Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
~By Napoleon Hill ~
Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.
~By Chanakya ~
The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.
~By Aesop ~
The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.
~By Benjamin Disraeli ~
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
~By Joseph Addison ~
Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.
~By Paul Valery ~
Ignorance of one's misfortunes is clear gain.
~By Euripides ~
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
~By William James ~
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
~By Ambrose Bierce ~
Knowledge is that possession that no misfortune can destroy, no authority can revoke, and no enemy can control. This makes knowledge the greatest of all freedoms.
~By Bryant H. McGill ~
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
~By Oscar Wilde ~
I believe that the confidence of Hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators.
~By Lajos Kossuth ~
Indeed, wretched the man whose fame makes his misfortunes famous.
~By Lucius Accius ~
A man endures misfortune without complaint.
~By Franz Schubert ~
History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
~By Voltaire ~
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
~By Lucius Annaeus Seneca ~
Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others' children.
~By Sam Levenson ~
The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
~By Austin O'Malley ~
A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
~By Walter Bagehot ~
We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.
~By Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~
This is the age of insincerity. The movies had the misfortune to come along in the twentieth century, and because they appeal to the masses there can be no sincerity in them.
~By Lionel Barrymore ~
The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
~By Washington Irving ~
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
~By Socrates ~
We interest others by the misfortune we spread around us.
~By Emile M. Cioran ~
To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
~By Epictetus ~
Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.
~By Aesop ~
It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others.
~By Marquis de Sade ~
Misfortune was my god.
~By Arthur Rimbaud ~
For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.
~By Marcus Tullius Cicero ~
The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention.
~By Franz Schubert ~
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
~By Edward Gibbon ~
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
~By James Russell Lowell ~
Rashness is the faithful, but unhappy parent of misfortune.
~By R. Buckminster Fuller ~
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel's face.
~By Lydia M. Child ~
One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.
~By Virginia Woolf ~
No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.
~By Alexander Herzen ~
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
~By Aristotle ~
Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
~By Virgil ~
Men are slower to recognize blessings than misfortunes.
~By Titus Livius ~
Reporters thrive on the world's misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity.
~By Russell Baker ~
Let us be of cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
~By Amy Lowell ~
Unless some misfortune has made it impossible, everyone can have good posture.
~By Loretta Young ~
The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.
~By Christopher Morley ~
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
~By Jean de la Bruyere ~
This great misfortune - to be incapable of solitude.
~By Jean de la Bruyere ~
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
~By Aristotle ~
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
~By Thomas Jefferson ~
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
~By Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~
The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.
~By A. C. Benson ~
Doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.
~By William McFee ~
How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.
~By Sophocles ~
No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.
~By Marcus Tullius Cicero ~
Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter - Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes - A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting.
~By Aeschylus ~
The War has been waged with success, although there have been in some instances errors and misfortunes. But the heart of the nation is sounder and its hopes brighter.
~By Gideon Welles ~
The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.
~By Herodotus ~
The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
~By Peter Nivio Zarlenga ~
Happiness is composed of misfortunes avoided.
~By Alphonse Karr ~
Look at misfortune the same way you look at success - Don't Panic! Do you best and forget the consequences.
~By Walt Alston ~
The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortune.
~By Bert Williams ~
It is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.
~By Tacitus ~
Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
~By Charles Dickens ~
In the same proportion Russia is the misfortune of Europe and the Israelites.
~By Isaac Mayer Wise ~
For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.
~By Aeschylus ~
It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.
~By Sophocles ~
Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.
~By Tacitus ~
The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.
~By Harry Browne ~
Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
~By Franz Kafka ~
My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good.
~By Giacomo Casanova ~
The Unhappy may, possibly, by indulging Thought, hit on some lucky Stratagem for the Relief of his Misfortunes, and the Happy may be infinitely more so by contemplating on his Condition.
~By Eliza Haywood ~
We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.
~By Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
~By Blaise Pascal ~
Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.
~By Edith Wharton ~
Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
~By William James ~
I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream.
~By Thomas Francis Meagher ~
People don't ever seem to realize that doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.
~By William McFee ~
It's the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.
~By Franz Grillparzer ~
All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
~By Jean Jacques Rousseau ~
Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
~By Elias Canetti ~
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
~By Lord Chesterfield ~
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
~By Quentin Crisp ~
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
~By W. Somerset Maugham ~
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
~By W. Somerset Maugham ~
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
~By Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~
Mortals grow swiftly in misfortune.
~By Hesiod ~
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
~By Madame de Stael ~
A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.
~By George Mason ~
Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.
~By Frank Sinatra ~
A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.
~By Marguerite Yourcenar ~
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
~By Simone Weil ~
Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.
~By Lord Acton ~
Myself acquainted with misfortune, I learn to help the unfortunate.
~By Virgil ~
In such misfortunes my Mother was of an heroic spirit, in suffering patiently when there was no remedy, and being industrious where she thought she could help.
~By Margaret Cavendish ~
Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.
~By Pierre Bayle ~
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
~By Edward Gibbon ~
If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.
~By Simone Weil ~
Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
~By Francis Bacon ~
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
~By Charles de Secondat ~
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
~By Samuel Johnson ~
All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.
~By Moliere ~
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.
~By Saskya Pandita ~
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