Adversity quotes are inspirational words of wisdom that can help you through difficult times. The best adversity quotes will remind you that there is always a way to get out of the situation, and make it to the other side. We have compiled 54 of these inspirational words for you here in this blog post. Whether your goal is self-improvement or just some daily inspiration, we hope these adversity quotes will help!
We all face adversity. What is important is how we respond to it. Sometimes the only way to get through a difficult time, or even just an ordinary one, is with words of wisdom that provide strength and encouragement in our darkest moments.
Many people say that adversity builds character, and this is a saying that has been echoed throughout many cultures for centuries. It’s not always easy to come across quotes about adversity on your own, which is why we’ve compiled 54 of them here! We hope you find these words as inspiring as we do.
Table of contents
Most Read Adversity Quotes
- Have the courage to face a difficulty lest it kick you harder than you bargained for. ~Stanislaus I, Maxims
- I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much. ~Mother Teresa
- If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. ~Frank A. Clark
- Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. ~African Proverb
- Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. ~Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought
- A bend in the road is not the end of the road. unless you fail to make the turn.
- Things are never so bad they can’t be made worse. ~From the movie The African Queen
- A bad grade is only one letter in the Essay of life. ~Lee Drake
- My strength is made perfect in weakness. ~II Corinthians
- Despair is anger with no place to go. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
- Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ~M. Kathleen Casey
- We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don’t. ~Frank A. Clark
- Adversity is the first path to truth. ~Lord Byron
- Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
- We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa
- We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival. ~Winston Churchill
- Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. ~Edwin Markham
- I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering. ~Colette
Famous Adversity quotes
- Bygone troubles are good to tell. ~Yiddish Proverb
- You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave. ~Henry Ward Beecher
- Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles. ~Maltbie D. Babcock
- Life didn’t promise to be wonderful. ~Teddy Pendergrass
- Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. ~William Hazlitt
- The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. ~John Vance Cheney
- To have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered. ~Oscar Wilde
- To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. ~Bertrand Russell
- Having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting, it may not be logical but it is often true. ~Mr. Spock, Star Trek
- Much of your pain is self-chosen. ~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923
- They say a reasonable amount ‘o fleas is good fer a dog – keeps him from broodin’ over bein’ a dog, mebbe. ~Edward Westcott
- It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures. ~William Hazlitt, Characteristics, 1823
- In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed must be interrupted. ~Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, Flower, Fruit, and Thorn
- The course of true anything never does run smooth. ~Samuel Butler
- Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
- There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out. ~Lou Reed, “Magic and Loss”
- Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. ~William Shakespeare
Motivational Adversity quotes
- Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness. ~André Gide, L’immoraliste
- Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive. ~Josephine Hart
- He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
- Let your joy scream across the pain. ~Ezbeth Wilder
- Adversity enhances this tale we call life. ~Ever Garrison
- Don’t cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won’t let you see the stars. ~Violeta Parra
- Everybody ought to do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. ~William James
- There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you. ~Woody Hayes
- There is no education like adversity. ~Disraeli
- There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury. ~Alexander Smith
- God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them. ~John Aughey
- If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. ~Henry David Thoreau
- The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. ~William Shakespeare, Othello
- Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose. ~Billie Holiday
- It’s not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line. ~Ashleigh Brilliant
- A new wound makes all the old ones ache again. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
- Better bread with water than cake with trouble. ~Russian Proverb
- Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating. ~O. Henry, The Gifts of the Magi
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