Adversity Quotes

In prosperity prepare for a change; in adversity hope for one.

James Burgh

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

Leighton

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

Socrates

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

Ben Jonson

Adversity does teach who your real friends are.

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

Horace

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.

Sir Francis Bacon

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

Within every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity.

Napoleon Hill

Adversity makes men wise but not rich.

John Ray

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

Tom K. Ryan

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 is the first path to truth.

George Gordon Byron

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

George Washington

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

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.

Plutarch

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.

Anne Bradstreet

By courage I repel adversity.

Anonymous

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

Samuel Johnson

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Victor Marie Hugo

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

Napolean Hill

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

Albert Schweitze

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.

William Hazlitt

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

Seneca, Epistles

In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.

John Churton Collins

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

Proverbs 1717 Bible

Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring.

Chinese Prove

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

Firmianus Lactantius

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

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

Publilius Syrus

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

By courage I repel adversity. Adversa Virtute Repello.

Anonymous

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

Socrates

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

Henry Fielding