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Adversity Quotes
As a special bonus I have an inspirational video on the butterfly and the lessons we can learn about the value of struggle and its benefits. I’ve also included a very inspirational teacup story by Joyce Meyer. Feel free to share this page on adversity quotes with anyone you know who is going through a hard time. Adversity Quotes IndexFeatured Video – Butterfly’s LessonA butterfly must struggle to escape from its cocoon in order to be able to fly. Watch this inspiring video and learn from the butterfly about adversity and its benefits.
See Everything I Needed Prayer. Return to Index of Adversity Quotes About Adversity"Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." "When written in Chinese the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity." "You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far." "Adversity is the first path to truth." "Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle." "Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines." "Problems are only opportunities in work clothes." "Fire is the test of gold, adversity of strong men." "Troubles cured you salty as a country ham, smoky to the taste, thick-skinned and tender inside." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Asking for Help"The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he's got an abscess on his knee or in his soul." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Beautiful"The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears." "You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." "Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower." "Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?" "Don't cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won't let you see the stars." "A wounded deer leaps the highest." "Flowers grow out of dark moments." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Benefits of Adversity
"You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." "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." "Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out." "To have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Watch a man in times of... adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off." "If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment." "There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you." "Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Out of difficulties grow miracles." "You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity." "There is no coming to consciousness without pain." "Everybody's heart is open, you know, when they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of health." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties." "A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure." "A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one." "Fractures well cured make us more strong." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Misfortunes often sharpen the genius." "Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. The gift of grace increases as the struggles increase." "Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems ... create our courage and wisdom." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Bible Verses"Trust in the LORD with all your heartand lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make your paths straight" "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Blessings in Adversity"Everything in our lives is either a blessing, or a blessing in disguise." "My luck was my father not striking oil... we'd have been rich. I'd never have set out for Hollywood with my camera, and I'd have had a lot less interesting life." "I was lucky I wasn't a better boxer, or that's what I'd be now - a punchy ex-pug." "Supporting myself at an early age was the best training for life I could have possibly received." "I'm very grateful that I was too poor to get to art school until I was 21. ... I was old enough when I got there to know how to get something out of it." "I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Changeable Nature of Life"If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Coping with Adversity"Invite your melancholy outside for a walk. Or read it a poem. Or bake it chocolate chip cookies." "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!" "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." "Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve things, as revenge. To show that I could." "Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Easy vs. Hard"You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave." "We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't." "The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism." "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." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Encouraging"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." "The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter." "People are resilient. After all, every person born has recovered from nine months on life support." "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Everything I Needed Prayer
I asked for strength and I asked for wisdom and I asked for prosperity and I asked for courage and I asked for patience and I asked for love and I asked for favors and I received nothing I wanted My prayers have all been answered.
Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Frustration in Adversity"It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line." "When one's own problems are unsolvable and all best efforts are frustrated, it is lifesaving to listen to other people's problems." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes God and Adversity"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." "Often God has to shut a door in our face, so that He can subsequently open the door through which He wants us to go." "I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God." "The saints rejoiced at injuries and persecutions, because in forgiving them they had something to present to God when they prayed to Him." "God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one." "Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things." "God uses suffering as a whetstone, to make men sharp with." "We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them." "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." "It constantly happens that the Lord permits a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Good Advice"If you're going through hell, keep going." "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." "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 speaking terms with it." "Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.... [A]ccept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields...." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things." "The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." "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." "Allow yourself a moment of grief when life's misfortunes visit you. However, do not spend your days building a monument in honor of them." "When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "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 LutherCount the garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall. Count your life with smiles and not the tears that roll." "We should always pray for help, but we should always listen for inspiration and impression to proceed in ways different from those we may have thought of." "Do not show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up against it." "I have learned in the great University of Hard Knocks a philosophy that no woman who has had an easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Hope in Despair"Life begins on the other side of despair." "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes How to Overcome Adversity"The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work." "If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it." "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." "When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile." "Determination, patience and courage are the only things needed to improve any situation." "Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." "Be willing to have it so; acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Humorous"If you want to forget all your other troubles, wear too tight shoes." "What a pity human beings can't exchange problems. Everyone knows exactly how to solve the other fellow's." "If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim." "Sometimes I think my life would make a great TV movie. It even has the part where they say, 'Stand by. We are experiencing temporary difficulties.'" Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Insightful"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." "The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief." "Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known." "Sometimes the littlest things in life are the hardest to take. You can sit on a mountain more comfortably than on a tack." "We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey." "A new wound makes all the old ones ache again." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." "Problems are the price you pay for progress." "Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems." "In order to change, we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired." "Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self." "Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Inspirational"Turn your wounds into wisdom." "A problem is a chance for you to do your best." "Convert difficulties into opportunities, for difficulties are divine surgeries to make you better." "Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave." "Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it." "I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams." "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "There is often in people to whom "the worst" has happened an almost transcendent freedom, for they have faced "the worst" and survived it." "Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings." "In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer." "What does not destroy me, makes me strong." "Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records." "Times of stress and difficulty are seasons of opportunity when the seeds of progress are sown." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Inspirational Teacup Story
A couple went into an antique shop and saw this BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL MAGNIFICENT little tea cup sitting high up on a shelf. And they just fell in love with that tea cup. They said, "We have got to have that teacup!" They were admiring the teacup – all of a sudden the teacup began to talk to them. It said, "You know, I have not been always like this! There was a time when nobody would have wanted me. There was a time when I was not attractive at all. You see there was a time in my life when I was just an old, hard, gray lump of clay. And the master potter came along and he picked me up one day and he began to pat me and reshape me; and I said, "STOP IT! What are you doing? That HURTS! Ahhh, LEAVE ME ALONE!" and he simply looked at me and said,"Not yet!" And then he put me on this wheel and he began to spin me around, and around and around! And I got so dizzy and could hardly see where I was going anymore! I was losing it! Everything was spinning around and around and I felt sick to my stomach. And I said; "LET ME OFF HERE!" and he said: "Not yet!". Finally, the day came when I had taken on another shape. All of that spinning around finally gave me another shape. All of that patting and molding and squeezing and pinching gave me another shape. And all of a sudden – he put me into this FURNACE! It is called the first firing. And ‘twas SO HOT in there! Oh, I could not believe how hot it was. I thought, I can’t stand this! I’m going to DIE in here! "GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! Don’t you love me??(Crying.) Why are you leaving me in here?" You see, the oven door had glass in it and the master would just look in his eyes AND HE WOULDN’T LET ME OUT!! But he would just smile at me and say, "Not yet!!" Return to Index of Adversity Quotes FINALLY, the oven door opened and he took me out – set me on a shelf and I thought, "Whew! Thank God that is over!". Then he began to paint me all over with this stinky paint! Changing my color from gray to this pretty blue that I am now! And I said: "This stuff STINKS! It is choking me!(coughing) I don’t like this smell! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!" He would just say: "Not yet!". Then he put me back in a SECOND oven. It is called the second firing, and ‘twas TWICE as hot as the first oven! And I thought, "Now, I will DIE in here for sure! This is the end of me. This will finish me off! GET MW OUT OF HERE! I CAN’T STAND IT! I CAN’T STAND IT! Really – I am telling you – I can’t stand it! This is going to kill me! GET ME OUT OF HERE!" And he would just look through that glass and say: "Not yet!" Then one day the door finally opened – he took me out and he put me up here on this shelf to let me cool off. After I cooled off, one day he came by and he handed me this mirror and I looked at myself and I could not believe how BEAUTIFUL I was! I could not BELIEVE how I have CHANGED! Why, I did not look anything at all like that old gray clay that I started out to be! Now, I am this beautiful, little, delicate teacup! And EVERYBODY wants me now! But there was a time in my life when NOBODY wanted; NOBODY liked me; NOBODY paid any attention to me! They just kicked me around; walked on me. But now – "I AM SPECIAL! But I WASN’T ALWAYS this way!" Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Learn from Adversity"Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time." "Have the courage to face a difficulty lest it kick you harder than you bargained for." "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." "Mistakes are often the best teachers." "Wisdom comes by disillusionment." "Those things that hurt, instruct." "Pain is the root of knowledge." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Life can be real tough ... you can either learn from your problems, or keep repeating them over and over." "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." "There is no education like adversity." "You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Light in Darkness"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." "There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle." "Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purist ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storms." "Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job." "During the darkest indigo midnight, yet will countless stars blossom." "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Meaning in Suffering"Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires - disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way." "Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies." "This struggle of people against their conditions, this is where you find the meaning in life." "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." "We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Pain is sometimes the cost of a meaninful existence. I can handle that." "I guess if you take away the pain in life it means having no beauty to hope for." "Sometimes in tragedy we find our life's purpose - the eye sheds a tear to find its focus." "Suffering! ... We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues." "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Ownership of Your Life"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Perspective"Things are never so bad they can't be made worse." "If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience." "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." "A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn." "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." "Of all the advantages which come to any young man ... poverty is the greatest." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "A bad grade is only one letter in the Essay of life." "There are some defeats more triumphant than victories." "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." "We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one." "The darkest hour has only sixty minutes." "The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Profound"Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds." "Much of your pain is self-chosen." "I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress." "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." "Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills. We feel a thousand miseries till we are lucky enough to feel misery." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles." "It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity." "If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart." "It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Prosperity vs. Adversity"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." "All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune." I"f the truth be known, most successes are built on a multitude of failures." "The good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired." "The human race has had long experience and a fine tradition in surviving adversity. But we now face a task for which we have little experience, the task of surviving prosperity." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it." "The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude." "Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity." "Prosperity tries the fortunate; adversity the great." "In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes." "Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater." "A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity 'til he has tasted adversity." "There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity." "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant." "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Proverbs"Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors." "The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials." "A wise man adapts himself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it." "What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better." "Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man, to fit him to meet the contingencies of this life." "If the wind will not serve, take to the oars." "Bad is never good until worse happens." "I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Strength in Adversity"Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!" "Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive." "The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt." "He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity." "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes "Men strive for peace, but it is their enemies that give them strength, and I think if man no longer had enemies, he would have to invent them, for his strength only grows from struggle." "Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body." "Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength." "He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Suffering"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering." "Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor." "Yes, one must suffer, even in vain, so as not to have lived in vain." "Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering - that is a fact." "Suffering raises up those souls that are truly great; it is only small souls that are made mean-spirited by it." "If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive." "Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed." "True knowledge comes only through suffering." Return to Index of Adversity Quotes Return to Life Quotes - from Adversity Quotes
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The Dash
It's not the date you were born, or the date you died, that really matters. It's "the dash" between those years and what you do with it, to make a difference with your life.
