Coal that bears that pressure meets a diamond.

…it is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.

Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.

The pressure of adversity is the most powerful sustainer of accountability. It’s as though everything you do is multiplied by 50 in order to surpass those with a head-start. I was never capable of slacking...

One with great successes has had equally great hardships.

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature’s laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it’s dreams; it learned...

Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.

That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

But William Stoner knew of the world in a way that few of his younger colleagues could understand. Deep in him, beneath his memory, was the knowledge of hardship and hunger and endurance and pain.

Lodged”The rain to the wind said,’You push and I’ll pelt.’They so smote the garden bed.That the flowers actually knelt,And lay lodged — though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.

I didn’t care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn’t fun to watch.

That’s life. It’s a series of knock-down, drag-out fights with yourself and others that will leave you lying on the ground bruised and bloody and drooling all over your shag carpeting. But all that doesn’t...

It is not an easy thing to be a woman and love with the whole heart: which men do not understand — having many loves, and delighting in danger and war.

… being different, being unique … that afforded me a life, a journey that I am now so thankful for.

If you complain about small calamities, Allah will give you great calamities.

He were found drowned. He were coming home very hopeless o’ aught on earth. He thought God could na be harder than men; mappen not so hard; mappen as tender as a mother; mappen tenderer....

Though you may hear me holler,And you may see me cry–I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,If you gonna see me die.

Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.

You can’t be a rebel without the scars that come with it. Truth is, some days scars are just as ugly as they are beautiful.

Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed...

Take a chance and risk it all or play it safe and suffer defeat.

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny…

I read the bible every day and the one thing I have noticed is that those characters that are closest to God seem to be the ones who question and wonder and think more than...

Tell a child, that he will soon be homeless; he will slowly detach from the world. Tell that same child that he is now homeless, he will abandon all foundations. Tell the child he has...

The bitterest hardships, the most daunting trials; none of these are burdens if it means being with you.

My friends, don’t idolize hardship. What you idolize is what your heart will look for and what your heart looks for is what you will have. And don’t capitalize on misfortune, because you will always...

Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and...

…the more a human creature has tasted of bitter things the more it hungers after the sweet things of life. And we, wrapped round in rags of our virtues, and regarding others through the mist...

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.

I’ve felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I’ve had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn’t be bothered about things that didn’t matter,...

When the going gets tough: the poor close their eyes, the rich open their wallets.

Like Gandalf, God knows the battle going on inside our hobbitlike selves, the wrestling match between the Baggins and the Took. The Baggins side of us takes our creature comforts for granted. We assume these...

Under every layer of pain, another layer of recovery lies in wait, the sweet, forever surprising truth of endurance.

Your true love for God is demonstrated through your ability to hold onto your faithfulness in the midst of Prosperity and Poverty, Happiness and Hardships, Sickness and Success; in whatever is Appealing or Appalling!

Greed is mistaken nobility. Instead of robbing all the pain and hardship from people’s lives and rescuing them from danger, greed robs provisions from providers.

Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have...

Understand that by giving something a name, you own it. I find that by naming it, you give yourself a sense of purpose. Like wanting to become a doctor or lawyer or writer for instance,...

Fear is the negative emotion that brings every traceable hardship into our life. Only Love can free us from fear.

Once again, mules and their attendants would give him company. Often he thought he and the mules had no difference. Both carried other’s loads.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Therefore,...

Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken.

Once employed, the employed’s friends are reduced to creatures that he only sees when he has a new problem, or, something new to show off.

Before I was married, I thought the sound of bangles jangling on my forearms would be delightful. I looked forward to being able to wear bells around my ankles and silver necklaces around my neck,...

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”[Meditations Divine and Moral]

We all make mistakes. It is important to learn from them and just as important to know when to move on.

He could feel himself gliding down like the sail of a weightless craft, forever plunging into the great beyond below where mermaids sing and summon their lovers home, further down into the depths of some...

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I’ve only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a “serious” novel.

You don’t fight the battles you know you will win, its the ones that everyone says you will lose.

We seldom question the purpose of life when our world is sunny and bright. This question tends to hide itself during pleasant sailing, only rearing its face during the deepest and darkest travails, when the...