resilience quotes

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

We were poor, but we smiled.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

When I was four, my mother insisted I get out of the car and find my own way home. Although I got lost, I did find my way home. It taught me the value of independence at an early age.

In crises the most daring course is often safest.

The devil ain’t got no power over me. The devil come, and me shake hands with the devil. Devil have his part to play. Devil’s a good friend, too… because when you don’t know him, that’s the time he can mosh you down.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

There is no education like adversity.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

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

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

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

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.

Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

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

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

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

You have to be tough and have a lot of faith.

It constitutes a superhuman effort to lead any people in times of crisis. Without them, the changes would be impossible.

If you get knocked down – setbacks in life, like applying for a job if they don’t hire you – keep trying, keep getting up, keep doing it.

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

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

I’ll never, ever be full. I’ll always be hungry. Obviously, I’m not talking about food. Growing up, I had nothing for such a long time. Someone told me a long time ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, ‚Once you’ve ever been hungry, really, really hungry, then you’ll never, ever be full.‘

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

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 one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

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.

I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.

There are some people who hate my guts. But that goes with the territory.

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.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.

I’ve been through natural disasters. I lived down in Miami and was down there for Hurricane Andrew which was a Category 5. There were members of my family that thought they were going to die. Everyone was in the bathtub.

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