I also know that every person faces adversity in life. Abraham Lincoln held this seat in Congress in one term. But few faced as many defeats in his personal, business and public life as he did.
There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity.
There is no doubt the charge was an awful gamble and that no normal precautions were possible. The issue as far as I was concerned had to be left to Fortune or to God - or to whatever may decide these things. I am content and shall not complain.
It was a high speech of Seneca that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."
God will not suffer man to have a knowledge of things to come for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless and if understanding of his adversity, he would be despairing and senseless
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with light weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.