Quotes About Adversity

Many, on hearing Ebert's story, would use the word unlucky to describe him, but a much more fitting word would be unvanquished. During the last decade of his life, he experienced enough setbacks for several lifetimes and yet was not embittered by his fate. It was a triumph of the human spirit.

It is not how the wrong is done that matters, but how it is taken"4—as did Marcus Aurelius: "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Marcus: "Yes, they say that life is more like wrestling than like dancing.

The person who, in contrast, is a stranger to discomfort, who has never been cold or hungry, might dread the possibility of someday being cold and hungry. Even though he is now physically comfortable, he will likely experience mental discomfort—namely, anxiety with respect to what the future holds in store for him.

the art of living is more like wrestling than dancing."46

a good man will welcome "every experience the looms of fate may weave for him."3

And when asked what he had learned from philosophy, Diogenes replied, "To be prepared for every fortune.

A man that's neither born to wealth, nor place, But to the mere despite of Fortune's brow, Though, peradventure, well endowed with grace Of stature, form, and other gifts enough, Submits himself unto a servile yoke, And is content to wear a livery cloak.

But the better the training, the greater and more detailed the preparation, the more men are at the mercy of the impossible.

All these outposts were broken in,and that which in other histories would have counted as three victories did not delay the progress of Charles for one hour

Humankind can tolerate only so much rejection.

They knew they were pilgrims.

All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

When this calamity fell among the passengers who were to be left here to settle, they were hurried ashore and made to drink water, so that the sailors might have the more beer and when one sufferer in his sickness desired but a small can of beer, it was answered that if he were their own father he should have none. Then the disease began to seize the sailors also, so that almost half of the crew died

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I lay them at your feet. Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams.

The fascination of what's difficult has dried the sap out of my veins and rent spontaneous joy and natural content out of my heart.

When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny.

William C. Davis

Hold back the edges of your gown, Ladies, we are going through hell.

you have enemies? Good. That means you've stuck up for yourself sometime in your life.

To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.

No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone;When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished, each alone:But I beneath a rougher sea,And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

But it is a sort of April-weather life that we lead in this world. A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm.