Quotes About Adversity

We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it.

There's trouble in every house, and some in the street.--Irish Proverb

Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.

As he had done so many times before, Lincoln withstood the storm of defeat by replacing anguish over an unchangeable past with hope in an uncharted future.

We do not have to become heroes overnight," Eleanor once wrote. "Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed," Abigail Adams wrote to her son John Quincy Adams in the midst of the American Revolution, suggesting that "the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.

from John Hay's diary) "The President never appeared to better advantage in the world," Hay proudly noted in his diary. "Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.

Larson would kick my butt! This is good.

We're simply going to do what we always do. Clean it up. Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and figure it out. Come on now.

That's right. Old Beelzebub himself. That's how the devil works. He ain't no fool with a red suit and a tail. No, he works on your mind. When you let your mind dwell on trouble, you can't be doing what you needs to be doing. Then he wins, you see? He can't win unless you let him because he ain't got no power on his own.

Then why do we fail? Especially, why do we work hard at failure? Because, beside being creatures subject to the Will to Live and the Will to Power, we are driven by another will, the Will to Fail, or Die.

I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.

Pick yourself up,Dust yourself off,Start all over again.

She'd once told me that I was probably the only person on earth who'd be given more than one soapbox in their lifetime because their first one had been worn out.

If things go wrong, you don't have to accept you made a bum decision.

Às vezes, acho que a vida não passa de uma balança de pratos, um sistema de pesos e contrapesos: sempre que me acontece alguma coisa boa, algo horrível há de seguir-se para equilibrar os pratos e impedir-me de ser completa e absolutamente feliz.

Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

Résumé Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give, Gas smells awful. You might as well live.

Four be the things I am wiser to know:Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.

Guns aren't lawful;Nooses give;Gas smells awful;You might as well live.

Résumé Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give, Gas smells awful. You might as well live.

Inventory: "Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.