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.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry. But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me; But if thou live to see like right bereft, This fool-begged patience in thee will be left.
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.
All I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.
We fail to see the purifying and refining effect wrought by the flames of adversity. These flames are not meant to consume but only to purify us. Disguised as adversity, blessings are showered upon us.
I am weary of a task which is done and I hope I shall not shrink when the aftermath ends. My only wish is to live peacefully out the remaining years - if years they be.
What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that truly show and create a hero? Is the light truly the source of darkness or vice versa? Is the soul a source of hope or despair? Who are these so called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?
In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.
Nowadays we are assailed by a chorus of horrid threats. The Nazi Government exudes through every neutral State inside information of the frightful vengeance they are going to wreak upon us, and they also bawl it around the world by their leather-lunged propaganda machine. If words could kill, we should be dead already.