Quotes About Adversity

If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.

Man aspires to greatness, but all too often his hopes are submerged by the primitive instinct to survive at any cost.

Ernst von Paulus,

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.

Every life spends some time in the mud. Your faith hasn't really been tried until you have spent some time in the mud.

I have heard that well-born girls sometimes fall in love with low-born youths and are covered in scandal which neither threats nor punishment can control, so their fathers are obliged to drive them out of the house. The streets are full of innumerable such once-well-bred girls sitting on the pavements.

Life, much like so many athletic events, is largely a game of recovery.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.

The object of life, after all, is not to understand things, but to maintain one's defences and equilibrium and live as well as one can; it is not only maiden aunts who are placed like this

Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance,I have not winced nor cried aloud;Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.

All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them.

There are no great men, just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstances to meet.

All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them.

People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance.

A gentleman can live through anything.

Too much happens…. Man performs, engenders, so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything…. That's what's so terrible.

Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.

The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can.

In a recent interview, he compared himself to surfers: "What are they doing this for? It's just pure. You're alone. That wave is so much bigger and stronger than you. You're always outnumbered. They always can crush you. And yet you're going to accept that and turn it into a little, brief, meaningless art form.

I strongly believe that we are not put on this Earth just to accumulate victories and trophies and avoid failures; but rather to be whittled and sandpapered down until what's left is who we truly are

That's what I can't stand. I know I'll bounce back, and that's what I can't stand.

I can do this, he was thinking. All I have to do is just be as normal as everyone else. All I have to do is just not blow apart like a two-dollar clock. Just pick words and put one of them after the other like a baby learning to walk, like a drunk carefully crossing the street.