Quotes About Adversity

It may seem hard to believe, but it's catastrophe that offers the most promise for an even richer life. This is the gateway to the good stuff. In other words, you never truly know which way the wind is blowing until the shit hits the fan.

Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be--right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once).

Rudyard Kipling, in his famous poetic description of what makes for mature and effective adulthood, wrote in part: If you can keep your head When all about you Are losing theirs And blaming it on you... If you can trust yourself When all men doubt you... This famous 1909 poem "If" was inspired in Kipling after observing one military leader's actions during the Boer Wars (Lt. Colonel Eduardo Jany, personal communication, October, 2007).

The Department of the Army's Field Manual 3-05.70 states about survival: A key ingredient in any survival situation is the mental attitude of the individual involved.

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.

When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.

You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

The best come from the worst

Not every flying hero has a cape.

I've failed over and over and over again in my life... and that is why I succeed"—Michael Jordan

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

The expression "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" actually isn't usually true for human beings. It is for bacteria, however.

What was the secret to dealing with the assholes? "Lift weights or learn karate," said O'Grady.

Russians had a reputation for being the best programmers on Wall Street, and Serge thought he knew why: They had been forced to learn to program computers without the luxury of endless computer time. Many years later, when he had plenty of computer time, Serge still wrote out new programs on paper before typing them into the machine. "In Russia, time on the computer was measured in minutes," he said. "When you write a program, you are given a tiny time slot to make it work.

When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice

The final two words of his challenge, "no tears", meant that the loser was expected to suffer a great deal of pain, but wasn't entitled to whine, bitch or moan about it. He'd just have to hunker down and keep his poverty to himself.

Losing shouldn't be fun. It's not fun for me. If I'm going to be miserable, you're going to be miserable.

As a former gas station attendant, parking lot attendant, medical resident and current Goldman Sachs screwee, I am offended.

Post Katrina) . . . He was reminded of the first time he'd run on a track with spikes. You just fly on the track. The poor kids he saw in New Orleans were trying to run the same race in life that he was. But he was wearing spikes and they weren't. There's a real idealism that you have to indulge to think that people in New Orleans were now going to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There were no bootstraps.

If you had asked Ali, before he went to New Orleans, what he thought of people who didn't help themselves, he would have said, "My parents had to start all over again. What's the big deal? Just suck it up." The sight of little kids post-Katrina jolted him. "It kind of blew my mind—if you are in kindergarten you should at least get a fair shot. It was just eye-opening: to see how much your geography could determine the opportunities available to you.

There's a real idealism that you have to indulge to think that people in New Orleans were now going to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There were no bootstraps.

defied the odds;

Things went so well for him so often that no one ever needed to worry about how he behaved when they didn't go well.