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Resilience

Enduring hardship, bouncing back, and refusing to stay down.

Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.

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Verified quotes about resilience

Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.

“A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall”

Serena WilliamsVerified
© In copyright

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity”

King James Bible (Book of Proverbs)Verified
✓ Free to use

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere”

Christopher ReeveVerified
© In copyright

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation”

Audre LordeVerified
© In copyright

“Do not go gentle into that good night”

Dylan ThomasVerified
© In copyright

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship”

Louisa May AlcottVerified
✓ Free to use

“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”

William Ernest HenleyVerified
✓ Free to use

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed”

Booker T. WashingtonVerified
✓ Free to use

“I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing”

Anaïs NinVerified
© In copyright

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am”

Sylvia PlathVerified
© In copyright

“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy”

Marie CurieVerified
✓ Free to use

“I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed”

Michael JordanVerified
© In copyright

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”

Frederick DouglassVerified
✓ Free to use

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll”

William Ernest HenleyVerified
✓ Free to use

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving”

Albert EinsteinVerified
© In copyright

“No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere”

Emily BrontëVerified
✓ Free to use

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls”

Edwin Hubbell ChapinVerified
✓ Free to use

“Patience is a conquering virtue”

Geoffrey ChaucerVerified
© In copyright

“Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind”

Christian D. LarsonVerified
✓ Free to use

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached as by the obstacles overcome”

Booker T. WashingtonVerified
✓ Free to use

“The best way out is always through”

Robert FrostVerified
✓ Free to use

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”

Theodore RooseveltVerified
✓ Free to use

“The future rewards those who press on. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on”

Barack ObamaVerified
✓ Free to use

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way”

Marcus AureliusVerified
© In copyright

“The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief”

William ShakespeareVerified
✓ Free to use

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”

Mahatma GandhiVerified
© In copyright

“These are the times that try men's souls”

Thomas PaineVerified
✓ Free to use

“What does not kill me makes me stronger”

Friedrich NietzscheVerified
✓ Free to use

“A champion is someone who gets up when they can't”

Jack DempseyAttributed
Rights unverified

“All things are difficult before they are easy”

Thomas FullerAttributed
✓ Free to use

“Champions keep playing until they get it right”

Billie Jean KingAttributed
© In copyright

“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form”

RumiAttributed
© In copyright

“Energy and persistence conquer all things”

Benjamin FranklinAttributed
✓ Free to use

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back”

Abraham LincolnAttributed
✓ Free to use

“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude”

Maya AngelouAttributed
© In copyright

“In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on”

Robert FrostAttributed
© In copyright

“Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do”

Ella FitzgeraldAttributed
Rights unverified

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

Thomas EdisonAttributed
Rights unverified

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, and sacrifice”

PeléAttributed
© In copyright

“Victory belongs to the most persevering”

Napoleon BonaparteAttributed
Rights unverified

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through”

Maya AngelouAttributed
© In copyright

Don’t get caught out

Commonly shared about resilience — but misattributed

Popular resilience lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.

“A sex symbol is a heavy load to carry when one is tired, hurt and bewildered”

ReallyClara Bow · not Marilyn Monroe

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”

ReallyHorace

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter”

ReallyUnknown (an anonymous quip by 1968) · not Muhammad Ali

“As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!”

ReallyMargaret Mitchell

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”

ReallyJohn Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) · not Plato

“Blood, sweat and tears”

ReallyWinston Churchill

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”

ReallySquire Bill Widener

“Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are”

ReallySquire Bill Widener · not Theodore Roosevelt

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”

ReallyHerbert Kretzmer

“Everything will be OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end”

ReallyFernando Sabino (crediting his father, Domingos Sabino) · not Paulo Coelho

“Failure is not an option”

ReallyWilliam Broyles Jr. & Al Reinert · not Gene Kranz

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

ReallyNicholas Klein · not Mahatma Gandhi

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”

ReallyChristopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni · not C.S. Lewis

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”

ReallyThomas Edison · not Thomas Edison

“I love those who can smile in trouble”

ReallyThomas Paine

“If you're going through hell, keep going”

ReallyUnknown / anonymous origin · not Winston Churchill

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”

ReallyJohn Archibald Wheeler

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer”

ReallyAlbert Camus