Category: Adversity Quotes SMS

There is no education like adversity.  ~Disraeli

When you’re feeling your worst, that’s when you get to know yourself the best.  ~Leslie GrossmanGBF

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.  ~Author Unknown

During the darkest indigo midnight, yet will countless stars blossom. ~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.comtwitter.com/WabiSabiWhisper/status/5350803758

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.  ~Cicero

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.  ~O. Henry, The Gifts of the MagiDCMOO

Bad is never good until worse happens.  ~Danish Proverb

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.  ~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929LCD

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not.  ~James K. Feibleman

Adversity enhances this tale we call life.  ~Terri Guillemets

Rock bottom is good solid ground, and a dead end street is just a place to turn around.  ~Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb, "Rock Bottom" (song)

We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, "Why did this happen to me?" unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way.  ~Author Unknown

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.  ~Norman Vincent PealeGCLE

God uses suffering as a whetstone, to make men sharp with.  ~Henry Ward BeecherCTO

Everybody ought to do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.  ~William JamesCUL

Your heart has been sore wounded too. Dear Light, love shall cherish you, till you again look on life with happy eyes. ~Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate StephensTPVgb, Smith b.1849-d.1877, Stephens b.1853-d.1938; Smith was Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Kansas from 1872-1875

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round.  Trouble creates a capacity to handle it.  I don’t embrace trouble; that’s as bad as treating it as an enemy.  But I do say meet it as a friend, for you’ll see a lot of it and had better be on […]

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.  ~Duke Ellington

If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.  ~Mary Engelbreit

I guess if you take away the pain in life it means having no beauty to hope for.  ~Daniel, @blindedpoettwitter.com/blindedpoet/status/26901225293

Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering – that is a fact.  ~Fyodor Dostoevskylana

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.  ~William Shakespeare, Othello

When life gives you lemons, please, just don’t squirt them in other people’s eyes.  ~J. Andrew Heltauthor submitted, see may2009 email

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.  ~Garth Brooks

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.  ~John UpdikeFD

What a pity human beings can’t exchange problems.  Everyone knows exactly how to solve the other fellow’s.  ~Olin MillerCUL

They say a reasonable amount ‘o fleas is good fer a dog – keeps him from broodin’ over bein’ a dog, mebbe.  ~Edward Westcott

When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.  ~John F. Kennedy, address, 12 April 1959LCD

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.  ~Barbara Bloom

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?  ~Rose F. Kennedy

Every path hath a puddle.  ~George Herbert, "Jacula Prudentum"CCQ

The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.  ~Harry Golden

There are times in everyone’s life when something constructive is born out of adversity… when things seem so bad that you’ve got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.  ~Author Unknown

Problems are the price you pay for progress.  ~Branch RickeyBQ,CUL

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. ~William Hazlittmcto

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.  ~Walt Disney

If you want to forget all your other troubles, wear too tight shoes.  ~The Houghton Line, November 1965

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.  ~Bertrand Russell

Bygone troubles are good to tell.  ~Yiddish ProverbCUL

It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.  ~William Hazlitt, Characteristics, 1823LCD

Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.  ~Hugh Miller, Snow on the Wind

To have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered.  ~Oscar WildeCUL

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.  ~Winston Churchill

If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.  ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.  ~Charles C. West

The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials.  ~ConfuciusFELI

Pain is sometimes the cost of a meaninful existence.  I can handle that.  ~Jeb Dickerson, www.howtomatter.comtwitter.com/JebDickerson/status/8126917381

God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.  ~John AugheyMCTO

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things.  ~Robert Service

When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!"  "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don’t make a memorandum of it.  ~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1872LCD

The course of true anything never does run smooth.  ~Samuel ButlerCUL

May you get what you wish for.  ~Old Chinese Curse

Sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed must be interrupted.  ~Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, Flower, Fruit, and ThornPMB

At times, challenges hit with the force of a roaring, rushing waterfall.  The true test, however, is whether you can put your arms up and enjoy the feel of the water.  ~Aviva Kaufmanfeb11mail

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.  ~Steven Kloves, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (movie)

In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.  ~Helen Keller

There are sufferings that have lost their memory and do not remember why they are suffering.  ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. MerwinTPV

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them.  The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.  ~Voltaire

Sometimes the littlest things in life are the hardest to take.  You can sit on a mountain more comfortably than on a tack.  ~Author Unknown

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat.  I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ~Dr. Seuss

No man ought to lay a cross upon himself, or to adopt tribulation, as is done in popedom; but if a cross or tribulation come upon him, then let him suffer it patiently, and know that it is good and profitable for him.  ~Martin Luther

When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960CDN

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.  ~Alexander SmithMCTO

Yes, one must suffer, even in vain, so as not to have lived in vain.  ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. MerwinTPV

Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good.  ~Lucy Larcom

For fate has wove the thread of life with pain, And twins ev’n from the birth are Misery and Man! ~Homer, OdysseyLO

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.  ~SophoclesPMB

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to a Sky Lark"

The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.  ~Bernard M. Baruch

Sadness flowers to the next renewing joy. ~Terri Guillemets

Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune.  He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power.  ~Seneca

It’s not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.  ~Ashleigh Brilliant

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.  ~Michel de Montaigne

It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-1944, translated from French by Norah PurcellGPA

Adversity is the first path to truth.  ~Lord Byron

The brook would lose its song if you removed the rocks.  ~Fred Beck

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.  ~Edwin Markham

You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.  ~Author Unknown

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.  It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body.  It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.  ~Winston Churchill

Having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting, it may not be logical but it is often true.  ~Mr. Spock, Star Trek

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.  ~Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought

Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles. ~Maltbie D. Babcock

As long as you keep getting born, it’s alright to die some times.  ~Orson Scott Card

Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional.  ~M. Kathleen Casey

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.  ~Ralph Waldo EmersonCharles A. Beard

Convert difficulties into opportunities, for difficulties are divine surgeries to make you better.  ~Author Unknown