ADVERSITY
Anonymous
No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.
A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.
Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious.
Bacon, Francis
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the dearer revelation of God's favor. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
Baillie, Joanna
Heaven often smites in mercy, even when the blow is severest.
Bragdon, A. B.
Alas, how scant the sheaves for all the trouble, the toil, the pain and the resolve sublime—a few full ears; the rest but weeds and stubble, and withered wild flowers plucked before their time.
Burke, Edmund
Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.
Burns, Robert
Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe, there's wit there ye'll get there, ye'll find no other where.
Byron, George Gordon Noel
Adversity is the first path to truth.
Chapin, Edwin Hubbell
The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished, and glorified through the furnace of tribulation.
Crabbe, George
In this wild world, the fondest and the best are the most tried, most troubled, and distrest.
Fielding, Henry
Adversity is the trial of principle.—Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the latter.
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton
You can bear anything if it isn't your own fault.
Glasgow, Ellen
No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it.
Hazlitt, William
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
Horace
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
Horne, George
The sharpest sting of adversity it borrows from our own impatience.
Johnson, Samuel
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, then, especially, being free from flatterers.
Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
Leighton, Robert
Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.
The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.
Mallet, David
Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue.
Moore, John H.
The real test in golf and in life is not in keeping out of the rough, but in getting out after we are in.
Owen, John
We ought as much to pray for a blessing upon our daily rod as upon our daily bread.
Plutarch
Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
Prosperity has this property: It puffs up narrow souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty, and leads them to look down upon the world with contempt; but a truly noble spirit appears greatest in distress; and then becomes more bright and conspicuous.
Proudfit, Alexander M.
I never met with a single instance of adversity which I have not in the end seen was for my good.—I have never heard of a Christian on his deathbed complaining of his afflictions.
Quarles, Francis
He that has no cross will have no crown.
Rochefoucauld, Francois, Duc de la
In the adversity of our best friends we often find something that does not displease us.
Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von
Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity; a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.
Scott, Sir Walter
Adversity is like the period of the former and of the latter rain,—cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower and the fruit, the date, the rose, and the pomegranate.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
Service, Robert W.
It's a different song when everything's wrong, when you're feeling infernally mortal; when it's ten against one, and hope there is none, buck up, little soldier, and chortle!
Shakespeare, William
Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.
Sidney, Sir Philip
The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burdened.
A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate.
Somerville, Thomas
Adversity, sage useful guest, severe instructor, but the best; it is from thee alone we know justly to value things below.
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon
Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the top of a mountain. So are many things learned in adversity which the prosperous man dreams not of.
Swetchine, Madam
Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all.
