Difficulty Quotes

When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.

Orison Swett Marden

Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.

Orison Swett Marden

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.

Orison Swett Marden

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

B. C. Forbes

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.

Richard Bach

Storms make the oak grow deeper roots.

George Herbert

In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere.

Victor Hugo

A barrier is of ideas, not of things.

Mark Caine

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.

Samuel Smiles

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

Samuel Smiles

The very greatest things -- great thoughts, discoveries, inventions -- have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

Samuel Smiles

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Henry Ward Beecher

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

William Ellery Channing

The mere fact that you have obstacles to overcome is in your favor...

Robert Collier

The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.

Thomas Carlyle

Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.

Jodi Picoult

Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance.

John Neil

What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of effort required to accomplish something! A mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a scarecrow to children and fools and a stimulus to real men.

Samuel Warren

To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?

Jim Rohn

It is a good rule to face difficulties at the time they arise and not allow them to increase unacknowledged.

Edward W. Ziegler