A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.

Trees endure the hot sun and rainstorms by sending their roots down deeper. The adversity they face is eventually the source of great stability. The harshness of the elements surrounding them causes them to seek another source of life. They will one day come to the place that even the greatest of windstorms cannot affect their ability to produce fruit.

My foes have missed their mark in this shooting at me: I am not the man: I wish that they themselves be guiltless.  If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged up by the neck till they be dead, John Bunyan, the object of their envy, would be still alive and well. 

One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.

The first important step in weathering failure is learning not to personalize it.

Rule #4: If you don't learn the easy lessons, they get harder. (Pain is one way the universe gets your attention.) Rule #5: You'll know you've learned a lesson when your actions change.

If your perception of and response to failure were changed, what would you attempt to achieve?

You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. But that's okay.

Success expert Peter Lowe, who has gleaned success secrets from hundreds of people who are at the top of their profession, says, "The most common trait I have found in all successful people is that they have conquered the temptation to give up.

Adapt to them—don't expect them to adapt to you.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

With hope, failure is a skipping stone. Without hope, failure is a tombstone.