Top 160 Life is Hard Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

— Booker T. Washington

52. “Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

53. “Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. “Easy” doesn’t enter into grown-up life.”

— Michael Caine

54. “In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have.”

— LeBron James

55. “For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear – when you are the hammer, strike.”

— Edwin Markham

56. “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

— William Goldman

57. “My heart is so tired.”

— Markus Zusak

58. “Sometimes in life, we need a few bad days in order to keep the good ones in perspective.”

— Colleen Hoover

59. “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.”

— John Green

60. “Life is full of challenges. How you handle these challenges is what builds character. Never be afraid to be who you are.”

— Erin Brockovich

61. “Get used to a rough life, for luxury does not last forever.”

— Umar

62. “There’s a worthy and noble ambition: strength in the face of adversity. That is very different from the wish for a life free of trouble.”

— Jordan B. Peterson

63. “Motivation is crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you are driven, whatever is in front of you will get destroyed.”

— David Goggins

64. “Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.”

— Carl Sagan

65. “Life is unfair. And it’s not fair that life is unfair.”

— Edward Abbey

66. “Overcoming difficulties leads to courage, self-respect, and knowing yourself.”

— Alfred Adler

67. “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.”

— Stephen Chbosky

68. “Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

— William Faulkner

69. “Don’t be afraid of pressure. Pressure is what transforms a lump of coal into a diamond.”

— Nicky Gumbel

70. “This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.”

— Charlie Chaplin

71. “In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

— Solomon

72. “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

73. “You’ve got to find a way to survive because they win when your soul dies.”

— Tupac Shakur

74. “It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.”

— Charlie Munger

75. “Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.”

— Nick Hornby

76. “You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.”

— Eric Roth

77. “One of the most fascinating lessons I’ve absorbed about life is that the struggle is good.”

— Joe Rogan

78. “Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.”

— Seneca the Younger

79. “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse.”

— John Steinbeck

80. “I believe that we start to see our true personalities when we go through the most difficult moments. This is when we get stronger.”

— Ayrton Senna

81. “Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.”

— Hermann Hesse

82. “Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.”

— J. C. Ryle

83. “There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”

— Fred Rogers

84. “Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”

— Pope Francis

85. “You will pass through storms and heavy rains, and at times you will suffer defeat. The essence of the creative life, however, is not to give up in the face of defeat but to follow the rainbow that exists within your heart.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

86. “Our life is full of brokenness – broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God’s faithful presence in our lives.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

87. “Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid joy.”

— Tim Hansel

88. “It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

89. “I would not trade the difficult years for all the prosperity in the world. God knows what each one of us must suffer in order to be conformed to the image of Christ.”

— Paul Washer

90. “A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.”

— Orison Swett Marden

91. “Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”

— Haruki Murakami

92. “No one is really going to help you or give you direction. In fact, the odds are against you.”

— Robert Greene

93. “I’d rather be in this wheelchair knowing God than on my feet without him.”

— Joni Eareckson Tada

94. “Life is difficult. This is the great truth, one of the greatest truths-it is a great truth because once we see this truth, we transcend it.”

— M. Scott Peck

95. “Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.”

— Timothy Keller

96. “The only way to learn strong faith is to endure great trials.”

— George Müller

97. “If I stop writing I am dead. And that’s the only way I’ll stop: dead.”

— Charles Bukowski

98. “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

— C. S. Lewis

99. “Proverbs are all very fine when there’s nothing to worry you, but when you’re in real trouble, they’re not a bit of help.”

— L.M. Montgomery

100. “You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?”

— Robert Louis Stevenson