This section cites quotations that convey insights relating to the struggle to overcome problems, but also includes related topics such as optimism, character building, etc.
There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty.
- anonymous
How a man plays the game shows something of his character; how he loses shows all of it.
- anonymous
Your disappointment may be God's appointment.
- anonymous
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!
- anonymous
If you don't learn anything from your mistakes, there's no sense in making them.
- anonymous
He who plants thorns cannot expect to reap flowers.
- anonymous
A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.
- anonymous
Blaming your faults on your nature does not change the nature of your faults.
- anonymous
People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around.
- anonymous
We stumble over pebbles, not mountains!
- anonymous
Some people have to be out on a limb before they'll turn over a new leaf.
- anonymous
Nostalgia is recalling the fun without reliving the pain.
- anonymous
Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.
- anonymous
There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.
- anonymous
Look toward the light, and the shadow of your burden will fall behind you.
- anonymous
Even the mightiest oak was once a little nut that held it's ground.
- anonymous
Peace comes not from the absence of conflict in life but from the ability to cope with it.
- anonymous
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquest of fear.
- anonymous
The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.
- anonymous
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
- Samuel Butler (q.i. Wayne W. Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones, p.191)
An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
- G.K. Chesterton
A youth of Shouling in the state of Yan studied the proper way of walking in Handan, the capital of Zhao. He failed to learn the distinguished gait of Handan. Moreover, he unlearned his original way of walking. So he came crawling back home on all fours.
- Chuang Tzu (17.79)
Happiness is the art of making a bouquet of those flowers within reach.
- Goddard
Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions.
- Dag Hammarskjšld (Markings, p.71)
He who perseveres in error without flinching gets the credit of boldness and consistency, while he who wavers in seeking to do what is right gets stigmatized as a trimmer.
- W. Irving
You never realize what a good memory you have until you try to forget something.
- Franklin P. Jones
The spirit does not become free until it ceases to be a prop.
- Kafka
No one ever really paid the price of a book -- only the price of printing it.
- Louis I. Kahn
... it is often the case with some of the things we know that they are highly esteemed, not because they are right, but because they have been gained at a cost. We do not care for truth at bargain price.
- Immanuel Kant (An Attempt at some Reflections on Optimism, p.29)
... the chief task of philosophy is to write footnotes to the text of experience.
- Erazim Kohak (The Embers and the Stars, p.222)
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
For happiness, one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The heights by great men and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, when their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
- Longfellow
Blisters are a painful experience, but if you get enough in the same place, they will eventually produce a callus. That is what is called maturity.
- Hubert Miller (alt.)
"I have done that," says my memory.
"I could not have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable.
Finally, my memory yields.
- Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil, section 68)
We must always be careful of being too careful.
- P.R.S.
Why is it that all men insist on the improvements of society, yet no man improves himself?
- P.R.S.
In zeal not slothful, the spirit burning, the Lord serving.
- Paul the Apostle (Rom. 12:11, tr. Jackie Pullinger [zealous=to be poured out, esp. in secret (Matt.6)])
Time is what we want most, but alas! We use worst.
- William Penn
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
- Edgar Allen Poe
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood.
- Alexander Pope
If God created shadows, it was to emphasize the light.
- Pope John XXIII
Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong. Sometimes it's letting go.
- Sylvia Robinson
Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.
- Nelson A. Rockefeller
A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are for.
- Shedd
There comes a time when a nation, as well as its people, must choose between tightening the belt, or losing the pants.
- Howard Tamplin
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
- Henry D. Thoreau
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist except an old optimist.
- Mark Twain
Those who follow the crowd are quickly lost in it.
- G. Verity
At times, it seems that the past is as much a work of the imagination as the future.
- Jessamyn West (alt.)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- Oscar Wilde
Many of us spend half our time wishing for things that we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing.
- Alexander Woollcott
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
- J.D. Yeck
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This page was last updated on 20 November 1997.
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