Tag Archives: benefit from adversity

Opportunities in Disguise

Adversity often produces the unexpected opportunity. Look for it. Appreciate and utilize it.
— John Wooden

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
— Bruce Lee

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
— Victor Kiam

The opportunity of a lifetime is seldom so labeled.
— American proverb

In everybody’s lifetime there will come a time when one door will close on you. If you’re so concerned with the one that closes, you’ll never find the one that’s open.
— Tommy Lasorda, on retiring from the Dodgers

The Adversity Advantage

Leave a reply

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.
— M. Scott Peck

The ability to accept adversity and overcome it is one of the most important virtues, because it offers us the greatest opportunities for growth.
— Gary Player

I definitely believe that with all that I’ve gone through in my life with my injuries and illnesses I’m a stronger person. I’m more determined and I don’t think there is anything that I can’t encounter or conquer after what I’ve gone through.
— Gail Devers, on battling Grave’s Disease

Grief drives men into the habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart.
— John Adams

I found this out about a tragedy: it either leaves you diminished or enhanced. If you face up to it, if you make the best of it, you’re a better person. You appreciate love. You appreciate life. You appreciate all of the things of being with people.
— Art Linkletter, on the LSD death of his daughter and fatal car crash of his son

Suffering

Leave a reply

It is by those who have suffered that the world has been advanced.
— Leo Tolstoy

Everything costs. No accomplishment comes without suffering.
— Joe Paterno

The best way to escape our sufferings is to be willing they should endure as long as God pleases.
— John Wesley

Being myself no stranger to suffering, I have learned to relieve the suffering of others.
— Virgil

Do not give up when you find that you have to suffer greatly in order to get results. Never forget that the winners are the ones who can suffer best. It’s the no-hopers who cannot suffer. The inability to suffer is almost always the real reason riders do not succeed in our sport. He who can suffer best has the best chance to get to the top.
— Charles Ruys

Illness

Leave a reply

Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and foreboding.
— Norman Cousins

Franklin’s illness proved a blessing in disguise, for it gave him strength and courage he had not had before.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, on her husband’s inability to walk as a result of polio

If I had my life to live over, I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day.
— Ema Bombeck

Illness knocks a lot of nonsense out of us; it induces humility, cuts us down to size. Only when the gate grows narrow do some people discover their soul, their God, their life work.
— Louis Bisch

Show me a patient who is able to laugh and play, who enjoys living, and I’ll show you someone who is going to live longer. Laughter makes the unbearable bearable and a patient with a well developed sense of humor has a better chance of recovery than a stolid individual who seldom laughs.
— Dr. Bernie Siegel

The Adversity Advantage

Leave a reply

Every experience, however bitter, has its lesson, and to focus one’s attention on the lesson helps one overcome the bitterness.
— Edward Griggs

Sometimes adverse circumstances are testing devices, providing means by which you may be promoted from a given task to a greater one.
— Napoleon Hill

Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down. It made me more determined.
— Frank Robinson

Adversity has made many a man great who, had he remained prosperous, would only have been rich.
— Maurice Switzer

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.
— Helen Keller

Overcome Adversity

Leave a reply

Most of my major disappointments have turned out to be blessings in disguise. So whenever anything bad does happen to me, I kind of sit back and feel, well, if I give this enough time, it’ll turn out that this was good, so I won’t worry about it too much.
— William Gaines

When hard times come we easily get discouraged. But behind the clouds God is still present, and can even use them to water our souls with unexpected blessings.
— Billy Graham

All the hardships I encountered provided me with the determination, capacity for hard work, efficiency and a positive outlook on life that have been so helpful to me in realizing my professional career.
— Mildred Dresselhaus

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
— Sigmund Freud

Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, “I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.” Then repeat to yourself the most comforting of all words, “This too shall pass.”
— Ann Landers

When Bad Things Happen

Leave a reply

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
— Robert Fulghum

Your reaction to a problem as much as the problem itself will determine the outcome. I have seen people face the most catastrophic problems with a positive mental attitude, turning their problems into creative experience. They turned their scars into stars.
— Robert Schuller

Problems are the price of progress. Don’t bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.
— Charles Kettering

My mother – a small woman with auburn hair and a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos – told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God’s plan, even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best. My mother, as usual, was right.
— Ronald Reagan