Quotes About Adversity

So after the tears were all cried out, it was time to move on and figure out what to do with all that was coming at me.

I WAS BORN on the eighteenth of December, 1935, in the town Bourg-en-Bresse, about thirty miles northeast of Lyon, the second of three sons of Jeanne and Jean-Victor Pépin. Weighing only two and one half pounds, I nearly died at birth. The midwife lined a shoebox with dishtowels and put me inside, placing the makeshift incubator between two bricks that had been warmed on the stove.

De fapt, am descoperit ?i am ?tiut foarte devreme c? trebuie s? te ba?i tot timpul. Pe toate fronturile vie?ii, pe toate mizele existen?ei, c?ci nimic nu este câ?tigat dinainte, nimic nu este dat, nimic nu e u?or. A?a e via?a, s?racii nu au niciodat? dreptate, se spunea în familie. Nu trebuie s? te la?i p?c?lit, ad?ugau vecinii. Trebuie s? ar??i c? e?ti b?rbat, supralicitau prietenii mei.

Une lutte qui semble perdue, est la plus excitante.

I grew up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was like a war zone, so I never learned to trust that there were people who could help me.

That was the trouble with smart men. They thought they had all the answers, and then when life knocked them aside, they thought it was all their faults.

Better to face the devil than have him at your back.

If you're going to fight, fight like you're the third monkey on the ramp to Noah's Ark. And brother, it's starting to rain. — on a t-shirt being sold by a Bangkok street vendor

That is how I came to think that heavy and hard was the beginning of living, real living; and though I might not end up with a mark on my cheek, I had no doubt that I would end up with a mark somewhere.

How do you get to be the sort of victor who can claim to be the vanquished also?

Jamela Dunbar

Poverty is uncomfortable but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

It is a brave man... who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

a soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.

When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I'm going to live as if I were a great man.

Life is pain. War is change. The raw materials of life hammered and shaped into something with a purpose.

You will lose your hand, find your fist and gain an ally. You will also meet your enemy face-to-face.

What has happened is what has happened. The past is gone. I was not the same person then. I was much weaker. I lived and breathed and hid in fear. That time is gone. I fear nothing. I have faced my fears and learned from them. The gods gave me that.

Bad things can happen, and often do--but they only take up a few pages of your story; and anyone can survive a few pages.

It's hell... Just hell. It's just plain hell... But you gotta go through with it.

And no matter what, there's not one thing in this world *or* the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That's all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That's all. That's all that matters. It's all that matters because it's all that's possible.

You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You've got to keep your mind off pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of a howl about it. You've got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they've come through it and that you will too.

Don't be such a party-pooper, missy --when you're well and truly screwed, either you just sit pissing yourself or you invent some reason to hope.

Ghetel was clawing at the rotten bark on the underside of the big fallen tree that sheltered them. Bark debris and wood-punk kept falling on the blanket. Ghetel, a silhouette against the half-light, would scrabble in the decaying wood for a moment, then pause and put something to her mouth