Echoes

It is difficulties that show what men are.

Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is.

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

My Son, patience and humility in adversities are more pleasing to Me than much comfort and devotion in prosperity.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Yet, notwithstanding, temptations turn greatly unto our profit, even though they be great and hard to bear; for through them we are humbled, purified, instructed. All Saints have passed through much tribulation and temptation, and have profited thereby.

Through endurance we conquer.

A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.

It is good for us that we sometimes have sorrows and adversities, for they often make a man lay to heart that he is only a stranger and sojourner, and may not put his trust in any worldly thing. It is good that we sometimes endure contradictions, and are hardly and unfairly judged, when we do and mean what is good. For these things help us to be humble, and shield us from vain-glory.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.