Quotes About Adversity

But I know about suffering; if that helps. I know that it ends. I ain't going to tell you no lies, like it always ends for the better. Sometimes it ends for the worse. You can suffer so bad that you can be driven to a place where you can't ever suffer again: and that's worse.

What a long way, I thought, I've come—to be destroyed!

You are - how old? Twenty-six or seven? I am nearly twice that and, let me tell you, you are lucky. You are lucky that what is happening to you now is happening now and not when you are forty, or something like that, when there would be no hope for you and you would simply be destroyed.

No man can say whether you are happy or not until you die, for no man knows misfortunes may overtake you or what misery may be yours in place of all this slendor.

while the excluded begin to realize, having endured everything, that they can endure everything.

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.

It's funny what you hold on to to get through terror when terror surrounds you.

If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring.

That's what the Blues and Spirituals are all about. It is the ability to look on things as they are and survive your losses, or even not survive them—to know that your losses are coming. To know they are coming is the only possible insurance you have, a faint insurance, that you will survive them.

Przy­pusz­czam, ?e ka?­dy pi­sarz czu­je, i? Å›wiat, na który zostaÅ' wy­da­ny, to nic in­ne­go jak spisek zawiÄ…zany po to, by utrud­ni? mu roz­wi­ja­nie ta­len­tu – i oczy­wi­Ã…›cie wie­le prze­ma­wia za sÅ'usz­no­Ã…›ciÄ… te­go prze­ko­na­nia.

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

years. What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life. In

A key psychology for leading from good to great is the Stockdale Paradox: Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. UNEXPECTED

WHY 20 MILE MARCHERS WIN 20 Mile Marching helps turn the odds in your favor for three reasons: 1. It builds confidence in your ability to perform well in adverse circumstances. 2. It reduces the likelihood of catastrophe when you're hit by turbulent disruption. 3. It helps you exert self-control in an out-of-control environment.

None of us can predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take.

the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

The Stockdale Paradox Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time Confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Accomplishing a 20 Mile March, consistently, in good times and bad, builds confidence. Tangible achievement in the face of adversity reinforces the 10X perspective: we are ultimately responsible for improving performance. We never blame circumstance; we never blame the environment.

These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity—cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth—and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger.53

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Discipline is the greatest thing in the world. Where there is no discipline, there is no character. And without character, there is no progress. . . . Adversity gives us opportunities to grow. And we usually get what we work for. If we have problems and overcome them, we grow tall in character, and the qualities that bring success.

When you turn over rocks and look at all the squiggly things underneath, you can either put the rock down, or you can say, 'My job is to turn over rocks and look at the squiggly things,' even if what you see can scare the hell out of you."25 That quote, from Pitney Bowes executive Fred Purdue

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.