Hardship Inspirational Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Hardship Inspirational. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
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Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life)
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The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she becomes.
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C. JoyBell C.
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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]
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Anne Bradstreet (The Works of Anne Bradstreet (John Harvard Library))
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Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.
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Tim Fargo
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I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.
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Barack Obama
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Time of difficulty test our faith, our fortitude and our strenght. During these times, the level of our imaan becomes manifest
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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To those who, in spite of everything, still choose goodness
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Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
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It is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.
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Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
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This new day has greeted us with no rules; unconditional opportunity. Do not dilute the power of this new day with the hardship of yesterday. Greet this day the way it has greeted you; with open arms and endless possibility.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Sometimes we fail to recognize the direct connection between the pain in our lives and our relationship with Allah SWT
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.
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Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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Your strength doesn't come from winning. It comes from struggles and hardship. Everything that you go through prepares you for the next level.
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Germany Kent
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I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer’s saying, β€˜A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,’ has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due.
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Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
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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.
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Criss Jami (Killosophy)
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Enclose your heart in times of need with the steel of your determination and your strength. In doing this, all things will be bearable.
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Lora Leigh (Broken Wings (Chronicles of Brydon, #1))
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Take a chance and risk it all or play it safe and suffer defeat.
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Pittacus Lore (I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1))
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I guess no one can be painted with just one brush. There is light and shade in all of us, pain and hardship, and some of us rise from it while others are darkened by it.
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Catherine Doyle (Inferno (Blood for Blood, #2))
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If you found that one person who is really worth the sacrifices, pain, and hardships then your efforts will not go to waste.
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Anna Agoncillo (Psychology Of Love, Money, & Life)
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I feel that we are often taken out of our comfort zones, pushed and shoved out of our nests, because if not, we would never know what we could do with our wings, we would never see the horizon and the sun setting on it, we would never know that there's something far better beyond where we are at the moment. It can hurt, but then later you say "thank you." I have been pushed and shoved and have fallen out and away, so very, very, many, many times! And others around me have not! But then, the others haven't seen what I have seen or felt what I have felt or been who I have been, they can't become what I have become. I am me.
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C. JoyBell C.
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Nothing was easy, and sometimes she failed, and sometimes she thought that the fairy stories were right, that there must indeed be easier ways of living happily ever after; but defeat is a poor ending to any tale, so she kept trying.
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Sonya Hartnett (The Ghost's Child)
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I would never tell you that the life you wanted couldn't have been exactly as great as you planned. But you have to live the life you have. You have to find inspiration in the struggle, and pull joy out of the hardship. [...] Because that's all we can do: Carry the sorrow when we have to, and absolutely savor the joy when we can.
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Katherine Center (How to Walk Away)
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Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.
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Desmond Tutu
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Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.
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Dean Koontz (Velocity)
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Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling.
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Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
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I learnt my best lessons from some of the worst people & I look back now and think thank fuck I let you go, I deserved to grow.
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Nikki Rowe
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Life has moments that feel as if the sun has blackened to tar and the entire world turned to ice. Β It feels as if Hades and his vile demons have risen from the depths of Tartarus solely for the purpose of banding to personally torture you, and that their genuine intent of mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish is tearing you to shreds. Β Your heart weighs as heavily as leaden legs which you would drag yourself forward with if not for the quicksand that pulls you down inch by inch, paralyzing your will and threatening oblivion. Β And all the while fire and brimstone pour from the sky, pelting only you. Β  Truly, that is what it feels like. But that feeling is a trial that won't last forever. Β Never give up.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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When life gets hectic and you feel overwhelmed, take a moment to focus on the people and things you are most grateful for. When you have an attitude of gratitude, frustrating troubles will fall by the wayside.
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Dana Arcuri (Harvest of Hope: Living Victoriously Through Adversity, A 50-Day Devotional)
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I encourage anyone who has gone through hardships to look back through their life’s chapters and see what can be turned into a book. For you never know what heartache God, one day, can turn into a redemptive story.
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Jolina Petersheim
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When you learn to welcome every challenge and difficulty as an opportunity to grow and learn, no hardship or pain can generate suffering
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Todd Perelmuter (Spiritual Words to Live by : 81 Daily Wisdoms and Meditations to Transform Your Life)
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Our vision of the heavenly realm...can sustain us through the most difficult of days and circumstances. It births hope amidst hardship and nurtures faith amidst opposition.
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David Timms (Living the Lord's Prayer)
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In his mercy, He sent the storm itself to make us seek help. And then knowing that we’re likely to get the wrong answer, He gives us a multiple choice exam with only one option to choose from: the correct answer. The hardship itself is ease. By taking away all other hand-holds, all other multiple choice options, He has made the test simple. It’s never easy to stand when the storm hits. And that’s exactly the point. By sending the wind, He brings us to our knees: the perfect position to pray
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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When I think how sometimes people can be brave enough to overcome any fear, any hardship, it gives me a feeling I can hardly describe. To charge right at the things that are painful and difficult, break through to the other side, and take pleasure in that - don't you think that's truly fantastic? The greater the suffering, the greater the joy in overcoming it.
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Genzaburo Yoshino (How Do You Live?)
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No one starts out on top. You have to work your way up. Some mountains are higher than others, some roads steeper than the next. There are hardships and setbacks, but you can't let them stop you. Even on the steepest road, you must not turn back. You must keep going up. In order to reach the top of the mountain, you have to climb every rock.
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Muhammad Ali
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We have to walk by faith to possess all that is duly ours.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
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Pain and love cannot be in the same space. You can never love anyone in pain. You cannot truly love yourself in pain. The more pain you carry in your heart, the harder it becomes to love anyone including yourself.
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Kemi Sogunle
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The Master said, β€œWhat a worthy man was Yan Hui! Living in a narrow alley, subsisting upon meager bits of rice and waterβ€”other people could not have borne such hardship, and yet it never spoiled Hui’s joy. What a worthy man was Hui!” (Analects 6.11)
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Confucius
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Everyone has hardship in their life. Everyone has pain.
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Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
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You don't fight the battles you know you will win, its the ones that everyone says you will lose.
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Chris Burkmenn
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We all have problems. Or rather, everyone has at least one thing that they regard as a problem.
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Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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It takes bravery to cry out, to release what is in your heart.
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Christy Lefteri (The Beekeeper of Aleppo)
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It is never easy to endure pain nor uncomfortable situation. It is seems easy to quit to avoid the pain.If you quit you will suffer later. It is far better to endure the pain now and enjoy later. Life is all about endurance.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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Through hardship to the stars
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Ruta Sepetys (Salt to the Sea)
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Some situations are just like bad dreams, they're only unbearable while we're giving them our full attention.
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Curtis Tyrone Jones
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You have to find inspiration in the struggle, and pull joy out of the hardship.
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Katherine Center (How to Walk Away)
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The universe has her hands busy in my mind, knitting words together to blanket your wailing heart with something intricately designed.
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Curtis Tyrone Jones
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Hardships refine a man to what he ought to be.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Do not worry, my sweet one. You have it within you to get yourself where you need to be.
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Karen Salmansohn
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The hardest thing to ever do is to reveal the naked soul to the world. However, in doing so brings healing, growth, strength, and powerful inspiration!
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H.E. Olsen (Discovering True Love: A true story of how I learned to love in very difficult circumstances)
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someday we will forget the hardship, and the pain its cause us; we will realise, hurt is not the end. lessons appear to teach us strength, we learn happiness is an inside job and to cure our insanity we must not fear what is to come, but believe in what we've been taught.
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Nikki Rowe (Once a Girl, Now a Woman)
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For in prosperity a man is often puffed up with pride, whereas tribulations chasten and humble him through suffering and sorrow. In the midst of prosperity the mind is elated, and in prosperity a man forgets himself; in hardship he is forced to reflect on himself, even though he be unwilling. In prosperity a man often destroys the good he has done; amidst difficulties he often repairs what he long since did in the way of wickedness.
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Alfred the Great
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Perhaps there really is a good that exists; for a century of darkness to be eschewed by a single flame; for a decade of evil done to the heart to be undone by simple and unplanned acts of kindness! There must be a goodness, after all! But we don't find it when we're looking for it; not in church, not in a cathedral, not even in our own homes! We find it when we've fallen down so hard, are downtrodden so low; and there is one true friend who picks us up; or one random person who takes us in! And we realize goodness was never in the places we thought it was! It was all along in the most humble of places: bound up in the heart of a true friend.
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C. JoyBell C.
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Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good; Love alone lightens every burden, and makes the rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable. The love of Jesus is noble, and inspires us to great deeds; it moves us always to desire perfection. Love aspires to high things, and is held back by nothing base. Love longs to be free, a stranger to every worldly desire, lest its inner vision become dimmed, and lest worldly self-interest hinder it or ill-fortune cast it down. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God, and can rest only in God above all created things. Love flies, runs, leaps for joy; it is free and unrestrained. Love gives all for all, resting in One who is highest above all things, from whom every good flows and proceeds. Love does not regard the gifts, but turns to the Giver of all good gifts. Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength; love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. Love therefore does great things; it is strange and effective; while he who lacks love faints and fails.
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Thomas Γ  Kempis (The Inner Life)
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The truth of the matter is, Satan and God may want the exact same event to take place - but for different reasons. Satan's motive in Jesus' crucifixion was rebellion; God's motive was love and mercy. Satan was a secondary cause behind the Crucifixion, but it was God who ultimately wanted it, willed it, and allowed Satan to carry it out. And the same holds true for disease.
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Joni Eareckson Tada (A Step Further: growing closer to God through hurt and hardship)
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Falling into the trap of self-pity will get you no where in life. It's sorrowful endless cycle will keep you from reaching your goals. Everyone has a sad story but not everyone allows it to restrain them. Let life's hardships fuel you to success instead of holding you back. Start controlling your life or it will control you!Β 
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Timothy Pina (Hearts for Haiti: Book of Poetry & Inspiration)
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Hope? Hope is not the absence of tragedy, my friend. It is the conviction that tragedy can be endured. Hope is the spark in you that is not subdued in the face of the vast and callous indifference of the universe. Hope is that which is not shattered by hardship. Hope is the urge to fight what is wrong even when you know it will destroy you. Hope is the decision to love and need someone knowing that they will one day die. For me to promise that there are no obstacles would be the cruelest lie I could possibly tell. That lie is not hope. Hope is the will which needs no lies.
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Travis Beacham
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While grief is not fun to deal with, it is a valuable tool to bring about amazing change and growth. The key to this deep level of learning is attitude. How will you respond to the pain you’re feeling?  
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Diamante Lavendar (Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief: Spiritual Insights Expressed Through Art, Poetry and Prose)
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... being different, being unique ... that afforded me a life, a journey that I am now so thankful for.
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Shaun Hick (The Ghost And Its Shadow)
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The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself.Β 
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Paul David Tripp (Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Resources for Changing Lives))
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To get over a mountain, you have to climb it.
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Jonathan Tesch
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To be perfect without suffering means no change. If you know neither hurt nor hardship, then you will not know the strength they can summon within the person. What is life's meaning if you cannot distinguish between happiness and sorrow?
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Rin Chupeco (The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3))
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It is a blessing to experience hardship. Not because we suffer, but because we learn to endure.
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Saim .A. Cheeda
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You'll find yourself in a tough situation one day, and on that day only a true friend with soften the situation.
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Aurora
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These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships and misfortunes ; and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, Is any affliction like mine? Let them consider how much worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.
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Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
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If one accomplishes some good though with toil, the toil passes, but the good remains; if one does something dishonourable with pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the dishonour remains.
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Musonius Rufus (That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic)
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The willingness to challenge hardships taps the power within human beings to transform even a place of tragedy into a stage for fulfilling one's mission.
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Daisaku Ikeda
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Before you hate pressure, remind yourself that is where diamonds are made.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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Hardships occur to build a person’s character.
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Sahara Sanders (Gods’ Food (Indigo Diaries, #1))
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Travel is the discovery of truth; an affirmation of the promise that human kind is far more beautiful than it is flawed. With each trip comes a new optimism that where there is despair and hardship, there are ideas and people just waiting to be energized, to be empowered, to make a difference for good.
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Dan Thompson (Following Whispers: Walking on the Rooftop of the World in Nepal's Himalayas)
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A star will shine in the midst of darkness. A flower will bloom in the midst of dirt. A camel will flourish in the midst of drought. A diamond will form in the midst of pressure. A champion will rise in the midst of hardship.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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Some of the most amazing people in the world were not perfect; they were scarred by suffering, hardships, losses and imperfections.
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Bryant McGill (Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life)
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When you are stressed and challenged by hardships just smile through it as frowning won’t help in changing the situation
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Abhysheq Shukla (The Reflection "Success or Stress"Choose Wisely)
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Do not feel surprise at being schooled amid toil: you are being schooled for a wondrous destiny.
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Augustine of Hippo
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Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind the stronger the trees.
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Thomas S Monson
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Do not run away from your challenges. You must endure and overcome each challenge.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Some teach you what can't be taught, by turning their back on you & helping you get internally closer to everything you externally sought.
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Curtis Tyrone Jones
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Because the same God who paints a rainbow across the sky after a rainstorm is the same One who can produce joy from our hardships.
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Tessa Emily Hall (Coffee Shop Devos: Daily Devotional Pick-Me-Ups for Teen Girls)
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It is in times of superlative hardship that individuals live their epic adventures, stories that thrill, fascinate, inspire, and illuminate.
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Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption)
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If our lives were smooth sailing without painful hardships, unexpected disappointments or frustrating challenges, we wouldn't have our own personal testimony as credible evidence revealing God's omnipotent power.
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Dana Arcuri (Harvest of Hope: Living Victoriously Through Adversity)
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The choice in this life is not between easy and hard, but between kinds of hardship, between a hardship that gives birth to wisdom, compassion and mercy, and the hardship that keeps on replicating itself to no end.
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Noam Shpancer
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Whatever your difficulty, whatever your hardship in life: Dance and make the song you sing your prayer. Sing it courageously, and with each step strengthen yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of your elders, so that whatever next happens, you can survive and not lose your rhythm.
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Red Haircrow
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In this life, we reap the results of everything that we do; even if the things that we do and the things that we become, are the direct results of circumstances that we could have never controlled, in the first place. They say we are never given more than we can handle; but I don't believe that. We are often given more than we can handle, and that's why so many of us are so broken. The jar breaks when there's too much to handle. The only beauty in all of this, is that jars can be repaired with gold; and because of that, they can become even more beautiful than they were before.
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C. JoyBell C.
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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 seek out to have capital! Throw away that pride! Don't put sorrow on a pedestal! If you ask me if I would rather have had my sorrows or not, I will tell you that no, I would rather have not had any of them! In the blink of an eye, I would rid myself of them! I have no pride. I don't rely on hardships and sorrows to mold me into someone. I don't allow myself to be dictated. When hardship and sorrow come knocking, saying "We are responsible for who you are today, let us in!" I'm going to say, in a split second, "No you're not! Go away, I don't owe you anything!
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C. JoyBell C.
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We all make mistakes. It is important to learn from them and just as important to know when to move on.
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Gina Varamo
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If I could just capture each memory in a bottle the maybe you people would understand how much I've suffered, how much I've been through, but most importantly how far I have come.
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Tommy Tran
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Nothing is more important in life than having a best friend when you are going through a hardship.
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Debasish Mridha
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Loyalty is not loyalty unless one clings to it in the face of adversity.
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Lisa Tawn Bergren
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It shouldn't take a life-changing event for you to change your life.
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Shaun Hick
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Every hardship has a reason and every deprivation a purpose, if you look through eyes of insight.
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Diamante Lavendar (Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief: Spiritual Insights Expressed Through Art, Poetry and Prose)
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Adversity tests what the soul can endure.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Sometimes, situation may be uncomfortable but must endure.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
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When you speak, be sure of what you are speaking. Don't be rambling full of words that have no integrity or truth. Nobody wants to confide in you when they doubt what you say. If you are filled with untruths, those characteristics make it hard for anyone to believe in you.
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Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Sweet Destiny)
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No matter who you are, everyone has a shadow; a constant darkness that follows them wherever they go…unless where you go is into the darkness itself, of course, because then you have already been consumed.
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S.R. Crawford (No Secrets: Eternity series)
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By showing me injustice he taught me to love justice. By teaching me what pain and humiliation were all about, he awakened my heart to mercy. Through these hardships I learned hard lessons. Fight against prejudice, battle the oppressors, support the underdog. Question authority, shake up the system, never be discouraged by hard times and hard people. Embrace those who are placed last, to whom even bottom looks like up.
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Roy Black
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The more adept we become at feeling love and gratitude for all life’s earthly learning experiences, the more quickly we are reminded that, whatever hardship may be placed before us, it is our choice always to return to a place of love and gratitude and to give thanks for all that still remains.
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Molly Friedenfeld (The Book of Simple Human Truths)
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The Lord has put more hardships atop the shoulders of my neighbors β€” more than I can even fathom coping with. I will strive to find a way to turn pity into admiration, for what use is it to send pity back at the world. Admiration and awe are much more helpful, especially when I find myself feeling like a victim for being stuck in traffic or losing my favorite sweater. Perspective is a blessing.
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Erica Goros (The Daisy Chain)
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Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, The Chief Guardian dives deep and pulls strength from all the hardships and struggles that are thrown at her, yet she is blamed for everything that has gone wrong. Not only is she blamed for everything, but she is also always judged by her actions. As she’s being blamed and judged she’s always given a shitty stick and dealt an unfair hand. How is that fair to the Chief Guardian? She is the one who has to carry the load when she doesn’t have any fight left. She is the one who has to figure every burden out, without any help from the fathers of the fatherless children. Yet she finds the courage to figure it out as she keeps pushing and moving on through the pain.
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Charlena E. Jackson (Dear fathers of the fatherless children)
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Good old days? Whatever good in them may have been, they’re long past. No use crying over them now when they are but distant memories. I shall tell you the trick – in a person’s mind, all distant memories eventually grow tinted with rays of sunshine, and the toils and hardships the flesh and the soul have undergone get lost and forgotten. Hence you begin believing that those old days were good, and have a hard time dealing with present difficulties… I believe, whatever hardship you may face at present, it is still better than some vague and blurry flashbacks you carry in your mind, for the present can be felt upon the touch, sensed upon the breath, lived through and fought for. Good old days are long gone, and if you ask me, have never been as good as you may now imagine. There is only now, and the bitterer it is, the sweeter it feels to live the moment to its fullest.
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Tamuna Tsertsvadze (Galaxy Pirates)
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Es geht die alte Sage, dass KΓΆnig Midas lange Zeit nach dem weisen Silen, dem Begleiter des Dionysus, im Walde gejagt habe, ohne ihn zu fangen. Als er ihm endlich in die HΓ€nde gefallen ist, fragt der KΓΆnig, was fΓΌr den Menschen das Allerbeste und AllervorzΓΌglichste sei. Starr und unbeweglich schweigt der DΓ€mon; bis er, durch den KΓΆnig gezwungen, endlich unter gellem Lachen in diese Worte ausbricht: `Elendes Eintagsgeschlecht, des Zufalls Kinder und der MΓΌhsal, was zwingst du mich dir zu sagen, was nicht zu hΓΆren fΓΌr dich das Erspriesslichste ist? Das Allerbeste ist fΓΌr dich gΓ€nzlich unerreichbar: nicht geboren zu sein, nicht zu sein, nichts zu sein. Das Zweitbeste aber ist fΓΌr dich - bald zu sterben. According to the old story, King Midas had long hunted wise Silenus, Dionysus' companion, without catching him. When Silenus had finally fallen into his clutches, the king asked him what was the best and most desirable thing of all for mankind. The daemon stood still, stiff and motionless, until at last, forced by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and spoke these words: 'Miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship, why do you force me to say what it would be much more fruitful for you not to hear? The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second-best thing for you β€” is to die soon.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (An Attempt at Self-Criticism/Foreword to Richard Wagner/The Birth of Tragedy)
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HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make in thinking about the happiness of excellence is to focus on moments of achievement. They imagine the mountain climber on the summit. That's part of the happiness of excellence, and a very real part. What counts more, though, is not the happiness of being there, but the happiness of getting there. A mountain climber heads for the summit, and joy meets her along the way. You head for the bottom of the ocean, and joy meets you on the way down...you create joy along the way...the concept of flow, the kind of happiness that comes when we lose ourselves through complete absorption in a rewarding task...the idea of flow..."Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."...Joy, like sweat, is usually a byproduct of your activity, not your aim...A focus on happiness will not lead to excellence. A focus on excellence will, over time, lead to happiness. The pursuit of excellence leads to growth, mastery, and achievement. None of these are sufficient for happiness, yet all of them are necessary...the pull of purpose, the desire to feel "needed in this world" - however we fulfill that desire - is a very powerful force in a human life...recognize that the drive to live well and purposefully isn't some grim, ugly, teeth-gritting duty. On the contrary: "it's a very good feeling." It is really is happiness...Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole...Real happiness comes from working together, hurting together, fighting together, surviving together, mourning together. It is the essence of the happiness of excellence...The happiness of pleasure can't provide purpose; it can't substitute for the happiness of excellence. The challenge for the veteran - and for anyone suddenly deprived of purpose - is not simple to overcome trauma, but to rebuild meaning. The only way out is through suffering to strength. Through hardship to healing. And the longer we wait, the less life we have to live...We are meant to have worthy work to do. If we aren't allowed to struggle for something worthwhile, we'll never grow in resilience, and we'll never experience complete happiness.
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Eric Greitens (Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life)