48 Inspiring Adversity Quotes

Life is a journey filled with both triumphs and challenges, and it is often through adversity that we discover our true strength and resilience. The ability to navigate life's hurdles and emerge stronger is a common thread among some of the most inspiring figures throughout history. Quotes about adversity offer profound insights and motivation, reminding us that difficulties are not just obstacles but opportunities for growth. In this collection of the top 48 inspiring adversity quotes, you'll find words of wisdom that encourage perseverance, ignite hope, and inspire the courage to continue pushing forward, no matter how tough the road ahead may seem. Whether you are facing personal struggles or supporting someone who is, these quotes aim to be a source of comfort and empowerment on the path to overcoming any challenge life throws your way.

1. “Sweet are the uses of adversity,Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;And this our life, exempt from public haunt,Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” - William Shakespeare

2. “To live is to war with trolls.” - Henrik Ibsen

3. “I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive.” - Frida Kahlo

4. “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world” - Helen Keller

5. “Memories of the past year came tumbling down on me. The recent changes and reverses were almost overwhelming. I was learning that life flowed like a river. When the run-off was normal, the water ran smoothly. But if there came a downpour, it gushed. In the likeness to a flooding river, life events were caught up in the course of the devouring stream.” - Mary Margaret Jensen

6. “Life, like classical music, is full of difficult passages that are conquered as much through endurance and determination as through any particular skill.” - Sheri L. Dew

7. “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” - Edgar Allan Poe

8. “It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

9. “Struggle is the food from which change is made, and the best time to make the most of a struggle is when it's right in front of your face. Now, I know that might sound a bit simplistic. But, too often we're led to believe that struggling is a bad thing, or that we struggle because we're doing something wrong. I disagree. I look at struggle as an opportunity to grow. True struggle happens when you can sense what is not working for you and you're willing to take the appropriate action to correct the situation. Those who accomplish change are willing to engage the struggle.” - Danny Dreyer

10. “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” - Henry David Thoreau

11. “Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment. ” - Og Mandino

12. “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” - Maya Angelou

13. “If the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way.” - Terry Goodkind

14. “Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.” - Aristotle

15. “I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason,” the yogi Krishnan told him. “Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson... Never regret your past. Accept it as the teacher that it is.” - Robin Sharma

16. “Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for, never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

17. “The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.” - Horace Bushnell

18. “Some people make a bad bed, they just have to lie in it.” - Virginia Euwer Wolff

19. “Hardships make or break people.” - Margaret Mitchell

20. “Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable. It is important that the body survives, but it is more meaningful that the human spirit prevails.” - Dave Pelzer

21. “If you fall-and trust me, you will- make sure you fall on your back. Because if you fall on your back, you can see up. And if you can see up, you can get up. And you can keep going and going and going.” - Hoda Kotb

22. “Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.” - Martin Luther

23. “My voice was a bare rasp of fear. "In the weaving room, the women say it's never been this bad before..." "They always say that when things get difficult," she answered softly. Then she sat up suddenly as though coming fully awake. Reaching down, she took my chin in her hand and tipped my face to look up at hers. "Remember, Gwen, no matter who says what, the important thing is to understand what needs to be done, and then do it. No matter how hard it is, or how much pain you feel. It's as simple as that, really. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it.” - Persia Woolley

24. “But little Carlos's most important defense was not his good punch but rather the beginnings of a great education.” - Gina Capaldi

25. “Funerals aren't scheduled.” - Benjamin J. Carey

26. “But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope,That one day we shall thank thee perfectlyFor pain and hope and all that led or droveUs back into the bosom of thy love.” - George MacDonald

27. “What do they say about meeting a bear in the woods? Oh right, you shouldn't. And to make sure you don't, you should make a lot of noise so that they'll will know where you are and keep their distance because, supposedly, they're as nervous of us as we are of them. Which is all goo, except this bear doesn't seem the least bit nervous. He's giving me a look like I'm Goldilocks, ate his porridge, broke his chair, slept in his bed, and now it's payback time."- Widdershins” - Charles de Lint

28. “I am unpersuaded that relative poverty and hard work are greater adversities than relative affluence and free time.” - Dallin H. Oaks

29. “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” - Abraham Lincoln

30. “Faithfulness imparts God's reason for all circumstances. No matter what the world says, losing is no longer an option.” - Criss Jami

31. “Disasters work like alarm clocks to the world, hence God allows them. They are shouting, 'Wake up! Love! Pray!” - Criss Jami

32. “If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.” - Criss Jami

33. “Life is at its best when everything has fallen out of place, and you decide that you're going to fight to get them right, not when everything is going your way and everyone is praising you.” - Thisuri Wanniarachchi

34. “Success goes to the ones who do. Get up. Show up. Throw up if you have to. Do it afraid, but do it no matter.” - Toni Sorenson

35. “...My deepest personal reason for staying in Paris is that whatever I have as a character, good or bad, is based on the fact that since the age of four I have never run away from anything however painful or dangerous when I thought it was my duty to take a stand -- the American Ambassador to France upon being asked to evacuate Paris by the State Department on the eve of Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940” - William C. Bullitt

36. “Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” - Shannon L. Alder

37. “I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You'll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You'll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that's what you'll do in adversity.” - Gretchen Rubin

38. “We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism.” - Theodore Roosevelt

39. “When you observe that the fire in your room is getting dull, you do not always put on more coal, but simply stir with the poker; so God often uses the black poker of adversity in order that the flames of devotion may burn more brightly.” - Arthur W. Pink

40. “The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritation gets into his shell. He does not like them. But when he cannot get rid of them he uses the irritation to do the lovelist thing an oyster ever has the chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription: make a pearl. It may have to be a pearl of patience, but…make a pearl.-In the Treasure Chest, ed. Charles L. Wallis” - Harry Emerson Fosdick

41. “My Dear Son,I am so very proud of you. Now, as you embark on a new journey, I'd like to share this one piece of advice. Always, always remember that - adversity is not a detour. It is part of the path.You will encounter obstacles. You will make mistakes. Be grateful for both. Your obstacles and mistakes will be your greatest teachers. And the only way to not make mistakes in this life is to do nothing, which is the biggest mistake of all. Your challenges, if you let them, will become your greatest allies. Mountains can crush or raise you, depending on which side of the mountain you choose to stand on. All history bears out that the great, those who have changed the world, have all suffered great challenges. And, more times than not it's precisely those challenges that, in God's time, lead to triumph.Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone.Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact be your only path to success.” - Richard Paul Evans

42. “Only adversity provides the opportunity for greatness.” - Wayde Goodall

43. “Through adversity, not only are we given an opportunity to discover our inner strength, we are also given the gift of foresight so we can shine a light for others who go through the experience after us.” - Rachael Bermingham

44. “So, with my knees pierced by needles and my shoulder sewn together by the slender thread of endorphins, I keep to my genuflection and end my story the only way that really fits. As a prayer that seals surrender. World without end. Amen.” - Sabrina Vourvoulias

45. “Our triumph over sorrow is not that we can avoid it but that we can endure it. And therein lies our hope; that in spirit we might become bigger than the problems we face.” - Marianne Williamson

46. “Without darkness, we may never know how bright the stars shine. Without battles, we could not know what victory feels like. Without adversity, we may never appreciate the abundance in our lives. Be thankful, not only for the easy times, but for every experience that has made you who you are.” - Julie-Anne

47. “I don’t understand hospital chaplains that try to rob my patients of their anger. Sometimes anger is a key motivator that gets people to take action. Anger can push a cancer patient to jump out of his hospital bed, walk down to the nurses station and scream, “I am getting the hell out of here!”. There is a misconception that God is simply sweet and passive. Actually, God can be quite cunning, manipulative and relentless with his children. What we consider as negative traits are actually helpful in molding us. He will use a negative emotion if needed to push people to do things that will change them for the better. He will allow people or situations to derail us if there is a chance that those interactions will push us forward. Personally, I don’t want a God that is going to send some church member to my deathbed with a plate of cookies and tell me to have faith. Actually, I rather have a God that screams, “Get the hell off your ass, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Walk down the hall with that Physical Therapist so you can get on with your life!" A little anger in a person can push them to do amazing things.” - Shannon L. Alder

48. “We are stronger than we think. We have emotional, spiritual and even physical resources at our disposal. We may get knocked down, but we don’t have to stay down.” - Steve Goodier