Quotes About Adversity

Take away the clothes of the greatest living man, his father once told him, and you behold a very embarrassed, naked and defenseless animal. Pitt

The simple fact is that evil preys on good, and today, good had a bad day. Which brings with it an acceptance of the other side of that argument, that tomorrow might be evil's turn for some rain. And that's called hope.

The truth is, bad things are going to happen somewhere, every single day, and today was just your turn.

Più grande è la sfida, migliori sono gli uomini che la affrontano.

There was an order of misery, misery tucked inside miseries, and you were meant to keep track.

Everyone was fucked up in their own way; as before, it was a mark of one's individuality.

The world continued to instruct: Do not love for they will disappear, do not trust for you will be betrayed, do not stand up for you will be swatted down. Still he heard those higher imperatives: Love and that love will be returned, trust in the righteous path and it will lead you to deliverance, fight and things will change. He never listened, never saw what was plainly in front of him, and now he had been plucked from the world altogether.

There are big forces that want to keep the Negro down, like Jim Crow, and there are small forces that want to keep you down, like other people, and in the face of all those things, the big ones and the smaller ones, you have to stand up straight and maintain your sense of who you are.

To think of those Nickel nights where the only sounds were tears and insects, how you could sleep in a room crammed with sixty boys and still understand that you were the only person on earth. Everybody and nobody around at the same time. Here everybody was around and by some miracle you didn't want to wring their neck but give them a hug.

see chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted colored people, defined by how much worse it could be at any moment.

But it's like riding a bike. A hell-bike, made out of hell.

She wondered why there were only two kinds of weather: hardship in the morning, and tribulation at night.

At a certain point he learned the smarter play was to avoid the things that brought you low.

Black people always found a way in the most miserable circumstances. If we didn't, we'd have been exterminated by the white man long ago.

How to get through the day if every indignity capsized you in a ditch? One learned to focus one's attention.

Stubborn breaks when it don't bend

one might think one's misfortunes distinct, but the true horror lay in their universality

Problem was, even if you avoided trouble, trouble might reach out and snatch you anyway. Another student might sniff out a weakness and start something, one of the staff dislikes your smile and knocks it off your face. You might stumble into a bramble of bad luck of the sort that got you here in the first place.

Nowdays, Rosie the Rivetere was a former soccer mom who had just opened her own catering business when Last Night came down and her husband and kids were eaten by a parking attendant at the local megamall's discount- appliance emporium.

This isn't going to un-fuck itself.

Gnaw on a disappointment long enough and it will lose all flavor.

Si ellos podían, ¿por qué no ella? Toda su vida se le había negado todo.

them from the ruthless mechanism of the world.

My first fight made me cockeyed," he said, "and my farewell fight set my eyes right again, so trust me when I say this sport will break you down to make you better, and that's a fact.