Venus Williams Quotes

The great challenge is to refuse to let the bad things that happen to us do bad things to us. That is the crucial difference between adversity and tragedy.

It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

What matters most is how you respond to your heartbreaks and your disappointments and your fears. What matters most is who you become in response to them.

Someone once said, 'Adversity introduces a man to himself.' For some reason, that's scary, but most people discover that adversity does make them stronger.

I am too strong to break so easily, and I become better, sharper, every time I touch him.

When people feel that they have failed, it's usually because somebody or something caused them to feel that way and taste defeat. I refuse to dwell on that. Yes, it sucks at first, and the feeling is valid, but it all happens for a reason.

The ups and downs, the problems and stress, along with all the happiness, have given me optimism and hope because I am living proof of survival.

My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.

The art we need is the art of bearing the unbearable.

He tunneled into stories where weak men changed into strong half-animals or used eye beams or magic hammers to power through steel or climb up the sides of skyscrapers. He was the Hulk when angry and Spidey the rest of the time. When he felt his heart hurt he turned into something stronger than a little boy, and he grew up this way. A heart that flashed from heart to stone, heart to stone. As I watched I thought of what Grandma Lynn liked to say when Lindsey and I rolled our eyes or grimaced behind her back. "Watch out what faces you make. You'll freeze that way.

I don't see life as an opportunity to see how far you can go in the pursuit of pain, although I think I've challenged it a bit.

Helped are those too busy living to respond when they are wrongfully attacked: on their walks they shall find mysteries so intriguing as to distract them from every blow.

I've learned that every single trial offers us a chance to either turn away from what we know to be true, or to stand strong in who we are...

None of us can be free of conflict and woe. Even the greatest men have had to accept disappointments as their daily bread. ... The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.

Suffering brings your heart to bear. It gets you where you are!

The trials and pressures of life--and how we face them--often define us. Confronted by adversity, many people give up while others rise up. How do those who succeed do it? They persevere. They find the benefit to them personally that comes from any trial. And they recognize that the best thing about adversity is coming out on the other side of it. There is a sweetness to overcoming your troubles and finding something good in the process, however small it may be. Giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter. Persevering through adversity makes one better.

The world can be a hard place sometimes... You have to have heart. You have to be strong. Parents want their children to grow up to be strong. Not just any strong, mind you, but loving strong.

To be emotionally resilient and to overcome your circumstances, not through fighting, but through being courageous and having endurance was something I thought was of primary importance.

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.

There will always be people in your life who treat you wrong. Be sure to thank them for making you strong.

I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.

The ways in which people are damaged are the ways in which they're strong. It's what makes people interesting - what they've overcome and how, and what they haven't and how that's become a good thing. Almost everyone's life is both a gorgeous story and a tragedy. I think being alive is really, really hard, and I'm constantly stunned and amazed by people who make it interesting and beautiful.

Adversity builds character and character takes you places money can't.