Quotes About Adversity

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way.

Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. And the world whistled in his ears.

In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.

Life is fits and starts, mostly fits.

On those days or mornings when you feel worst, when you think everything is hopeless, that nothing will happen--sometimes the best things happen.

Most Romans worked and played as usual while Rome fell about their ears. But surely it is fair to say that when a man becomes depressed, falls down in a sand trap, and decides to shoot himself, something has gone wrong with the man, not the world.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

a life we didn't choose, chose us

A life I didn't choose chose me.

That's the problem with survival of the fittest ... the corpse at your fett. That little inconvenience.

I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love, you know?

This is where the pot is strongest now: at the place where it had been broken.

and yet she continues to skip rope in my mind and on my canvases, raising her dark, hopeful face to the sky, innocent of the depth of people's cruelty toward "the other"—those who, for whatever reason, must swim against the tide instead of letting it carry them. . . .

Maybe you inherited craziness like you did brown eyes or frizzy hair, I thought. Maybe you just went nuts and did that sort of thing if your mother got a divorce and a new boyfriend.

Here is a girl who is pretty in a quiet way, I told myself. I bet she's had a very hard life.

have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?

These are the days that must happen to you

What doesn't kill you leaves scars, ruins your lungs, dries out all your tears, leaves you lying awake at 4 in the morning wishing you weren't alive.

Vivas to those who have fail'd! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

Stronger Lessons Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?

I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. Me imperturbe

Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.