7 Underrated Quotes To Read When Adversity Hits

You should read these more often than you think

Adversity can be avoided.

Never try anything new.

Never have any goals.

Ditch any dreams that you have.

Don’t try to change anything.

Accept your “place” in life.

Take the easy road in every circumstance.

You might avoid adversity if you do all of those things. It may happen.

But for those of us who see opportunity and are trying to chase it down, adversity is unavoidable. And for everyone else, tough times might seem to occur too often.

So I’ve collected seven quotes that I read whenever adversity hits. They instantly lift me up and inspire me to get back to work. I hope they do the same for you.

One

I know that adversity will strike, but I also know that adversity causes weak men to break, and strong men to break records.

The weight of adversity can crush some people, but create strength in others. It’s not a physical contest, but a mental one. This quote reminds me adversity can create not just strength but incredible record-breaking victories.

Two

The main difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge and an ordinary man takes everything as either a blessing or a curse.

— Carlos Castenada

Adversity isn’t something that we have to “deal” with. It isn’t something that ruins our day when it happens and blesses us when it’s absent. Adversity is a call to something inside of us that yearns to battle the status quo. Adversity awakens the warrior inside of us.

Three

The best way out is always through.

— Robert Frost, poet

Adversity can lead us to feel hopeless. It can obscure the ending of the struggle. But the best way forward is through the pain — not wallowing in it.

Four

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

— Frederick Douglass, orator, writer and abolitionist

There is a law of nature that always applies: you need to plant seeds in order to reap a harvest. The seeds of achievement are always watered by adversity, as Frederick Douglass reminds us.

Five

Valor withers without adversity.

— Seneca

Struggle reveals character, but also builds it. If we want to grow, we need to struggle. But without struggle, we won’t stagnate. We’ll actually lose our edge that gives us strength.

Six

There is no education like adversity.

— Benjamin Disraeli, political leader and writer

You can spend thousands on an education. But one period of adversity can teach you more than a decade of classroom education. When we face adversity, we can embrace the education with enthusiasm and gratitude. There’s no better way to learn.

Seven

“In war, it is axiomatic that the victors of the last war fight the new one with the tactics of the old. Having won, the victor is content with what won for him; but the vanquished wants to know why he lost.”

— Historian Robert Leckie

This is one of my favorite quotes. I need to be reminded of this principle often. When we win, we lose the edge that motivates us — even if only slightly. When we lose, our senses sharpen, our minds focus, and we gain a singular purpose: avoid the pains of regret, loss, and embarrassment. We need to fear winning as much as we fear those who have recently lost. There is pendulum of success, and when we rise up, we need to re-focus, and when we fall down, we must charge ahead.

Tough, Disciplined, Focused

The truth is that even if you try to avoid adversity, it will happen. The mature attitude is to embrace adversity for what it can be — an opportunity to be great — rather than what we fear it to be — a crushing defeat.

Here’s one more quote, which I remember from the Carol Reed film The Third Man. Orson Welles character, Harry Lime, says:

You know what the fellow said — in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Ideally, we would work just as hard when we win as when we lose. Sadly, that ideal is difficult to achieve. For me, I have to remind myself often with the following affirmation:

I will remain humble and driven in the prospect and wake of success, and I will remain tough, disciplined, and focused during adversity.

Tough. Disciplined. Focused. Those are the right attitudes when adversity strikes.

. . .

Learn the one lesson that has changed my life more than any other.