Meaning of “Adversity shows whether we have friends, or only…”

As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1, Duke Senior; 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Jack R. Crawford, printed page 24 / Wikisource scan leaf 36. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” occurs in Duke Senior’s Forest of Arden reflection on exile, winter and the lessons he claims to find outside court life. It remains fictional dramatic speech rather than Shakespeare’s autobiographical advice or a modern psychological claim about hardship.

Moral printed after “The Oak and the Woodcutters”; the oak laments wedges made from its own branches.

An Essay on Criticism, Part III; Pope joins good nature and good sense before contrasting ordinary human error with the higher moral act of forgiveness.

Moral printed after “The Swallow and the Crow” in the Townsend translation of the fables.

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.

Little Women, Chapter 44, “My Lord and Lady,” Project Gutenberg #514. Amy March Laurence says the represented storm/sailing thought while discussing married life with Laurie. The frozen catalog wording expands the source contraction to “I am not afraid of storms,” while the represented #514 text reads “I’m not afraid of storms”; this is a legacy wording variant of the same passage represented by the separate contracted record, not a second independent locus.