50 Adversity Quotes to Build Resilience for Hard Times

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We all go through tough times. Adversity, failure, fear, pain, suffering. Many of us are going through hard times now with everything that’s going on in the world.

Sometimes we need a reminder that we are strong, we are resilient and we will get through anything life throws our way.

Quotes are a powerful way to let us know that we are not alone in the struggle and that the human spirit in incredibly strong and capable of dealing with anything.

Here are 50 adversity quotes on resilience to help you get through hard times.

1. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
― Winston Churchill

2. “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

3. “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

4. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

5. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

6. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

7. “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami

8. “Keep Going. Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.”
― Roy T. Bennett

9. “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
― Joseph Campbell

10. “Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.”
― Jim Carrey

11. “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”
― Ryan Holiday

12. “Never wish life were easier, wish that you were better.”
― Jim Rohn

13. “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
― Elizabeth Edwards

14. “Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.”
― Angela Duckworth

15. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. “
― Mohandas Gandhi

16. “You can’t change the past, only your perception of it; but you can control the future.”
― Steven Redhead

17. “I think that people tend to wake up the hero of their own life when they are tired of being the victim of their own life.”
― Robert Walter

18. “When written in Chinese the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy

19. “It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.”
― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

20. “There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is merely the comparison of one state to the other. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.”
― Alexandre Dumas

21. “Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
― Nelson Mandela

22. “Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit.”
― Napoleon Hill

23. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

24. “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
― Christopher Reeve

25. “There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.”
― Paulo Coelho

26. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”
― William Arthur Ward

27. “Every flower must grow through dirt.”
― Proverb

28. “Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.”
— Arthur Golden

29. “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
— Helen Keller

30. “No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not entirely own us. It can’t take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action.”
― Ryder Carroll

31. “Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”
— James Buckham

32. “When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience.”
― Jaeda Dewalt

33. “Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in.”
— Mandy Hale

34. “Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.”
― Yasmin Mogahed

35. “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

36. “We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”
― Stephen Covey

37. “As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”
― Angela Duckworth

38. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
— Jimmy Dean

39. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

40. “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
— Oprah Winfrey

41. “There is no education like adversity.”
— Disraeli

42. “We all have battles to fight. And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: it’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work.”
― Eric Greitens

43. “No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength – if we have the virtue of resilience.”
― Eric Greitens

44. “Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient.”
― Catherine DeVrye

45. “Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”
― Steve Maraboli

46. The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
— Moliere

47. “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”
— Duke Ellington

48. “Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them.”
— Washington Irving

49. “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me….You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”
— Walt Disney

50. “There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”
— Woody Hayes