Source identified
“These are the times that try men's souls.”
Crisis reveals commitment because principles become costly to maintain precisely when fear, fatigue, and uncertainty make retreat easier.
Source note: Opening of The American Crisis No. I; Paine addresses perseverance during a difficult stage of the American Revolution.
Source identified
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
Voice: Fictional character · Duke Senior
Adversity is presented as capable of yielding insight or value even when the experience itself is unwelcome.
Source note: As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1; Duke Senior reflects on what adversity can reveal while living in exile.
Source identified
“Courage cannot be cast down by adversity.”
Courage is defined by what survives difficulty: adversity may create pressure, but it does not have to decide the person’s response.
Source note: The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, saying 595, D. Lyman Jr. translation (1856).
Source identified
“No right way is easy in this rough world.”
Difficulty does not automatically mean the chosen course is wrong; worthwhile action can require courage and persistence through genuinely hard conditions.
Source note: Stickeen; Muir says this while attempting a dangerous glacier crossing, tying the line to immediate physical risk rather than abstract motivational language.
Source identified
“No scar is dishonorable which is a mark of our courage.”
A visible consequence of hardship need not be shameful when it records endurance or brave action rather than failure of character.
Source note: The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, saying 586, D. Lyman Jr. translation (1856).
Source identified
“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again.”
Falling is not treated as final defeat; character appears in the repeated act of getting up and continuing.
Source note: Proverbs 24:16, King James Version.