Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us.
-Henry Ward Beecher

Time is shortening. But every day that I challenge this cancer and survive is a victory for me.
-Ingmar Bergman

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 Dudley Bradstreet

"Adversity is the first path to truth."
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Don Juan

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech delivered to the House of Commons 1940 following the collapse of France. Churchill challenged the British people to uncommon efforts to win the Battle of Britain., June 18, 1940

"...The wife, soon to be a mother, could hardly catch her breath in the heavy, choking dust, for even in the pure air she breathed hard from her burden. Each jolt of the wagon, for those ahead had made wagon ruts almost 'ex' deep, wrung from her clenched lips a half-groan that she did her best to keep from the anxious, solicitous husband plodding slowly along, guiding and goading the poor dumb cattle, themselves weary from the long trek. So through the long day of jolting and discomfort and sometimes pain, sometimes panting for breath, the mother, anxious only that the unborn babe should not be injured, rode, for she could not walk; and the children walked, for the load was too heavy and big for them to ride; and the father walked sturdily alongside and prayed....
Then the morning came when from out that last wagon floated the cry of the newborn babe, and mother love made a shrine, and Father bowed in reverence before it. But the train must move on. So out into the dust and dirt the last wagon moved again, swaying and jolting, while Mother eased as best she could each pain-giving jolt so no harm might be done her, that she might be strong to feed the little one, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Who will dare to say that angels did not cluster round and guard her and ease her rude bed, for she had given another choice spirit its mortal body that it might work out its God-given destiny?"
-J. (Joshua) Reuben Clark, Jr., The Improvement Era, November 1947, p. 705.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow'd.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Lies but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-William Ernest Henley, "Invictus", 1875

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

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
-A.E. Housman

Growing up I had a horrible speech impediment. I stuttered to where I couldn't even talk in class. I couldn't even give one-word answers because I would stutter, which in turn made me mad. I fought a lot and I stayed in trouble a lot. I never had someone come in and say, 'We want to have you see a speech therapist to help you'. I was too poor. People that live on the borderline of poverty do not get charity because it does not go that far down the line. I wish I had someone to help me, but it never happened. I did it myself. I still get stuck on a word sometimes, but I don't let it bother me. When I go home, people say, 'Man, it would take you 10 minutes to say a sentence when you were young, and now you're traveling around the country, speaking to corporations and thousands of people. How...did you do it?'"
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-Bo Jackson, interview, article written by Jan Hubbard, "Dallas Morning News", December 31, 2003

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes."
-Henry Kaiser

It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.
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-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."
-Joshua J. Marine

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
-Thomas Paine, The Crisis, 1776

At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear; and again it is the best thing in life that each should have everything in himself; his fate, his future, his whole expanse and world.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

“Adversity, in one form or another, is the universal experience of man. It is the common lot of all … to experience misfortune, suffering, sickness, or other adversities. Ofttimes our work is arduous and unnecessarily demanding. Our faith is tried in various ways—sometimes unjustly tried, it seems. At times it seems that even God is punishing us and ours. One of the things that makes all this so hard to bear is that we ourselves appear to be chosen for this affliction while others presumably escape these adversities...
But we cannot indulge ourselves the luxury of self-pity”
-Marion George Romney, (Conference Report, Oct. 1967, pp. 14–15)

Even I, who had the tide going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched for the ebbs, the better to get my shellfish -- even I (I say) if I had sat down to think, instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret, and got free. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather that they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back. I had starved with cold and hunger on that island for close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I might have left my bones there, in pure folly. And even as it was, I had paid for it pretty dear, not only in past sufferings, but in my present case; being clothed like a beggar-man, scarce able to walk, and in great pain of my sore throat.
I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped - Ch. 14 "The Islet"

We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.
-Tacitus