Quotes About Adversity

Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being—that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen—seems little short of miraculous.

Some invisible force was working against them.

That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human-being - that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen - seems little short of miraculous.

The misfortune of those women was my good luck, their misery my escape.

But being uncomfortable is a virtue, not a hindrance.

Don't be sad that roses have thorns. Be glad that thorns have Roses. Today's the day I worried about yesterday and it didn't happen.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

You think you've been in deep shit before, and then you realise you have absolutely no conception of how deep shit can really be.

I had to decide how to use that pressure. I had to decide whether it was going to crush me or turn me into a diamond.

You see four guys bunched on a corner waiting for you, you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation, or you keep on walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride...Truth is, it's smarter to run. The best fight is the one you don't have. But I have never claimed to be smart. Just obstinate, and occasionally bad-tempered. Some guys kick cats. I keep walking. - Jack Reacher

We're going to beat you so hard your kids will be born dizzy.

Facts were to be faced, not fought.

You could try, Reacher said. But you'd get hurt. You're out of your league. You're up against something you never saw before. You have a mighty high opinion of yourself. Reacher nodded at Neagley. I'm talking about her. I'm just here to clear up the mess.

A person either runs or he fights. It's a binary choice, and I'm a fighter.

On his day of demobilization a lugubrious one-armed, one-eyed brigadier wished him well and then added, apropos of nothing, "Mark my words, Moutier, a great war leaves a country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.

Now you had one come back, Harley.

Reacher smiled. Bad luck and trouble, been my only friends.

Street-fighting's first rule: there are no rules.

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. He thought JFK had said it. I thought it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche, and he said destroy, not kill. What doesn't destroy us makes us stronger.

and heaved himself up and out. He stood in the cold clear air for a second and then turned and pushed the door shut again behind him. Held still for a second longer. Then he stepped forward and leaned against the side of the hood up near the headlight.

second rule, learned from a lifetime of bad luck and trouble: Maintain a little dignity.

You could have been killed." Reacher nodded. "Many times," he said. "But all long ago. Not today. Not by these guys." "You're crazy." "Or competent.

Then finally he opened the wrong door, and what came out at him was his problem, not mine.

Here's to bloody wars and dread diseases