Quotes About Adversity

No mortal can complete his life unharmed and unpunished throughout--ah ah! Some troubles are here now, some will come later. Chorus, Aeschylus' Eumenides from the Oresteia

What mortal else who hears shall claim he was born immune to the demon of harm?

Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends.

The quarrels of friends are the opportunities of foes.

It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.

Pleasure bought with pains, hurts.

Don't take it so much to heart, my friend; put a brick into the hole, and take a look at it every day: you won't be any worse off than before, for even when you had your gold it was of no earthly use to you.

Misfortune tests the sincerity of friendship.

Never soar aloft on an enemy's pinions.

A very large Oak was uprooted by the wind, and thrown across a stream. It fell among some Reeds, which it thus addressed: I wonder how you, who are so light and weak, are not entirely crushed by these strong winds. They replied: You fight and contend with the wind, and consequently you are destroyed; while we, on the contrary, bend before the least breath of air, and therefore remain unbroken. Stoop to conquer.

Self pity is a disease which does not kill but corrodes.

The demons of the Devil don't use your weak weaknesses against you, they use your strong ones. If you're rational and logical, they argue their case rationally and logically. If you're loyal and faithful, they turn those against you. If you're passionate and emotional, they make you passionate and emotional about your worse fears. Your weak weaknesses are no use to them.... They find the strongest weaknesses you didn't know were yours and use those against you.

The plain unwelcome fact is that sometimes life stymies you.

You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.

We are all locked in rooms in different ways, and part of growing up is finding different kinds of keys, and meeting the people who will help free you.

It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser, though he has lost and I think that is the lesson of tragedy.

Maturity' really means: being very unsurprised by, and calm around, pain and disappointment.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

Many people after a horrific few months or years of breakdown, will say: "I don't know how I'd ever have gotten well if I hadn't fallen ill".

In fact, in Proust's view, we don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped.

Few things rival the torment of the once-famous actor, the fallen politician or, as Tocqueville might have remarked, the unsuccessful American.

having acquired a skill at turning grief into ideas

God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up. "I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death . . . is the true measure of the Divine within us.

Fear is our boon companion but never our master.