The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

Remember in the midst of your most grievous afflictions that the worst state of a believer is better than the best state of an unbeliever.

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

Sin easily hides where there is no heat of trials and afflictions. In times of prosperity and success, even a wicked man will seem kind and generous. Under the heat of trials, however, the impurities surface.

Affliction is better than sin, and if God sends the one to cleanse us from the other, let us thank him, and be also content to pay the messenger.

When he was taken this last time, he was preaching on these words, viz.:Dost thou believe the Son of God?  And this imprisonment continued six years, and when this was over, another short affliction, which was an imprisonment of half a year, fell to his share.  During these confinements he wrote the following books, viz.: Of Prayer by the Spirit: The Holy City's Resurrection: Grace Abounding: Pilgrim's Progress, the first part.

The trials that those men do meet with, Who are obedient to the heavenly call, Are many and various, and suited to the flesh, And come, and come, and come again afresh; That now or some time else we by them may Be taken, overcome, and cast away. O let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, Be vigilant and quit themselves like men.

God had His hand in all the providences and dispensations that overtook His elect; so He had His hand in all the temptations that they had to sin against Him; not to animate them to wickedness, but to choose their temptations and troubles for them; and also to leave them for a time, to such sins only that might not destroy, but humble them; as might not put them beyond, but lay them in the way of the renewing His mercy. 

These troubles and distresses you are experiencing in these waters are no indication that God has abandoned you. Rather, they are sent to test you to see whether or not you will recall the evidences of his past goodness and rely upon him in your present distresses.

The bitter must come before the sweet, and that also will make the sweet the sweeter.

Adversity doesn't build character; it reveals it.

Crisis doesn't necessarily make character, but it certainly does reveal it. Adversity