The effect of great and inevitable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not deprive of all virtue.
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Dare to do something worth of exile and prison if you mean to be anybody. Virtue is praised and left to freeze. [Lat., Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum Si vis esse aliquis. Probitas laudatur et alget.]
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife.
Rare is the virtue that's not ruled by Fortune, That stands unshaken even when Fortune flees.
The measure of every man’s virtue is best revealed in time of adversity - adversity that does not weaken a man but rather shows what he is.
Affliction is the good man's shining scene; prosperity conceals his brightest ray; as night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
