Quotations about Overcoming Adversity
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
~John Quincy Adams
I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.
~Louisa May Alcott
A dose of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.
~American Proverb
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
~Aristotle
Prosperity is not without many fears and disasters; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
~Francis Bacon
Luck to me is something else. Hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.
~Lucille Ball
One's best success comes after their greatest disappointments.
~Henry Ward Beecher
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
~Anne Bradstreet
Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.
~Les Brown
Out of difficulties grow miracles.
~Jean De La Bruyere
Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
~James Buckham
No pressure, no diamonds.
~Mary Case
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
~Sir Winston Churchill
Never, never, never, never give up.
~Winston Churchill
You become a champion by fighting one more round. When things are tough, you fight one more round.
~James J. Corbett
All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.
~Charles Caleb Colton
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
~Leonardo DaVinci
The distance doesn't matter; only the first step is difficult.
~Mme du Deffand
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
~Charles Dickens
You may not realize it when it happens, but at kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
~Walt Disney
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
~English Proverb
When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
~Epictetus
Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine.
~Mario Fernandez
Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
~Henry Fielding
Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.
~Thomas Fuller
Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts.
~Nikki Giovanni
Obstacles can't stop you. Problems can't stop you. Most of all other people can't stop you. Only you can stop you.
~Jeffrey Gitomer
Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.
~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.
~Goethe
Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.
~Billy Graham
In times like these it is good to remember that there have always been times like these.
~Paul Harvey
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
~Napoleon Hill
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
~Napoleon Hill
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
~Horace
In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.
~Horace
Rule your mind or it will rule you.
~Horace
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
~Elbert Hubbard
Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
~Washington Irving
Adversity is the foundation of virtue.
~Japanese Proverb
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
~Charles "Tremendous" Jones
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
~Michael Jordan
Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart.
~Myla Kabat-Zinn
All the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.
~Helen Keller
Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.
~Helen Keller
The one resolution, which was in my mind long before it took the form of a resolution, is the key-note of my life. It is this, always to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed upon my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be made to blossom, like Aaron's rod, with flowers.
~Helen Keller
The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.
~Nelson Mandella
Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.
~Og Mandino
Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.
~Orison Swett Marden
A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose - a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.
~John Maxwell
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
~Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A certain amount of opposition is of great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with the wind. No man has ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.
~John Neal
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
~Thomas Paine
Enthusiasm releases the drive to carry you over obstacles and adds significance to all you do.
~Norman Vincent Peale
I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.
~J. C. Penney
The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
~Plutarch
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
~Alexander Pope
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.
~Mary Annne Radmacher
It may sound strange, but many champions are made champions by setbacks.
~Bob Richards
If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the RIVER OF GREATNESS is always the STREAM OF ADVERSITY.
~Cavett Robert
When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.
~Lee Salk
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
~Robert Schuller
One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
~Albert Schweitzer
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
~Seneca
Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
~Seneca
Depression loses its power when fresh vision pierces the darkness.
~Peter Sinclair
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
~Dodie Smith
If you shut the door to all errors, truth will be shut out.
~Rabindranath Tagore
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
~Margaret Thatcher
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
~author unknown
Determination, patience and courage are the only things needed to improve any situation.
~author unknown
Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it.
~author unknown
Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.
~author unknown
Hard things are put in our way, not to stop us, but to call out our courage and strength.
~author unknown
He who does not tire, tires advesity.
~author unknown
It the truth be known, most successes are built on a multitude of failures.
~author unknown
The best way out of emotional pain is through it.
~author unknown
Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.
~Ward
Adversity brings knowledge, and knowledge wisdom.
~Welsh Proverb
If there were no problems, most of us would be unemployed.
~Zig Ziglar
Others can stop you temporarily -- you are the only one who can do it permanently.
~Zig Ziglar