Quotations: Coping with Difficulties

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Quotations on Coping with Difficulties & Suffering


Quotations on coping with difficulties from many sources for positive and productive results that you can choose today. You can cope better.


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Quotations on Coping: Various Sources

Listed Alphabetically

“A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.” —Aristotle

“A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.” —Henry Kissinger

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man without trials.” —Seneca

“A little bit of light pushed away a lot of darkness.” —Jewish proverb

“A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.” —Axel Munthe

“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” —Harry Truman

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

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” —William Shedd

“A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt

“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.” —David Brinkley

“A will to live without rejecting anything of life, which is the virtue I honor most in this world.” —Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Absolute coping is not to accept what is necessary but to love it: amor fati.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Abuse is neither an excuse for turning into a perpetrator nor a victim.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Action is the antidote to despair.” —Joan Baez

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” —Horace, 65 B.C.-8 B.C.

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” —Anonymous

“Against change of fortune set a brave heart.” —French proverb

“All men’s gains are the fruit of venturing.” —Herodotus

“All that is in accord with you is in accord with me, O World! Nothing which occurs at the right time for you comes too soon or too late for me. All that your seasons produce, O Nature, is fruit for me. It is from you that all things come: all things are within you, and all things move toward you.” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Almost everything comes from almost nothing.” —Henri Frederic Amiel

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

“Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.” —Og Mandino

“Amor fati: this is the very core of my being—And as to my prolonged illness, do I not owe much more to it than I owe to my health? To it I owe a higher kind of health, a sort of health which grows stronger under everything that does not actually kill it!—To it, I owe even my philosophy.… Only great suffering is the ultimate emancipator of spirit, for it teaches one that vast suspiciousness which makes an X out of every U, a genuine and proper X, i.e., the antepenultimate letter. Only great suffering; that great suffering, under which we seem to be over a fire of greenwood, the suffering that takes its time—forces us philosophers to descend into our nethermost depths, and to let go of all trustfulness, all good-nature, all whittling-down, all mildness, all mediocrity,—on which things we had formerly staked our humanity.” ―Friedrich Nietzsche

“Are you choosing to do it? Then choose to enjoy it and stop whining about it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“As long as the candle is still burning it is still possible to work and repair.” —Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” —Frida Kahlo

“Before getting upset, always ask yourself. Will this even matter in six months, in a year, or in five years: If the answer is no, just let go.” —Robin Dabhi

“Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.” —Liz Smith

“Being mortal, never pray for an untroubled life. Rather, ask the gods to give you an enduring heart.” —Meander, fragment

“Believe that you can whip the enemy, and you have won half the battle.” —J. E. B. Stuart

“Buddha said that life is suffering. However, life is not suffering; ego is suffering.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” —Ernest Hemingway

“By not caring too much about what people think, I’m able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.” —Albert Ellis

“By your own soul, learn to live. If some men thwart you, take no heed. If some men hate you, have no care. Sing your song. Dream your dream. Hope your hope and pray your prayer.” —Pakenham Beatty

“Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.” —Sir Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” —Helen Keller

“Comfort and soothing can be used to promote coping such that negative thinking can be neutralized or switched away from to positive thinking. In the case of women, this is a necessary strategy to master, practice, and share.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.” —William Feather

“Consider that nothing in human life is stable; for then you will not exult overmuch in prosperity, nor grieve overmuch in adversity. Rejoice over the good things which come to you, but grieve in moderation over the evils which befall you.” —Isocrates, Letter to Isocrates

“Coping strategies are designed to limit self-constructions because self-constructions are the basis of anti-coping efforts.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.” —Dan Rather

“Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what.” —Harper Lee

“Dare to be aware.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.” —Abraham Lincoln

“Dhyana is retaining one’s tranquil state of mind in any circumstance, unfavorable as well as favorable, and not being disturbed or frustrated even when adverse conditions present themselves one after another.” —Daisetz T. Suzuki

“Despair is the best friend of defeat.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Difficulties are things that show what men are.” —Epictetus

“Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

“Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us our way.” —Paulo Coelho

“Do not avoid your suffering. Plunge it into the Nile.” —Rumi

“Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens, happens the way it happens: then you will be happy.” —Epictetus

“Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they will never come.” —Janet E. Stuart

“Don’t be afraid to give your best to small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” —Dale Carnegie

“Don’t be discouraged. It’s often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.” —Anonymous

“Don’t play the victim to circumstances you created.” —Unknown

“Don’t try to end or ‘fix’ a problem with a worse problem; for example, don’t try to stop a compulsion with suppression and self-downing.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Each man’s life is a kind of campaign and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.” —Epictetus, Discourses

“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.” —Voltaire

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” —Woody Allen

“Emotionally, we have many problems, but these problems are not actual problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views.” —Shunryu Suzuki

“Encouragement and problem-solving can be used to promote coping such that negative thinking can be neutralized or switched away from to positive thinking. In the case of men, this is a necessary strategy to master, practice, and share.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Endure until the end.” —Bible

“Even injustice has its good points. It gives me the challenge of being as happy as I can in an unfair world.” —Albert Ellis

“Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.” —Euripides

“Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” —Og Mandino

“Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.” —Frederic Chopin

“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” —Sallust

“Every problem contains within itself the seeds of its own solution.” —Edward Somers

“Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance, those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it.” —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“Ex Malo Bonum (good out of evil).” —St. Augustine

“Expect to suffer.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Fall seven times and get up eight.” —Miyamoto Musashi

“Fear is the highest fence.” —Dudley Nichols

“Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.” —Seneca

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“First, they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.” —Nicholas Klien (not Gandhi, despite often being attributed to him)

“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” —Proverbs 24:16

“For every (negative) emotion is a misery, but distress is a very torture chamber. Desire scalds us; wild delight makes us giddy; fear degrades us; but the effects of distress are worse: gauntness, pain, depression, and disfigurement. It eats away at the mind and, in a word, destroys it. This we must shed; this we must cast away, or else remain in misery.” —Cicero

“For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” —Hebrews 2:10

“For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.” —Aeschylus, fragment

“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” —I Peter 2:20

“For whatever of these things happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it.” —Epictetus

“Fortune is not on the side of the fainthearted.” —Sophocles, Phaedra

“Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.” —Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

“From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight is ever fashioned.” —Immanuel Kant

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” —Thomas Edison

“Get better, not bitter.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.” —Anonymous

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.” —Douglas Malloch

“Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” —Washington Irving

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” —Albert Einstein

“Greatness of spirit is to bear finely both good fortune and bad, honor and disgrace, and not to think highly of luxury or attention or power or victories in contests, and to possess a certain depth and magnitude of spirit.” —Aristotle, Virtues and Vices

“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” —C. S. Lewis

“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.” —Victor Hugo

“He that can’t endure the bad, will not live to see the good.” —Jewish proverb

“He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears.” —Michel De Montaigne

“He who forecasts all perils will never sail the sea.” —Anonymous

“He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear any ‘how’.” —Friedrich Nietzsche

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” —Aeschylus

“He who suffers much will know much.” —Greek proverb

“Humanity needs difficulties: they are necessary for health.” —Carl Jung

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” —Louisa May Alcott

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” —Hellen Keller

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

“I have always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” —J.D. Rockefeller

“I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love, and abundance. Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal–and soon they’ll forget my number.” —Edith Armstrong

“I love the man who can smile in trouble, gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.” —Thomas Paine

“I make medicine out of your pain.” —Rumi

“‘I must do something’ always solves more problems than ‘Something must be done.’ “—Anonymous

“I not only bow to the inevitable, I am fortified by it.” —Thornton Wilder

“I say unto you that suffering is not holding you; you are holding suffering.” —Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.” —Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

“I was complaining that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” —Confucius

“If an egg is broken from an outside force, life ends. If an egg is broken by an inside force, then life begins. Great things happen from the inside.” —Jim Kwik

“If evil be said of thee, and if it is true, correct thyself; if it is a lie, laugh at it.” —Epictetus

“If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.” —Sophocles

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” —Milton Berle

“If the dogs are barking at your heels, you know you’re leading the pack.” —Anonymous

“If things go wrong, don’t go with them.” —Roger Babson

“If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.” —Anne Frank

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?” —Rumi

“If you are true to yourself, you will not be disturbed by things that happen around you.” —Lie Yukou

“If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.” —Dale Carnegie

“If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.” —George Bernard Shaw

“If you expect nothing, you’re apt to be surprised. You’ll get it.” —Malcolm Forbes

“If you have a job without aggravations, you don’t have a job.” —Malcolm Forbes

“If you have lost everything, remember there is still honor.” —French military slogan

“If you think you have it tough, read history books.” —Bill Maher

“If you want to live your whole life free from pain you must become either a god or else a corpse. Consider other men’s troubles and that will comfort you.” —Menander, fragment

“If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality.” —Seneca

“If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another set of feeling, thinking, and behaving habits.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally—about anything. Yes, anything.” —Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 127

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” —Albert Einstein

“Instruct thyself for time and patience favor all.” —Pythagoras

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” —Stephen Hawking

“It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annoyed at everything. Moreover, the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism, and self-abasement.” —Aristotle, Virtues and Vices

“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” —Isaac Asimov

“It is about how hard you can be hit and keep moving forward.” —Rocky Balboa

“It is always darkest before the dawn.” —Aphorism

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” —Aristotle

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of pacific station that great characters are formed.” —Abigail Adams

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin

“It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” —Captain Picard (StarTrek: Next Generation)

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.” —G. K. Chesterton

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” —Albert Einstein

“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” —Seneca

“Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.” —Aeschylus, Agamemnon

“Keep on keeping on.” —Anonymous

“Later never exists.” —Anonymous

“Let me do my best to change the unfortunate condition or accept it and live with it if I truly find that I can’t change it. Whining about how awful it is will only make it seem worse than bad and make me feel more miserable!” —Albert Ellis

“Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Let’s face the music and dance.” —Pennies from Heaven (movie)

“Life, as the Buddha said twenty-four hundred years ago, isn’t but includes suffering. See it as it is, accept the good with the bad, and thereby enjoy much of it.” —Albert Ellis

“Life is full of obstacle illusions.” —Grant Frazier

“Life is short; focus on your gifts and skills, not on the gifts and skills of others.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Life shall be built in doing and suffering and creating.” —William James

“Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties.” —C. S. Lewis

“Live your life in happiness, even though those around you live their lives in hatred and wish to spread their antipathy to you. Be happiness itself.” —Dhammapada: Happiness, verse 197

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.” —E. B. White

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” —Epictetus

“Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.” —Groucho Marx

“Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.” —Carl Jung

“Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.” —Plutarch

“Measure what you might gain by what you might lose.” —Aphorism

“Men trip not on mountains, they stumble on stones.” —Chinese proverb

“Men’s happiness and unhappiness depend on their temperaments, no less than on fortune.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.” —William Shakespeare

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.” —Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes–most of which never happened.” —Mark Twain

“My one fear is that I will not be worthy of my sufferings.” —Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

“Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.” —Epictetus

“No events are ever so unlucky that clever people cannot draw some advantage from them; nor are any so lucky that imprudent people cannot turn them to their own detriment.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“No man will succeed unless he is ready to face and overcome difficulties and prepared to assume responsibilities.” —William Boetcker

“No matter how bad things get, you’ve got to go on living, even if it kills you.” —Sholem Aleichem

“No mud, no lotus.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

“Not getting what you want? Change what you want.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Nothing great comes into being all at once.” —Epictetus, Discourses

“Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than the unsuccessful person with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan’ press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” —Calvin Coolidge

“Nothing is heavy if one accepts it with a light heart.” —Seneca

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” —Henry Ford

“Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.” —Herbert Spencer

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” —Henry Ford

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

“Oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune.” —Seneca

“Once one tells oneself for a long enough period of time that one need not upset oneself about annoyances or dangers, one will then find it difficult to get over-excited about them and will find it easy to remain calm when they occur.” —Albert Ellis

“One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” —Sigmund Freud

“One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm.” —Catherine Pulsifer

“One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.” —Jack Penn

“One resolution I have made and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.” —John Burroughs

“One way to cope is to think of larger and larger issues that encompass and surround the issue that you find disturbing until the disturbing issue becomes a footnote, a minor issue in your big picture.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit….I doubt that such pain makes us ‘better’; but I know that it makes us more profound.” —Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison

“Organic plants have more nutrients and health properties than non-organic plants because organic plants survive more stress without herbicides and pesticides.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Our evil deeds do not bring on us as much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” —Jean de la Bruyere

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” —Anonymous

“Pain is prayer for healing” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Past perils perish presently.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Peace begins when expectation ends.” —Sri Chinmoy

People often consider and respond to obstacles in their life as if these obstacles were animals, beasts, ghosts, monsters, secret agents, spies, or some living thing purposely working against their desires when in reality all such people are only faced with accident, chance, and inconvenience.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Perfect coping is unconditional acceptance.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Problems are not stop signs; they are guidelines.” —Robert Schuller

“Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem.” —Virginia Satir

“Problems only exist in the human mind.” —Anthony de Mello

“Psychological suffering is born of the ‘I-don’t-like-what-is-present-and-I-want-what-is-not-present’ thought; as such, suffering is for thought, not for awareness.” —Rupert Spira

“Que sera, sera. (Whatever will be, will be.)” —French Aphorism

“Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” —Theodore N. Vail

“Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.” —Sophocles, Electra

“Remember, when you experience a setback, you are faced with not one challenge but two, and the second—preventing a flood of negative emotions- is usually more critical than the first. Usually, more harm comes to us emotionally or from the emotional reaction than the actual cost of the setback.” —William Irvine

“Retreat, hell! We’re just advancing in another direction.” —Oliver Prince Smith

“Self-pity is spiritual suicide. It is an indefensible self-mutilation of the soul.”―Anthon St. Maarten

“Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose. Say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens; then you will see such obstacles as hindrances to something else, but not to yourself.” —Epictetus, Enchiridion

“Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist.” —Edgar Watson Howe

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” —Seneca

“Stick with it.” —Anonymous

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.” —Napoleon Hill

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

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.” —Natalie Goldberg

“Stressed plants have more nutrients and health properties than do pampered plants.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Struggle and suffering are the path to all positive things in the world.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Success is determined in great part by our ability to keep trying even when the task is difficult; persevering can help us succeed in the end.” —Unknown

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” —George S. Patton

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.” —Earl Nightingale

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill

“Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

“Suffering is always an opportunity to choose to experience humility and reliance upon God.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Suffering is not the opposite of happiness; it is the veiling of happiness. It is a call from happiness itself, reminding us that we have mistaken our Self for an idea, an image or an object.” —Rupert Spira

“Suffering is spiritually useful to return you to a right relationship with God of dependence and humility.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.” —William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Take a deep breath, count to ten, and tackle each task one step at a time.” —Linda Shalaway

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

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.” —Mark Twain

“The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.” —Alan Saporta

“The best view comes after the hardest climb.” —Anonymous

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe

“The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a steppingstone in the pathway of the strong.” —Thomas Carlyle

“The brightest sun is behind the darkest clouds.” —Aphorism

“The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them.” —Unknown

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” —Gandhi

“The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.” —Seneca

“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.” —Madame du Deffand

“The fool learns by suffering.” —Hesiod, Works and Days

“The foolish person seeks happiness in the distance; the wise person grows it under his feet.” —James Oppenheim

“The gem cannot be polished without friction.” —Confucius

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.” —Epicurus

“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.” —Epictetus

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

“The greatest cross in the world is to be without a cross.” —Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“The greatest test of life is to see whether we will hearken to and obey God’s commandments in the midst of the storms of life.” —Henry B. Eyring

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” —William James

“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” —Vince Lombardi

“The highest form of coping is not to just accept what is necessary but to love it. This attitude is known as ‘amor fati,’ the love of fate.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The hour is ripe, and yonder lies the way.” —Virgil

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” —Marcus Aurelius

“The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.” —Aesop

“The lot of man—to suffer and die.” —Homer, The Odyssey

“The man who moves the mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” —Confucius

“The meaning of life is life, for example, notice how insects struggle to remain alive even when they are damaged beyond functioning.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character, you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts.” —D.T. Suzuki

“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, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” —Albert Camus

“The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.” —Epictetus

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” —George Bernard Shaw

“The person who is waiting for something to turn up might start with their shirt sleeves.” —Garth Henrichs

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” —William Arthur Ward

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.” —Ram Dass

“The temptation to give up is strongest just before victory.” —Chinese proverb [Compare to, “It is always darkest before dawn.”]

“The three best choices in life are to enjoy it, fix it if it’s broken, and accept it if it’s unfixable.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The unconscious life is not worth living.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The victim mindset will have you dancing with the devil, then complaining that you’re in hell.”―Steve Maraboli

“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.” —Edward Gibbon

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times, he thinks about other things.” —Bertrand Russell (1872– 1970), British author, mathematician, and philosopher

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger in the broken places.” —Ernest Hemingway

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.” —Ivy Baker Priest

“There are no limits to the mind except those which we acknowledge.” —Napoleon Hill

“There are no problems, only opportunities for growth.” —Rebbetzin Dena Weinberg

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” —Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

“There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t call yourself to be one of them.” —Ralph Marston

“There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.” —Euripides

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” —Malcolm X

“There is no easy way from the earth to the stars” —Seneca

“There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and may, after all, be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.” —William James

“There is no magic, no free lunch. Self-change, while almost always possible, requires persistent work and practice.” —Albert Ellis

“There is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable.” —Seneca

“There is nothing permanent except change.” —Heraclitus

“There will always be suffering. But we must not suffer over the suffering.” —Alan Watts

“There’s a victory and defeat–the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats–which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.” —Plato, Protagoras

“There’s no educator better than necessity.” —Xenophon

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.” —Art Linkletter

“This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Those who don’t know how to suffer are the worst off. There are times when the only correct thing we can do is to bear out troubles until a better day.” —Ming-Dao Deng

“Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.” —Ayn Rand

“Time overcomes.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Times of stress and difficulty are seasons of opportunity when the seeds of progress are sown.” —Thomas F. Woodlock

“To a certain degree, she found happiness in tears. If no sadness had existed she would have invented some.” —M. Constantin-Weyer, A Man Scans His Past

“To be alive at all is to have scars.” —John Steinbeck

“To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

“To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a man.” —Euripides, Heracles

“To see an obstacle as a challenge, to make the best of it anyway, that is also a choice—a choice that is up to us.” —Ryan Holiday

“Today you can choose based on what will be best for today and tomorrow.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Today you can do the good more and the bad less.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Today you can find small moments waiting for acts of cheer, encouragement, and kindness.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Today you can support activities that are more good than bad because you understand that activities that are all good are also few and far between.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Today your choices are free to be positive.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” —Robert H. Schuller

“Troubles are rungs on your ladder to the roof where you can watch the sunrise and sunset.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain

“Unite liberality with a just frugality; always reserve something for the hand of charity; and never let your door be closed to the voice of suffering humanity.” —Patrick Henry

“Unless we agree to suffer, we cannot be free from suffering.” —D.T. Suzuki

“Use your suffering, or your suffering will use you.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.” —Publilius Syrus

“Vexation and pain and other inconveniences are of no consequence, for they are overcome by virtue.” —Seneca

“Victims declare, ‘The world is responsible for me,’ and never do anything to better their quality of life.”―Henry Cloud,

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” —Japanese proverb

“Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.” —Euripides, fragment

“We all have enough strength to bear the sufferings of other people.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We are never as fortunate or unfortunate as we imagine.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” —Carlos Castaneda

“We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.” —Elie Wiesel

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” —Kenji Miyazawa

“We must remember that one man is much the same as another and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.” —Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War

“We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life.” —C. S. Lewis

“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” —Winston Churchill

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” —Seneca

“We will either find a way or make one.” —Hannibal

“Wear your tragedies as armor, not shackles.” —Anonymous

“Welcome the gifts of chance precisely as if they were a divine command.” —Seneca

“What else can I desire than to exclude nothing and to learn how to braid with white thread and black thread a single cord stretched to the breaking point?” —Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“What is to give light must endure burning.” —Viktor Frankl

“What is to give light must endure the burning.” —Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” —Viktor Frankl

“What matters is to make the best of any given situation.” —Viktor Frankl

“What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.” —Yiddish proverb

“Whatever it takes.” —Anonymous

“Whatever may be our condition in life, it is better to lay hold of its advantages than to count its evils.” —E. H. Chapin

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more.” —Napoleon Hill

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford

“When in pain, remember that it brings no dishonor and that it does not weaken the governing intelligence. Pain is neither everlasting nor intolerable; it has its limits if you add nothing by imagination.” —Marcus Aurelius

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” —Charles Austin Beard

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When the rain falls it cannot be put back into the clouds.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.” —Chinese proverb

“When therefore we are hindered or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves, that is to our own principles.” —Epictetus

“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways–either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.” —Dalai Lama XIV

“When you feel like quitting, remember why you started.” —Anonymous

“When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” —Anonymous

“When your important Goals are blocked by Adversities, you can largely choose to have either healthy or unhealthy feelings and you can also choose to act either helpfully or self-defeatingly.” —Albert Ellis

“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.” —Machiavelli

“Where there is a will there is a way.” —Aphorism

“Wherever an enlightened being lives, be it in a village or a forest, on a mountain or in a valley, it will be known as a holy place and, regardless of the environment, he or she will be at peace, and experience only joy.” —Dhammapada: The Enlightened One, verses 98-99

“Whiners are not winners.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Who is wise? One who learns from every man. Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations. Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot. Who is honorable? One who honors his fellows.” —Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot)

“Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.” —Sophocles

“Without danger, you cannot get beyond danger.” —George Herbert

“You can only improve your life by focusing on solutions to problems instead of on the problems themselves.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” —C. S. Lewis

“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” —Maya Angelou

“You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.” —Napoleon Hill

“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” —Bruce Lee

“You’re only a victim to the degree of what your perception allows.” ―Shannon L. Alder

“You’d better strongly think, believe, and, yes, feel that you can control your own emotional destiny. Not others’ thoughts and actions. No, not the fate of the world. But your thoughts, feelings, and actions.” —Albert Ellis

“Your current life situation, no matter how difficult or challenging, is always the perfect opportunity for you to learn, grow, and to become better than you’ve ever been before.” —Hal Elrod


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Quotations on Difficulties

3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2019

#Tough #Inspire: 2019-11-10

  1. What stops the fearful propels the resilient.
  2. What scares the timid galvanizes the tough.
  3. What bothers the weak motivates the strong.
  4. What worries the insecure drives the confident.
  5. What prevents the unstable excites and inspires the energetic and tenacious.

3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2020

#Suffer #Mind: 2020-02-18

  1. Most of what you have and will suffer from is your imagination.
  2. More suffering is mental than physical, and the worst physical suffering is mental suffering about physical suffering.
  3. Suffering is mainly about imagined ego concepts and images appearing ugly to others.
  4. Suffering typically consists of tragic self-stories that never happened, are not happening now, and never will happen.
  5. To overcome suffering, stop thinking about yourself, stop making up self-stories, and stop having ego concepts and images.

3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2023

Problem About the Problem Is Bigger: 07-20-2023

  1. “Are you more difficult than the difficulty?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
  2. “Are you a bigger problem than the problem?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
  3. “Are you more disturbing than the disturbance?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
  4. “Are you a bigger annoyance than the annoyance?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
  5. “Are you more unpleasant than the unpleasantness?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

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Quotations on Difficulties

Quotations on Coping: 6 Groups of Topics Menu


  • Read and discover the best system combining CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.

Quotations on Difficulties