Quotes About Adversity

The Chinese remind us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, yet they keep curiously silent about the step itself, which too often must be taken, as now, from inaccessible ground, if not indeed straight down into an unmeasured abyss.

A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt-- A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby or Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig!

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options

opportunity alone is not sufficient for economic or other accomplishments.

Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage.

I believe that people are like portmanteaux - packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle...

Oh dear, I sometimes think…whatever would I do if anything happened…But thinking's no good, is it, madam? Thinking won't help. When I find myself doing that, I say to myself, "come along, Ellen! Stop it this moment, my girl! Stop that silly thinking…!

If you're going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident, you'll lead a very strenuous life.

On maudit une épreuve, mais on ne sait pas, quand elle nous arrive, qu'elle va nous faire grandir et nous emmener ailleurs.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them.

We have to stop asking why this is happening to me and start asking why it is happening for me.

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward. C. S. LEWIS

Katherine Woodward Thomas

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken. WILLIAM STAFFORD

It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move." JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right. MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

So much that was beautiful and so much that was hard to bear. Yet whenever I showed myself ready to bear it, the hard was directly transformed into the beautiful. ETTY HILLESUM

It's a soft-sounding word, 'never,' but its velvety timbre can't hide its sharp edges...Never pressed down on him. It grabbed him by the neck and shook him. He sucked in a deep breath, sucked in all that never and started to sneeze. Never filled his nose, his eyes, his soaking fur.

You say it's too late . In my opinion, only a thimbleful of situations in life are that dire. Death begins and ends that list. Everything else is simply an obstacle that must be dealt with.

troubles. Lord Ransley had enough courage and

of unsuitable places.

You'll mend, you may never let another man near you again, but you'll be strong. Woman are. When a man breaks he stays broken.