Challenges & Adversity: Tough Times Quotes

"The attacks on the World Trade Center and the current economic recession, which is particularly powerful in New York City, have put a number of building plans on hold for the time being"

David Rockefeller, Businessman

"If you think you have it tough, read history books!"

Bill Maher, Comedian

"Originally, I came from Texas, and we lived on - I guess you'd call it welfare, what we called relief"

Carol Burnett, Actress

"It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day"

Jay-Z, Musician

"When times get tough, at some point, people instinctively know they need to lighten up in order to get through it"

Allen Klein, Businessman

"Hardship makes the world obscure"

Don DeLillo, Novelist

"I been goin' through somethin'. One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five days. I've been goin' through somethin'"

Kendrick Lamar, Musician

"Wouldn't you know, we been hurt, been down before. N****, when our pride was low, lookin' at the world like, 'Where do we go?'"

Kendrick Lamar, Musician

"I had a lot of downs too, it is no secret"

Michael Moorer, Athlete

"I'll tell you one thing, it's a cruel, cruel world"

Danny DeVito, Actor

"I mean, I'm 48 years old and I've been through a lot in my life - you know, loss, whether it be death, illness, separation. I mean, the failed expectations... We all have dreams"

Annie Lennox, Musician

"Conditions were so hard. To send the news out, telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence to send after he arrived"

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Journalist

"For many Europeans, the next decade looks to be filled with threats rather than opportunities"

John Hutton, Educator

"I was in chemical jail"

James Taylor, Musician

"If you've ever been in a position in your life where you just can't take any more, you just have to get through the next second, and the next second after that"

Michael Novak, Philosopher

"For the moment and for some time great events have been denied me, forward action not come my way"

John Burns, Activist

"When every piece of furniture and your underwear are taken by the bank, when you lose your house in Florida, in New York, in Amsterdam and L.A., when your wife is dying and your son abandons you, you don't feel very good"

Al Goldstein, Publisher

"Some people are contriving ways and means of making us collapse"

Robert Mugabe, Statesman

"I hate telling that story to people who've been struggling for years"

Terry Goodkind, Writer

"We lived in the bowels of New York City. It was a struggle just to survive. This nice suburban kid hadn't had to do much of that before"

Peter Bergman, Actor

"We are set to make very bad history"

Tom Wilson, Cartoonist

"I prize the Depression, for instance, because I learned the value of things in the Depression that a way people who don't have to worry about such things never learned to prize it, really, I believe"

Shelby Foote, Author

"The biggest stories in 2005 were the national disasters"

Geraldo Rivera, Journalist

"All too often in tough economic times, it is the environment that gets left on the cutting room floors of Congress, as everyone scraps for limited federal dollars"

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Politician

"But hey, when you live in Watts, you need a little smack to get by, you know what I mean? You need something soft and comfortable in your life, 'cause you're not going to get it from what's around you. And society isn't going to give it to you"

Jerry Garcia, Musician

"The events of the day's march are now becoming so dreary and dispiriting that one longs to forget them when we camp; it is an effort even to record them in a diary"

Robert Falcon Scott, Explorer

"Everyone has their challenges"

Wentworth Miller, Actor

"My childhood was appalling"

Taylor Caldwell, Author

"All have disappointments, all have times when it isn't worthwhile"

John H. Johnson, Businessman

"Working in an underdeveloped land for two or three years, the volunteer will often find that his work is routine and full of frustration"

Sargent Shriver, Politician

"Things were so bad, we ate rabbits that neighbours had run over and gave to us because they knew we were broke"

Al Purdy, Poet

"Sadly, I am not able to take part in the fieldwork myself so much anymore, as both of my legs were amputated following an airplane crash twelve years ago"

Richard Leakey, Environmentalist

"Others live on in a careless and lukewarm state - not appearing to fill Longfellow's measure: 'Into each life, some rain must fall'"

Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady

"Many other countries in this world are in a difficult situation, and all the Thai people are probably worried about the fate of Thailand: whether the country would survive or not"

Bhumibol Adulyadej, Statesman

"When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31, I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners, since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments"

Tom Glazer, Musician

"The President also talked at length about how well the American economy is doing. Apparently, he got his information on this topic from his millionaire supporters. For the average working family, these are trying economic times"

Jose Serrano, Politician

"It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell"

Helen Reddy, Actress

"So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped!"

Gordon Sinclair, Journalist

"My life is triage"

Andrew Vachss, Author

"This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist"

Warren Rudman, Politician

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