Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

The reward of suffering is experience.

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.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

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

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

I want to represent… to the kids to draw strength from me. So they can see that everybody goes through something, but you can rise up and do your best. Just try.

When my ancestors came from Africa, they were shackled by our neck, our wrists, and our ankles in steel chains. I’ve turned those steel chains into gold to symbolize the fact that I’m still a slave, only my price tag is higher.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst, and with continued unity of effort, we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States – that is, prosperity.

People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.

Over the years I’ve seen people lose a spouse and then withdraw and lose interest in life, and I believe we need to resist that.

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

Adjusting to the passage of time, I think, is a key to success and to life: just being able to roll with the punches.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.

To our brothers in Latin America and the world, we must convey that the Cuban people will overcome.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.

I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if I were a refugee.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

There’s always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened.

I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

Man is not made for defeat.

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.

I nearly failed when Virgin was in its infancy; I nearly failed in the early 1980s, and, of course, I have nearly died more than once trying to achieve a world record for boating or ballooning. But through a combination of luck and planning, both Virgin and I are still here.

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

Unfortunately, after Sept. 11, there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Those people in New York are not gonna change me none.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.

In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

If it’s stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You’ve planned, you’ve trained, you’ve done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that’s facing you. And then after that, there’s nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.