Quotes about Adversity

No man can be confronted with a difficulty which he has not the strength to meet and subdue. Worry is not merely useless, it is folly, for it defeats that power and intelligence which is otherwise equal to the task.

They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it luck; do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it good fortune; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it chance.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not remain so if you only perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without.

A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine...

It may be that you are in the employ of a tyrannous master or mistress, and you feel that you are harshly treated. Look upon this also as necessary to your training. Return your employer's unkindness with gentleness and forgiveness.

Circumstances don't shape us, so much as they reveal us.

Circumstance does not make the person, it reveals the person to himself or herself.

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself; he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition.

George W. Bush was president through some of the darkest days of our history and yet his optimism never waned. He is optimistic by nature, but he also understood the importance of always communicating a sense that things will get better.

You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will - undoubtedly - fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I'm just not going to let this get me down.

As someone who has faced as much disappointment as most people, I've come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way.

People make mistakes and I've probably made a few more than others, but unfortunately mine are also a bit more public. That's the way it is. You've just got to get on with life. After all, it's not a rehearsal.