Quotes About Adversity

The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstances.

She seemed to know that neither crying nor sulking ever got anyone anywhere. The only sensible thing to do when you're attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack.

Here I come, you grizzly old grunion! You rotten old turnip! You filthy old frumpet!

How we respond to what happens to us - especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over - is a creative act.

Catherine of Aragon said,"None get to God but through trouble.

How we respond to what happens to us—especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over—is a creative

Find me one person who's doing something interesting in the world who hasn't felt the hot sting of a NO.

Find me one person who's doing something interesting in the world who hasn't felt the hot sting of a NO. Or a door slammed in the face. Or boos. Or a rejection letter. Or a tepid reception. Or bankruptcy. Or gotten fired.

I was developing the musculature, bit by bit by bit, to lean in instead of away. To listen, when my first instinct was to plug my ears. To open up, when I wanted to shut down.

Sometimes lightning struck twice; sometimes, one person got more than their share of suffering.

Sam Rayburn on LBJ's recuperation from his heart attack: It would kill him if he relaxed.

As one 1935 study put it, boys and girls who were 15 or 16 in 1929 when the Depression began are no longer children; they are grown-ups – adults who had never, since they left school, had anything productive to do; adults in the embittered by years of suffering and hardship. The President's Advisory Commission on Education was to warn of a whole lost generation of young people.

his congressional career almost before it began. Herman

I define personal power as a state of mind in which a person is confident he can handle whatever may come. This kind of power not only successfully deals with problems, challenges and adversity, it actually welcomes them, meets them head on, and is thankful for them. Personal power isn't the absence of fear. Even the most powerful people have fear. Personal power is the result of feeling fear, but not giving in to the fear.

My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.

Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them.

People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.

Many problems can be solved by a man not frightened by them.

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else. Jill Boardman encountered her personal challenge - and accepted it - at 3:47.

But it's a hell of a note when you can't even kill a dragon and feel lighthearted afterwards.

There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.

I've been broke even oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting, as a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things—but not bored. His predicament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life, whether he knows it or not.

the trouble with "lessons from history" is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins.