Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Adversity
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Acts. IX. 5.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Bacon—Of Adversity.
And these vicissitudes come best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth:
He who hath proved war, storm or woman’s rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
Has won the experience which is deem’d so weighty.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto XII. St. 50.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Carlyle—Heroes and Hero Worship. Lecture V.
In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.
Ecclesiastes. VIII. 14.
Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush’d or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Goldsmith—The Captivity. Act I.
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort’ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Gray—Hymn to Adversity. St. 1.
Dans l’adversité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplaist pas.
In the adversity of our best friends we often find something which does not displease us.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxim 99. (Ed. 1665. Suppressed in 3rd ed. Quoted as old saying.)
Adversæ res admonent religionum.
Adversity reminds men of religion.
Livy—Annales. V. 51.
The Good are better made by Ill,
As odours crushed are sweeter still.
Sam’l Rogers—Jacqueline. St. 3.
Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat intentus operi suo Deus. Ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus.
Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
Seneca—Lib. de Divina Providentia.
Gaudent magni viri rebus adversis non aliter, quam fortes milites bellis.
Great men rejoice in adversity just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Seneca—De Providentia. IV.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
As You Like It. Act II. Sc. I. L. 12.
A wretched soul, bruis’d with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burthen’d with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
Comedy of Errors. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 34.
Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,
For wise men say it is the wisest course.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 24.
His overthrow heap’d happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little.
Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 64.
Then know, that I have little wealth to lose;
A man I am cross’d with adversity.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 11.
A wise man struggling with adversity is said by some heathen writer to be a spectacle on which the gods might look down with pleasure.
Sydney Smith—Sermon on the Duties of the Queen. (1837)
In all distresses of our friends
We first consult our private ends.
Swift—On the Death of Dr. Swift.