After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation, and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go… It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, ‚Wait a second? Didn’t we just get through with that?‘

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar… Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.

In Germany I have been acknowledged again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the war; have not yet been republished there.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

As a medical doctor, I have known the face of adversity. I have seen much of death and dying, suffering and sorrow. I also remember the plight of students overwhelmed by their studies and of those striving to learn a foreign language. And I recall the fatigue and frustration felt by young parents with children in need.

I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.

The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man… It is more powerful than external circumstances.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

Since the time of the witch burnings, the grandmothers and the healers and the midwives have been systematically targeted. And burned at the stake for hundreds of years, decimating whole communities.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me – I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

When people are taken out of their depths they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

There is no education like adversity.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Auschwitz stands as a tragic reminder of the terrible potential man has for violence and inhumanity.

When it all got taken away, I was becoming a young man. So I had to sacrifice to leave my family… Sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25, $50 hotels.

I took part in what was actually the last eruption of Marxist internationalism.

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don’t let it get the best of you.

After Hiroshima was bombed, I saw a photograph of the side of a house with the shadows of the people who had lived there burned into the wall from the intensity of the bomb. The people were gone, but their shadows remained.

The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits.

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia – that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone.

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I can testify to what UNICEF means to children because I was among those who received food and medical relief right after World War II.

Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama’s entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

Good luck has its storms.

The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!

The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil.

Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.