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Adversity   Listen
noun
Adversity  n.  (pl. adversities)  
1.
Opposition; contrariety. (Obs.) "Adversity is not without comforts and hopes."
Synonyms: Affliction; distress; misery; disaster; trouble; suffering; trial.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adversity" Quotes from Famous Books



... eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The number, from being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm base of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious of the metals, signified wisdom, which is the most precious of all the accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... who had given any thought whatever to the subject believed that Willy Croup would be her heir. Her husband had some distant relatives, but, as they had had nothing to do with Mrs. Cliff during the days of her adversity, it was not likely that she would now have anything to do with them. Especially, as any money she had to leave did ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... me for them, which otherwise I should not have done; yet hitherto I have not received any thing with which to execute his will. Yet, for all this, as in the prosperity of his victories he made no boast, so, in his adversity, he always preserved an unabated spirit. Your grace, therefore, may perceive, that this treatise, and his other works, were written under great afflictions; yet was he not willing to use the remedy of Zelim, the son of the great Turk Mahomet, who took Constantinople, and died in Rome, who used ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... will; irritated by obstacles or yielding to them; rising from small beginnings to its utmost height; now drunk with hope, now stung to madness, now sunk in despair, now blown to air with a breath, now raging like a torrent. The human soul is made the sport of fortune, the prey of adversity: it is stretched on the wheel of destiny, in restless ecstacy. The passions are in a state of projection. Years are melted down to moments, and every instant teems with fate. We know the results, we see the process. Thus after Iago ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... five or six times in all the Book of God; and usually, when given him, it is either to show his greatness, or else to convince us that of duty we ought to depend upon him; and not to faint, if he be on our side, for or under any adversity, according as we are bidden in the text: "Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful creator." Shall God display his glory before ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... scare men out of their forgetfulness. The heart of man is incorrigible by fear. God, if He is little regarded in peace, is hard to come nigh to in war. If religion in peace and prosperity has not been full of His praise—of joy in Him, it is something to which adversity must drive men, and they think it as such a little disreputable, and many of the best men, richly gifted with manly excellences, tend to leave it on ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot

... pounds, that had been won, by running innumerable dangers, during the past year. His ships were overcrowded, the store of food and water was scanty, and no harbour west of the Atlantic was open to them. Under the weight of adversity, Hawkins offered 'a lesson for all time on the use of bravado, the crowning grace of every leader who does not seek it at ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... condition of their making a submission to Episcopacy; and he wrote expressing his admiration of their heroism, and assuring them of his continual remembrance: 'I keep all my friends in my eye; I carry them in my bosom; I commend them to the God of mercy in my daily prayers.... I do not sink under adversity; I ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... marvel! I'm glad adversity hasn't soured you; but you know that you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running about with ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... of an apple tree is Pyrus Malus, of which schoolboys are wont to make ingenious uses by playing on the latter word. Malo, I had rather be; Malo, in an Apple tree; Malo, than a wicked man; Malo, in adversity. Or, again, Mea mater mala est sus, which bears the easy translation, "My mother is a wicked old sow"; but the intentional reading of which signifies "Run, mother! the sow is eating the apples." The term "Adam's Apple," which is applied to the most prominent part of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... property of another, and were they sold to make restitution for their crimes? No! Did their present masters, as an act of kindness, redeem them from some heathen tyrant to whom they had sold themselves in the dark hour of adversity? No! Were they born in slavery? No! No! not according to Jewish Law, for the servants who were born in servitude among them, were born of parents who had sold themselves for six years: Ex. xxi, 4. Were the female slaves of ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... state of adversity, Badur at length consented to the erection of a fort at Diu by the Portuguese. He had formerly given up Basseen to them, to secure their friendship during his contest with Humayun, and was now in hopes by their assistance to recover his dominions. Still however his pride prompted him to temporize, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... to one, it is stolen. Suppose it be his celebrated Compliment to the Ladies, in one of his earliest pieces, The Toy-shop: "A good Wife makes the cares of the World sit easy, and adds a sweetness to its pleasures; she is a Man's best Companion in Prosperity, and his only Friend in Adversity; the carefullest preserver of his Health, and the kindest Attendant in his Sickness; a faithful Adviser in Distress, a Comforter in Affliction, and a prudent Manager in all his domestic Affairs."—Plainly, from a fragment of ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... sometimes melancholy, was too bad. At first I was for giving all up and going home. But after a little reflection, I determined to summon what energy I had, and to weather the storm. I said to myself, "I had never yet quitted a place without gaining a friend; adversity is a good school; the poor are born to labour, and the dependent to endure." I resolved to be patient, to command my feelings, and to take what came; the ordeal, I reflected, would not last many weeks, and I trusted it would do me good. I recollected the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... himself'. This is not the case with Timon, who neither loves to abhor himself nor others. All his vehement misanthropy is forced, up-hill work. From the slippery turns of fortune, from the turmoils of passion and adversity, he wishes to sink into the quiet of the grave. On that subject his thoughts are intent, on that he finds time and place to grow romantic. He digs his own grave by the sea- shore; contrives his funeral ceremonies amidst the pomp of ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... 1. is undaunted in adversity, and bold as a Lion, 2. but not haughty in Prosperity, Fortitudo, 1. impavida est in adversis, & confidens ut Leo, 2. at non tumida in Secundis, leaning on her own Pillar, 3. Constancy, and being the same in all things, ready to undergo both estates with an even mind. innixa suo ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... the boatswain, kept his eye anxiously on them. Now was the time to prove whether the spars were sound, and, if they were sound, whether the rigging had been properly set up, and if that also was sound throughout. A ship, like a human being, is best tried in adversity; it is not in smooth seas and with gentle breezes that her qualities can be proved, any more than the nature of a man can be ascertained if all goes smoothly and easily with him. Therefore, let no one venture to put confidence in himself, till he has been tossed about by the storms ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston

... to it; he thought about the game which roamed the hills and realized that with the coming of the crowd it would soon scatter, never to return; he thought about the girl up there, his companion in adversity, his fellow sufferer from mutual wrong, the one thing which he had had to love, the shining prize which it had been his sole ambition to possess for life; he thought of her and then about the man, who (product of the ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... or otherwise, were easily within reach of those who thought of nothing else, we only desired to achieve ours on certain moral conditions, and with the object of not caring for ourselves. Ambition we had, but in the service of a public cause; and one which, either in success or adversity, has severely tried ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... moreover thou shalt suffer adversity but for a little time; and then thou shalt again be restored to thy former state; only continue on in the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... indigent circumstances, and become objects of public charity, come under the direction of those who are appointed to take care of them with minds weakened by adversity, and soured by disappointment; and finding themselves separated from the rest of mankind, and cut off from all hope of seeing better days, they naturally grow peevish, and discontented, suspicious of those set over them, and of one another; and the kindest treatment, and most careful ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... Alzura was singing. But my companion in adversity did not take the suggestion in good part; indeed ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... for hard corn is to subsoil it with a hatchet, though a little judicious paring is good; soft corn sometimes does the pairing itself, though not judiciously. Soft corn is sometimes called sweet corn, on the principle, "sweet are the uses of adversity." The variety of this vegetable cultivated by roosters is called chicken corn, though no farmer can give a reason therefor, as no chicken ever had anything to do with a shoe, unless, perhaps, "shoo-fly." Corn ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... not be confounded. Of them the Psalmist says that God will remember them, that He will grant their prayers, and that He will deliver them from the pit of misery.[3] Those who act otherwise, and who in their adversity give themselves up to impatience, only aggravate their yoke, instead of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... was a face, I do believe" (wrote Sir Walter Besant of the portrait by John Collier), "wiser, more kindly, more beautiful for wisdom and the kindliness of it, than this of Huxley."—The "Queen", November 16, 1895.), and proclaimed to all the sublimation of a broad native humanity tried by adversity and struggle in the pursuit of noble ends. It was the confidence that an appeal would not be rejected, whether for help in distress, or for the satisfaction of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... laudable pursuits: a new trial of the Bourbons has proved to the world their incompetence to the functions of the station they have occupied: and the recall of the usurper has clothed him with the semblance of a legitimate autocrat. If adversity should have taught him wisdom, of which I have little expectation, he may yet render some service to mankind, by teaching the ancient dynasties that they can be changed for misrule, and by wearing down the maritime power of England to limitable ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and the fire, That fortune's stormiest blast could tire, Though delicate and young; Her bosom was not formed to bend— Adversity, that firmest friend, Had all its ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... time of the day, it were enough, the day of a tempestuous life, drawn on to the very evening ere I began. But those inmost and soul-piercing wounds, which are ever aching while uncured; with the desire to satisfy those few friends, which I have tried by the fire of adversity, the former enforcing, the latter persuading; have caused me to make my thoughts legible, and myself the subject of every opinion, wise ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... the savage virtue of the race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead, Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place The wisdom that adversity had bred. ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that it was; but I must say I doubt it. It was a hard life, a life of poverty, of incessant struggle, of toil ill paid, of disappointment, but Cervantes carried within himself the antidote to all these evils. His was not one of those light natures that rise above adversity merely by virtue of their own buoyancy; it was in the fortitude of a high spirit that he was proof against it. It is impossible to conceive Cervantes giving way to despondency or prostrated by dejection. As for poverty, it was with him a thing to be laughed ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... they, like the drowning, are grasping at straws of human help and cheer, puts out His strong hand and holds them up; still it is in accordance with His just law that those who seek and value His friendship find it and possess it in adversity. The height of the storm is a poor time and the middle of the angry Atlantic a poor place ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... console them. Dr. McGarry had already called twice to see Granny, though he had not been sent for, and he had left her some new powders. Mrs. Sutherland had brought over a little book of poems on Strength in Adversity. Tilly Holmes had brought a dozen oranges from the store, and Mrs. Sinclair came in while Christina was there with a ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... reason themselves, being the most likely to submit to reasonable regulations; and they who are habituated to plenty, are the least likely to be injured by prosperity, which causes quite as much trouble in this world as adversity. It is this prosperity, too suddenly acquired, which spoils most of the labouring Europeans who emigrate; while they seldom acquire the real, frank independence of feeling which characterizes the natives. They adopt an insolent and rude ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... profoundest philosophical principles; and it may almost be said that the American people have only to choose whether they will immediately enter, with the close of the war, upon a higher career of prosperity, or whether they will endure an additional term of tuition in the school of adversity. These words may seem mystical, unaccompanied with further illustration and elaboration of the ideas, but it is not the place here ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... his masterful pride, which was both the strength and the weakness of Graham's character, making him capable of the most absolute loyalty, and capable of the most inexcusable deeds, a pride no friend could guide, and no adversity could break, Claverhouse fell into a fit of silent anger with himself, with MacKay, with his absent critics, with the Prince. It was also in keeping with his nature to be that afternoon gayer than usual—recalling ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... State into the Confederacy, that he had emerged from them with an impoverished body, but an enriched spirit. Combined with his inherent inability to face the facts of life, there was an almost superhuman capacity for cheerful recovery from the shocks of adversity. Since he had married by accident the one woman who was made for him, he had managed to preserve untarnished his innocent assumption that marriages were arranged in Heaven—for the domestic infelicities of many of his parishioners ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... Mr. Lindsay! Even if nothing comes of all this, it will be pleasant for me to know that, at least, I have one faithful friend who was true to me, in my deepest adversity." ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... watch, "now we have weathered the Cape Horn of adversity and doubt, and ride secure upon the deep Pacific sea of prosperity and certainty. You had better blow a note like that through your Atlantic Bugle. Set your tune high, and play it up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... as this were not exactly wholesome for my resolution. The stress of adversity was beginning to tell on me. At the same time, I felt a contempt for that obscure weakness of my soul. I said to myself disdainfully that it should take much more than that to affect in the smallest degree ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... intellect, leaves the heart barren; toiling after material wealth or power, and struggling with fortune for existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from the hard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polished mirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in prosperity, if some resource were not provided for him, which, under the form of an amusement and recreation, administered a secret but powerful balsam in the one case, and an antidote in the other.' Poetry elevates some of our emotions, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various

... his religious house in order, Mohammed now began to enjoy his power as the undisputed ruler of a large number of Arab tribes. But success has been the undoing of a large number of men who were great in the days of adversity. He tried to gain the good will of the rich people by a number of regulations which could appeal to those of wealth. He allowed the Faithful to have four wives. As one wife was a costly investment in those olden days when brides were bought directly ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... Beaudesart's, and will break many more. It is a cruel question; but not to put it would be more cruel still. For while this or that gentlewoman is in danger, no gentlewoman is safe. And the basest type of mind is that which gloats on the adversity of the world's spoiled child; the next basest is that which concentrates its sympathy on the same adversity; the least base, I think, is that which, goaded by a human compassion for all human distress, longs to get a lever under the order of things which necessitates ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... with steadiness and uniformity in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity; if otherwise, it is to be looked upon as nothing else but an irradiation of the mind from some new supply of spirits, or a more kindly circulation of the blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning solicitor, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... of my adversity I needed those words far more than now," interrupted Croesus. "There was a time when I cursed your god and his oracles; but later, when with my riches my flatterers had left me, and I became accustomed to pronounce judgment on my own actions, I saw clearly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... motherless, steals from harsh labor and yet harsher surroundings, runs to the home of sacred memories, clambers to the attic, and spends the night in anguished solitude. This was his first Gethsemane. For ten years buffeted and beaten, battling with adversity, sometimes losing but never lost, snatching learning here and there, hating sham, loving passionately, misunderstood, misapprehended, too stubbornly proud to ask apologies or make useless explanations, fighting poverty in the depths of privation, wrestling existence from toil he ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... justified in replying to the pathetic mournings over departed liberty, "Et vous comptez pour rien la liberte de dire tout cela, et meme devant les domestiques!" She concluded by heartily wishing us a little taste of real adversity to cure us of our ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... case," replied the stout man, advancing farther into the cabin. "I have been driven from my own country by adversity, and whenever I see an Englishman I cannot resist forming his acquaintance, that I might speak to some one who has come from the land where I was born. Have you seen my card? My ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... had wrecked her. She could bear that. Poverty had been good to her; it had put her woman's talent to the test, justifying its existence, proving it a marketable thing. She rejoiced in her benign adversity, and woman-like, she hated herself for rejoicing. For there was always the thought that if she had not been cursed, as to her talent, with this perverse instinct for perfection, Papa would not have had to live, as he did live, miserably, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... delight at seeing her Son's name honoured and wondered at. Her anguish and illness at their long parting. Brighter days for them all. She visits her Son at Jena. He returns the visit with Wife and Child. Her strength in adversity. Comfort in her excellent Daughter Christophine. Her Husband's death. Loving and helpful sympathy from her Son. (307.)—Receives a pension from the Duke. Removes with Luise to Leonberg. Marriage of ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... effeminate, though they are most vigorous warriors; still they are rather crafty than bold, and are most formidable at a distance. They abound in empty words, and speak wildly and fiercely; they talk big, are proud, unmanageable, and threatening alike in prosperity and adversity; they are cunning, arrogant, and cruel, exercising the power of life and death over their slaves, and all low-born plebeians. They flay men alive, both piecemeal, and by stripping off the whole skin. No servant while waiting on them, or standing at ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... listener, and who talks his patient subaltern almost deaf through the long day marches; and Crane and Wilkins, who are a good deal together at every halt, and consort more with Canker than other captains; and then there is the jolly element that ever clusters around Blake, whose spirits defy adversity, and whose merry quips and jests and boundless distortions of fact or fancy are the joy of the regiment. With Blake one always finds Merrill and Freeman and some of the jovial junior captains, and, of course, the boys,—Hunter, Dana, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... between Rome and the eastern powers; and, as the failure of the magnificent scheme of Hamilcar and his sons had been due mainly to the Carthaginian oligarchy, the chief object was internally to reinvigorate the country for this new struggle. The salutary influence of adversity, and the clear, noble, and commanding mind of Hannibal, effected political and financial reforms. The oligarchy, which had filled up the measure of its guilty follies by raising a criminal process ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... birds beginning to sing, the leaves springing, the chestnuts budding, the fair earth reviving after its long swoon in the arms of winter. The London season of this year was one of the best known, no cloud of either sorrow or adversity hung over the throne or the country; trade was good, everything seemed bright and prosperous; but the great event of the season was most certainly the first appearance in England of the new singer, Madame Vanira, whose marvelous beauty and wonderful voice ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... adversity well, and that is in a measure a preparation for the well-bearing of prosperity. But there's no telling. The heart is deceitful, and it is no easy to carry a full cup. You'll need grace, Lilias, my dear. And you'll ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... of strength remained to him south of the Alps but Pavia and Montferrat; and to hold these in check, and command the plains of Piedmont, the Lombard League built the fortress city, which, from the Pope who had maintained through all adversity the authority of his throne and the cause of the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... in autumn, when the fruits drop from the trees and winter is at hand." He paused again, and his face assumed the expression of an attentive listener. "What!" he then exclaimed in a loud voice, "you say my family will leave me, and betray me in adversity? No, that is impossible, I have lavished kindnesses on them, I—" He paused, and seemed to listen again. "Ah," he exclaimed, after a short interval, starting violently, "that is too much! All Europe is unable to overthrow me. My name ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... Democratic party's platform contained a plank for "a tariff for revenue only." It was a time of great industrial depression, and as is usual in such cases a large number of the electors held the party in power responsible for business adversity (as in turn they credit it with any more or less fortuitous prosperity). The Republican candidate Hayes, after a long contest in Congress, was declared elected by a margin of one electoral vote. His opponent, Tilden had received a quarter of a million more votes in the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... seven days at Cho[u]bei's house was one of the golden periods of her life. O'Taki received the Ojo[u]san with humble joy. Iemon could not drop Cho[u]bei out of his life of prosperity. O'Iwa was soon brought in contact with the humble pair in adversity. Hers was a generous heart, and O'Taki could not look around her house without some indication of this kindness. Her sympathy with the wronged wife was great. A husband—thriftless, a gambler, inconsiderate—of such a one she had some experience. By the same means this lady was brought to her ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... whom the courts of Europe were known, and one of the most elegant young men in Paris, could not seem, what perhaps he was, an ordinary man, without moral force, timid, though brave in some ways, energetic perhaps in adversity, but helpless against the vexations and annoyances that hinder happiness. Would she, in after years, have sufficient tact and insight to distinguish Paul's noble qualities in the midst of his minor defects? Would she not magnify the latter and forget the former, after the manner ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... expenditure alter their relations to the detriment of dividend, become critical, carping and impossible to please, though the directors and management may be as innocent as themselves, and as powerless to stem the tide of adversity. At shareholders' meetings Mr. Burns was splendid. He rose after the critics had expended their force, or if the storm grew too violent, intervened at its height, and with facts and figures and sound argument always succeeded in restoring order and serenity. An excellent ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... to consider also otherwise than botanically. For all these lower organisms suffer and perish, or are gladdened and flourish, under conditions which are in utter precision symbolical, and in utter fidelity representative, of the conditions which induce adversity and prosperity in the kingdoms of men: and the Eternal Demeter,—Mother, and Judge,—brings forth, as the herb yielding seed, so also the thorn and the thistle, not to ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him at deathbeds and funerals, where it would seem as if hope herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not had less power in his own adversity.... ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... The cause of your distress, perhaps, is trifling; but, light gales of adversity will make women weep. A woman's tear falls like the dew that zephyrs shake from roses.—Nay, confide ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... postponing personal advantage to the common welfare, administered affairs both publicly and privately with the utmost diligence and zeal. But this government passing, afterwards, to their descendants who, never having been taught in the school of Adversity, knew nothing of the vicissitudes of Fortune, these not choosing to rest content with mere civil equality, but abandoning themselves to avarice, ambition, and lust, converted, without respect to civil rights what ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... insisting that his wishes should be respected. There was a great diversity of opinion as to candidates, but little of the eager antagonism that had characterized the preceding convention. The Republican Party had been sobered a good deal by four years of adversity. The delegates from ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... no one would accept his picture as genuine. 'If she had taken impression of anything, it was hard to remove it with reason or argument, till she had considered of it herself; neither could she well endure adversity or crosses, though it pleased the Lord to exercise her with them, by my many troubles and the calamity of the times. She would be much troubled at evils which could neither be prevented nor remedied, and sometimes discontented without any great cause, especially ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... present March seemed like two different people, with a whole world of experience to divide them. The well-conducted regime of Briarcroft had had its due effect, and had considerably toned down her unconventional Colonial ways; while the trouble through which she was passing, like all seasons of adversity, had made her older and more thoughtful than before. There was still no news of any kind from her father, and no answer had yet been received from the cousins in New Zealand. Miss Poppleton's manner towards Gipsy hardened a little more each week that mail day arrived and ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... sent by Fate to make his fortune for him. The sudden success at Guichen, hitherto unrivalled, should be repeated and augmented elsewhere. There would be no more sleeping under hedges and tightening of belts. Adversity was behind him. He placed a hand upon Scaramouche's shoulder, and surveyed him with a smile whose oiliness not even his red paint and colossal false ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... saw, it is true, the gallant manner in which your men endured toil and danger, but to-day I see the modesty with which they bear success. And I believe, Cyrus, that the man who takes good-fortune well is further to seek than he who can endure adversity; for success engenders insolence in many hearts, while suffering teaches ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... could tell my readers that my hands did actually touch the bones of those murdered patricians, and the contents of their cinerary urns. They did not, however, because the spell of adversity seems to have pursued the Calpurnii even into their tombs, and there is reason to believe that their last repose was troubled by persecutors, who followed them to their graves. Their cippi were found broken into fragments, their ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... of gold had filled his scrip, it was that his ampler life began to bloom. His was a mind of the best begetting, born and bred of ancient, clean-blooded stock; inflexibly principled, trained by a God-fearing mother, nurtured in a cradle of adversity, schooled in a school of hardship, developed in the big outdoors, wise in the ways of the woods, burnt in the fire of affliction, forced into self-reliance, inspired with the lofty inspiration of sacrificial patriotism—the good stuff of his make-up shone, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... forehead somewhat high, and his habit always plain and modest. And thus have we impartially described the internal and external parts of a person, whose death hath been much regretted; a person who had tried the smiles and frowns of time; not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity; always ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... answered, in that earnest fashion of his which takes the lightest questions au grand serieux. 'I see in him a man who, with natural parts far above the average, makes himself the jest of meaner intellects, and the dupe of greedy courtesans; a man who, trained in the stern school of adversity, overshadowed by the great horror of his father's tragical doom, accepts life as one long jest, and being, by a concatenation of circumstances bordering on the miraculous, restored to the privileges of hereditary monarchy, takes all possible pains ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... Adversity makes one acquainted with strange bedfellows, and M. Zola was more than once struck by the heterogeneous nature of the Revisionist army. He found men of such varied political and social views banded together for the ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... experienced danger can rightly appreciate the advantages of safety, and according as a man has become acquainted with adversity does he recognise the value of prosperity—a sentiment which Saadi illustrates by the story of a boy who was in a vessel at sea for the first time, in which were also the king and his officers of state. The lad was in great fear of being drowned, and made a loud outcry, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... come up with him through the struggle by the slow, patient steps described in many of our most improving biographies. As frequently occurs, though it doesn't get into the biographies, she who had played a helpful role in adversity, could not withstand affluence. She bloated physically and mentally, and became the juicy and unsuspecting victim of a horde of parasites and flatterers who swarmed eagerly upon her, as soon as the rough and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Submission to the Church became for her not merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... and famine, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and most anxiously waiting for supplies. But as affliction may strengthen the understanding, as gold is tried by fire, and virtue may be confirmed in weakness, these things are suffered to happen; since adversity (as Gregory testifies) opposed to good prayers is the probation of virtue, not the judgment of reproof. For who does not know how fortunate a circumstance it was that Paul went to Italy, and suffered so dreadful a shipwreck? But the ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... initial component parts intended, and sincerely believed it would, can it be either truly or generously said that their labours were in vain? By their courage and determination and resolute struggle against enormous adversity, they did, at least, bring into being a public service which has opened up remote valleys, formed a link between the great centres of England and of South Wales, and the coast of Cardigan Bay, and kindled a new life for and offered the opportunity of increased ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... remove the tranquil sort of indifference which produces ennui; though, to judge by the greater part of my fellow-prisoners, one would not think so.—There is something surely in the character of the French, which makes them differ both in prosperity and adversity from other people. Here are many amongst us who see little more in the loss of their liberty than a privation of their usual amusements; and I have known some who had the good fortune to obtain their release at noon, exhibit themselves at the theatre at night.—God knows how such ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... and daughters able to find openings in every direction. He would not be called on for charity; he might become enterprising and successful like his neighbours. It is scarcely possible that individual adversity should ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... that there is no danger in England because there are no deep-seated causes of discontent, such as foreign rule, oppressive enactments, or conscription, I can assure him that he is wofully mistaken. This class needs no cause at all; prosperity cannot allay its hatred, and adversity does not weaken it. It is certainly unwise to the last degree to provoke this demon, to control which as yet no means have been found. You cannot arrest the invisible; you cannot pour Martini-Henry bullets into a phantom. How are you going to capture people who blow themselves into ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... be alarmed, madam. It is his heart that is to be put to the trial; reverses and adversity often soften the heart; when one has suffered, he knows better how to pity the deprivations and sufferings of others. Your son has never been contradicted; he may be unkind and cruel sometimes from thoughtlessness and ignorance. Now, let us put ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and pushing disposition. Now those around me were for the most part quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly youths who had failed to place themselves in life, and people who had seen better days. Mildness was the prevailing character; mild mirth and mild endurance. In a word, I was not taking part in an impetuous and conquering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... when Prussia was completely realizing the idea of a nation in arms. In 1914, when they were commanders, France was inferior to a still greater degree in point of numbers to Prussianized Germany. In armament, France was inferior at first to her enemy. The French High Command has thus been trained by adversity to do all that human intellect can against almost overwhelming hostile material forces. General Joffre, General Castelnau—and, later, General Petain, who at a moment's notice displaced General Herr—had to display genius where the Germans were exhibiting talent, and the result is to be seen ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... was on the point of calling him by his former name, when the remembrance of what he had been arrested the words on her lips. He was proud; would he not dread to have it known that, in his days of adversity, he had been a servant? For if she betrayed her knowledge of his past, she would be forced to tell where and how that knowledge was gained. No, better wait till they met alone, she thought; he would thank her for her delicacy, and she could easily explain her motive. ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott

... been blessed with a disposition after this kind, for life will have a bountiful supply of pleasures in store for him, out of which no temporary adversity may ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... was gone presently; with such little money as he happened to have in the house; and in his pockets, the gold ornaments which Toussaint's wife insisted on his accepting, and which were not to be despised in this day of his adversity. He was sorry to take her necklace and ear-rings, which were really valuable; but she said, truly, that he had been a kind master for many years, and ought to command what they had, now that they were all in ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... before the stacks of guns. His warlike ardor of the first few days had dampened. He had seen and heard too many foolish things said and done since the beginning of this horrible siege; had taken part too many times in one of the most wretched spectacles in which a people can show vanity in adversity. He was heart broken to see his dear compatriots, his dear Parisians, redouble their boasting after each defeat and take their levity for heroism. If he admired the resignation of the poor women standing in line before the door of a butcher's shop, he was every day more sadly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... had been blazing toward other points of the compass now blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery, adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to a howling storm of ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... world: sometimes it enlightens the invader, sometimes the invaded; and forces into sudden and brilliant action the arts and the virtues that are stimulated by the invention of necessity—matured by the energy of distress. What adversity is to individuals, war often is to nations: uncertain in its consequences, it is true that, with some, it subdues and crushes, but with others it braces and exalts. Nor are the greater and more illustrious elements ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... have often, for all that, been obliged to bend their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused him some ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... old family, that of the Milfords of Louisiana, a very proud old family in the way that it was fine to be proud—proud of its name, proud that its sons were gentlemen, proud of its loyalty to its own traditions and standards, a pride that neither condition nor adversity could mar. And now the diamond pendant was gone! He could well understand how they had clung to ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... exploit, far away, at and near Quetta, when his native companions and friends heard of his death. The grief felt was so profound, that it seemed irreparable to the men who mourned their beloved friend, as the leader who was also their constant companion, and always cheerful with them under every adversity. The Oriental may be unappreciated by the Saxon till the latter knows the sentimental side of every Asiatic character, but then the floodgates of human sympathy are opened, and the very counterpart of characteristics and ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard

... does not extend beyond what he knows has been the lot of some, and, as far as circumstances will admit, may be his own; and yet he is always faithful in the discharge of whatever appears to be his duty, always enjoys life, whether in prosperity or adversity, and is always, so far as it respects circumstances over which he has no control, reconciled and contented with his lot. He knows his life is uncertain, and although he has no real faith or well grounded hope beyond the present state of existence, ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... under a revenue tariff. The present system is a sliding scale to his disadvantage. Under it, when prices are high and business prosperous, the duties rise in amount when he least requires their aid. On the contrary, when prices fall and he is struggling against adversity, the duties are diminished in the same proportion, greatly to his injury. Neither would there be danger that a higher rate of duty than that intended by Congress could be levied in the form of specific duties. It would be easy to ascertain the average value of any imported ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... for the sake of children, it is justifiable; if entered into as a remedium to avoid worse evils, it is pardonable; the idea of the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity, hardly existed, and could ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... terrible distress of mind at the desolate prospect that he saw before his orphan children. How Sheridan died is familiar to us all. The very conditions of temperament which gave Sterne genius gave him also torment. Fielding and Smollett battled all their lives with adversity; and Goldsmith died in his prime, embittered in his last hours by distress and debt. Banim, the great Irish novelist, withered early out of life upon a government pittance of a pension; Griffin gave up literature, became a monk, and found in youth a grave; Carleton, one ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... Fair lady, I conceive you, and may this kiss assure you, that where adversity hath, as it were, contracted, prosperity shall not — ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... their tranquillity, I pity them because they have no hope beyond this life, and are on a level with animals. Besides, if they are philosophers, they must linger in dark ignorance, and, if they never think, they have no consolation, no resource, when adversity reaches them. God has made man in such a manner that he cannot be happy unless he entertains no doubt of the existence of his Divine Creator; in all stations of life man is naturally prone to believe in that existence, otherwise man ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... there he is, for twenty-four hours by the clock, obliged to keep up, as best he may, on fish and vegetables and suchlike kickshaws, when every fibre of his frame is crying out for meat, red meat. And now"—he pushed back his chair—"and now, dear heart, be brave. Steel yourself to meet adversity. A sorrow stoically borne is already half a sorrow vanquished. I must absent thee from thy felicity a while—-I must be stepping." He rose, and moved, with that dancing gait of his, to the door. From ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... point this out to you, William, to show how one false and foolish step in the young may affect their whole prospects in life; and, instead of enabling them to sail down with the stream of prosperity, may leave them to struggle against the current of adversity, as has been ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... who engrosses your thoughts, has been my friend in the days of adversity; he has helped me in the conflict with the enemies of the gods, and is entitled to my acknowledgements. You must, accordingly, repair to him and remain with him till he beholds the offspring you shall bear him." The god thus permits her to ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... all right; he's the right sort; a chip of the old block—eh? He wouldn't be hard on a brother in adversity?" ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... for the sake of Joseph that Jacob had been willing to undergo all the troubles and the adversity connected with his sojourn in the house of Laban. Indeed, Jacob's blessing in having his quiver full of children was due to the merits of Joseph, and likewise the dividing of the Red Sea and of the Jordan for the Israelites was the reward for his son's piety. For among the sons of Jacob ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... and was surprised by the aptness of her comments on the books she borrowed on his advice from the Public Library. She was twenty-four, tall and trim, with friendly blue-gray eyes and a wit that had been sharpened by adversity. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... perhaps through the vista of many years, to a period when the national mind, arrived by reflection and experience at certain conclusions, would seek in him a powerful expositor of its convictions. His time of life permitted him to be tranquil in adversity, and to profit by its salutary uses. He would then have acceded to power as the representative of a Creed, instead of being the leader of a Confederacy, and he would have been supported by earnest and enduring ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... said quickly, "Mademoiselle Phillis has inspired me with a deep sentiment of esteem and tenderness; I have not been able to see her so courageous, so brave in adversity, so decided in her character, so good to you, so charming, without loving her, and I have come to ask you to give her to me ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the world for not talking of him," she made haste to declare. "And if he's got something good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is the sort that ought always to have a good deal of money. I mean, it will bring out his more amiable qualities. He does not shine much in adversity—any ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... came down to breakfast braced to grapple with fresh adversity, but were surprised to find our garrulous friend of the previous day—he was late in making his appearance—strangely silent and (apparently) preoccupied. Having polished off our porridge, we ran out to feed the rabbits, explaining to them that a beast ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... which seems so solid and persistent solely because we have no knowledge of the power which creates it, Lester's world seemed solid and persistent and real enough to him. It was only when the storms set in and the winds of adversity blew and he found himself facing the armed forces of convention that he realized he might be mistaken as to the value of his personality, that his private desires and opinions were as nothing in the face of a public conviction; ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... there lay some weighty reason in the mind of the Superior for his unexpected friendliness to James, he comprehended, but his spirit, unused to restraint, and darkened by adversity, illy ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... last night," said Jasmine; "I called it 'The Uses of Adversity.' It was very mournful indeed; it was a sort of story in blank verse of people who were cold and hungry, and I mixed up London fogs, and attic rooms, and curtains that were once white, and had now turned yellow, and sloppy streets covered with snow, with the story. ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... negroes, men and women, knelt in deep devotion like fixed statues, offering up their prayers to the Throne of grace for the departing soul of their beloved mistress, whose life had been so chequered by the sunshine of pleasure and the clouds of adversity. She had just received the last rites of the Church. The priest had retired to perform similar duties elsewhere, leaving the humble but devoted blacks to watch the last breath of life and to close ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... difficult to learn a language or a science in old age than in youth, so it is infinitely more difficult (if it be not impossible) to teach the science of the affections, and the language of the heart, to the old man whose youth has known nothing of either. Affliction and adversity teach oft-times sympathy and benevolence; but to do so they must have followed on happier times, and not have been a birth-portion. You may praise and respect "Uncle Johns," but you can not love them—neither can they ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... me my cozen Angier of Cambridge, poor man, making his moan, and obtained of me that I would send his son to sea as a Reformado, which I will take care to do. But to see how apt every man is to forget friendship in time of adversity. How glad was I when he was gone, for fear he should ask me to be bond for him, or to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... capital book for boys. It is bright and readable, and full of good sense and manliness. It teaches pluck and patience in adversity, and shows that ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... seen in providing for the people's living after the best manner, and in prevailing with those that are to use the laws he ordains for them, to have a good opinion of them, and in obliging the multitude to persevere in them, and to make no changes in them, neither in prosperity nor adversity. Now I venture to say, that our legislator is the most ancient of all the legislators whom we have ally where heard of; for as for the Lycurguses, and Solons, and Zaleucus Locrensis, and all those legislators who are so admired by the Greeks, they ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... circles now! The wheel of fortune has ceased not its revolutions for a moment. Hopes that once spread their gay leaves to the pleasant airs have been blighted and scattered by the chilling winds of adversity. ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... Hacon applies for aid to Thora of Rimmol, a lady whom he had once dearly loved; she is faithful in adversity to the friend of happier days, and conceals the Jarl and his companion in a hole dug for this purpose, in the swine-stye, and covered over with wood and litter; as the only spot likely to elude the hot search of his enemies. Olaf and the Bonders seek for him in Thora's house, but ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... yet avoid the great evil of retreat, having nothing to do. I am constantly, not capriciously employed, and the exercise which benefits my health, imperceptibly raises my spirits in despight of adversity. I am removed from all temptation, I have scarce even the power to do wrong; I have no object for ambition, for repining I have no time:—I have, found out, I repeat, the true secret ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)



Words linked to "Adversity" :   distress, affliction, victimization, hard knocks, adverse, low-water mark, misfortune, extremity, ill luck, ill-being, bad luck, tough luck, nadir, disaster



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