The happiness of any given life is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering, from positive evil.

The Christian experiences and lives a paradox. He possesses joy in sorrow, fulfillment in exile, light in darkness, peace in turmoil, consolation in dryness, contentment in pain and hope in desolation.

I'm saying that storms happen - cancer happens. Accidents happen. We can either run from them, hide from them, or....go through them. God is with us in all of those situations. But yeah, some of his best people are pressed out, shaken, fermented...aged through circumstances or time.

Can economic hardship, such as the loss of a job, be a blessing in disguise? Perhaps yes, if the result is the awakening of an entrepreneurial spirit and the creation of a new business.

What of the man who has neither the time, nor the inclination to study failure in search of knowledge that may lead to success? Where, and how is he to learn the art of converting defeat into stepping stones to opportunity?

More than five hundred of the most successful men this country has ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one up when success is almost within reach.

When the opportunity came, it appeared in a different form and from a different direction than Barnes had expected. That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why so many fail to recognize opportunity.

He recalled, too, his mistake in having stopped only three feet from gold, but, he said, that experience was a blessing in disguise. It taught me to keep on keeping on, no matter how hard the going may be, a lesson I needed to learn before I could succeed in anything.

Study the lives of all people who achieve outstanding success in any calling and observe, with profit, that their success is usually in exact ratio to their experiences of defeat before succeeding.

Finally, he lifted his head slowly, got up and walked to the door. Then he turned around, came back, laid his hand on my shoulder and said, 'My boy, you will need much courage if you remain steadfast in carrying out your purpose in life. But remember, when difficulties overtake you, the common people have common sense. Adversity will develop it.

one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.