Words of Encouragement for These Hard Times

As people greet yet another week gripped by anxiety, apprehension, and fear of the unknown, it is easy to feel downtrodden and frankly afraid. The evolving health situation and the economic impact to businesses, individuals, and families is without doubt unprecedented and alarming.

In these times it is easy to give into doubt and despair, and when you find yourself in that position it is helpful to remember that we have always persevered  through tough times, we WILL get through this together, and we will come out stronger for having gone through this.

Considering all of the negative and fearful information pummeling us all every day, here are some helpful quotes and words of encouragement from past leaders who persevered through tough times before us.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tough times never last, but tough people do.
– Robert H. Schuller

 This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt

“At any given moment you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.”
– Christine Mason Miller

I hope you find these words of encouragement helpful, keep your head up everyone.

-JM