalpindi during World War II. My father was born in Lahore in 1946. Those were difficult times.

Scott Adams is not only a world-famous cartoonist, he's also a world-class failure. And he's the first to admit it. In his new book, 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,' the Dilbert creator explains how failure can lead to success if you develop the right skills to make the most of your mistakes.

I learned a lot in Munich. I played with world-class players, matured, and learned from any setbacks.

One of the things that I try to do when I have a tough time with anything - whatever it may be - is just look at someone else's situation. Here in Staten Island, look, I have people that have children that haven't been back in their home for 18 months after Sandy. They lost every worldly possession.