He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
Interpretation
Enduring hardships builds strength and character in individuals.
This quote suggests that experiencing difficulties and challenges is essential for personal growth and the development of virtues such as courage and resilience. It implies that the qualities we admire in human nature, such as bravery and tenacity, often thrive in the presence of struggles and adversities, rather than in ease and comfort.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, this quote can highlight the importance of resilience.
Nothing else matters much...not wealth, nor learning, nor even health...without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life.
No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it ... Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is the gift not of volitional struggle but of spiritual hospitality.
I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war, and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.
He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Nothing in this world is more inspiring than a soul up against crippling circumstances who carries it off with courage and faith and undefeated character-nothing! See Light From Many Lamps, edited by L. E. Watson, article by H. E. Fosdick, pp. 93-94 re: a serious cripple who succeeded.
Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.
The wise man puts himself last and finds himself first.
Sometimes I'm more stubborn than I am smart.
I used to be one of those students who needed to see something bigger, and God brought people into my life who gave me a bigger vision than the circumstances that surrounded me.
But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.
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