Quotes About Adversity

Even the hard years have some reason for celebration.

and everything about me goes from crying out to just plain crying

We should be inspired by people... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.

I'm an ivy twined so long against a tower of strange design that I cannot now assume any other shape.

Life is muddy. Denying that—thinking there's only one noble path above the fray—can be a poisonous approach to life.

remaining fair-minded as their beloved gallery-in-the-making was threatened by two crammed shelves of strange Semitic lettering.

But I will tell you what I learned after I lost my sight... I walked through rooms that had once been familiar, my arms outstretched, and was fouled and thwarted by every obstacle in my path. What I learned then, Ester, is a thing that I have been learning ever since... The distance between things are vast, he said. They are vast.

The fire had forged them both—she and her brother—into brittle instruments. Should she bend, she would break.

Don't--she bit her lip and held it. Don't turn your back just because it terrifies you. [...] I don't think I'm strong enough, Aaron said. Slowly the steam faded from the pub's windows. Helen was staring across the street as well. She said, How do you think people get strong?

What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.

I want you to be wise for your own sake, Stephen, because at the best life requires great wisdom. I want you to learn to make friends of your books; someday you may need them, because – ' He hesitated, 'because you mayn't find life at all easy, we none of us do, and books are good friends.

Life's not all beer and skittles

Only he who is without anything is without enemies.

If the windmill should prove too formidable, said he, from the threshold, I may see what can be done with the wind.

Poverty smothers our dreams even before we have finished dreaming them.

Humor und Geduld sind die beiden Kamele, mit denen man jede Wüste durchqueren kann. (Arabisches Sprichwort)

Tout grandit, m'a-t-il dit un jour, sauf les catastrophes. Elles sont énormes quand elles naissent; ensuite, elles rapetissent un peu plus chaque jour.

I'd accept defeat. fighting doesn't preclude enduring.I can fight, and if fighting fails I can still endure.

Like all of us, I was born for joy. This broken world, however, breaks most of us, grinding relentlessly on its metaled tracks.

Being a bad guy was easy, being a hero was hard.

Roosevelt was right when he said that we have nothing to fear itself. And our fear can only consume us when we face it alone.

I could live with one butt cheek — just sit at a slant for the rest of my life, not worry about how baggy the seat of my blue jeans looked, get used to the nickname Halfass — but I couldn't live with my brains blown out.

Regardless of how hard the winds of chance might blow or how heavy the weight of experience might become, Stormy always stays on her feet...

Trouble was coming, sure, but it's always coming, and meanwhile it's best to live with a smile.