I've been sick this past week with a tough cold and had to put the article (How to be comfortable being single) I was working on hold.
However, I compiled some of my favourite quotes on dealing with adversity and wanted to share them with you. They come from literature, psychology, and films. So keep the ones you like, discard the ones you don't. Read the books of the quotes that arouse your curiosity.
Anyways, enjoy!
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
'Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men; pressure is needed to explode the charge. My captivity concentrated all my faculties on a single point. They had previously been dispersed, now they clashed in a narrow space; and, as you know, the clash of clouds produces electricity, electricity produces lightning and lightning gives light.'
'When you are faced with hardship, clothe yourself In noble patience; that is more resolute. Do not complain, then, to God’s servants; you complain To those who have no mercy of the Merciful.' 'How many hidden acts of grace does God perform Whose secrets are too subtle to be grasped by clever men? How often in the morning trouble comes, While in the evening follows joy? How many times does hardship turn to ease, As pleasure follows the sad heart’s distress?'
Swamplands of the Soul by James Hollis
Without the suffering, which seems the epiphenomenal requisite for psychological and spiritual maturation, one would remain unconscious, infantile and dependent. Yet many of our addictions, ideological attachments and neuroses are flights from suffering.
“The task implicit in the encounter with despair is to sustain the struggle, to move from being victim to being hero, from the pathetic to the tragic…the task implicit in despair is not to deny the terrible feelings, nor to relinquish the modest dignity of our humanity, but to suffer through toward whatever awaits beyond the tautologies of despair.”
Agamemnon by Aeschylus
'Zeus, whose will has marked for man
The sole way where wisdom lies;
Ordered one eternal plan:
Man must suffer to be wise.'
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
“Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity so that it can be remedied,” - Don Quixote.
The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.
Gold is tried by fire, fortitude by affliction.
There is no great evil which does not bring with it some advantage.
The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
Montaigne by Stefan Zweig
'And even the most dispiriting of your affairs, the seeming humiliations, the blows of fate: you only feel them if you show weakness before them, for who, other than you, assigns to things value and weight, joy and pain? It is crucial then that we strive to understand the art of living, the wise way of living according to Montaigne, and to realize that this struggle leads to the discovery of “soi-même”,* the most crucial struggle of the spirit, exemplified by his own life.'
Ikiru (movie) by Akira Kurosawa
'They say there's something noble about suffering. Misfortune teaches us the truth.'
"The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of being that's so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant."
Sincerely,
Bulcha
The Charismatic Nerd