unhappy is he..................

 No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.

-Seneca

resilient.....................

 Nothing can become truly resilient when everything goes right.

-Tobias Lutke

Cycles........................

      And in so far as the apparent prosperity is caused by an unusual plentifulness of loanable capital and a consequent rise in prices, that prosperity is not only liable to reaction, but certain to be exposed to reaction.  The same causes which generate this prosperity will, after they have been acting a little longer, generate an equivalent adversity.

-Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873)

Building............................

Prosperity or adversity? The strangeness of our time consists partly in our having simultaneously too much and not quite enough: Not so much that we are free from anxiety, but not so little that we experience the kind of suffering that can give a person — and a people — some direction and focus. Direction toward, and focus on, what?

They fled from the tomb. Toward . . . ?

-Kevin Williamson, as he concludes this Easter post

Compelled.................................

“The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.” 

-Napoleon Hill

Good to remember.......................................

Handprints........................................

Now, if familiar patterns bore you, if normalcy passes before you unnoticed, if you want to create your own footsteps in the earth and leave your own handprints on the skies, if you are the one who doesn't mind the lines in the coloring book as much as others do, and perchance you do not cling to a flock for you to identify with, then you must be ready for adversity.
-C. JoyBell C.

cartoon via

Seeds.....................................

"Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or greater Benefit."
-Napoleon Hill

There's many a way to handle adversity........

Here's one of my favorites............




Thanks Greg

Friendship.............................................

Good advice; not always followed.................

via

Use.......................................

via John from the Heartland

Pick your fights carefully...............

via

Ellington and Burke on adversity..............

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."
-Duke Ellington


"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill.  Our antagonist is our helper.:
-Edmund Burke

Seneca and Hazlitt on adversity......

"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater."
-William Hazlitt

Pasternak on adversity.............

"I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled.  Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value.  Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them."
-Boris Pasternak

Thoreau and Byron on adversity.......

"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find 
compensation in every disappointment."
-Henry David Thoreau

Hayes on adversity...........

"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
-Woody Hayes

Voltaire on adversity...........

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. "Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them.  The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us." 

-Voltairewe dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.  ~Voltaire

Helt on adversity............

"When life gives you lemons, please, just don't squirt them in other people's eyes."
-J. Andrew Helt