Adversity Quotes

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.

William Shakespeare

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

C. C. Colton

In times of prosperity friends will be plenty, in times of adversity not one in twenty.

English Prove

Fire is the test of gold adversity, of strong men.

Seneca

In adversity remember to keep an even mind.

Horace, Odes

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 1717 Bible

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

William Hazlitt

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Francis Bacon

Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.

Romanian Prove

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself - Always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

James Earl Jimmy Carter, Jr.

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

Socrates

Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.

William Hazlitt

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Sir Francis Bacon, Of Adversity

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.

William Shakespeare

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Thomas Carlyle

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Victor Marie Hugo

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

Leighton

Adversity cause some men to break others to break records.

William A. Ward

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

Albert Schweitze

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow grow, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

George Washington

Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or a greater Benefit.

Napolean Hill

Adversity makes men wise but not rich.

John Ray

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

Publilius Syrus

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

Seneca, Epistles

Memory tempers prosperity, mitigates adversity, control youth, and delights old age.

Firmianus Lactantius

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Samuel Johnson

However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner... sulking and nausea.

Tom K. Ryan

Adversity does teach who your real friends are.

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

We become wiser by adversity prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.

Henry Fielding

Adversity is the touchstone of friendship.

French Prove

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.

Plutarch

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.

Chilo

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

Henry Fielding

To see a man fearless in dangers. untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

Seneca

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.

Ben Jonson

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, Is made more sacred by adversity.

Charles Caleb Colton