“He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them”
Autobiography (1873)
Context: In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales.
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John Stuart Mill 179
British philosopher and political economist 1806–1873Related quotes

The Crisis No. IV.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)
Context: Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and fortitude, will, in a little time, supply the place of every inferior passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism.

Part I, p. 9.
The Autobiography (1818)

pages 176-177; Early Modern Texts page 16
Three Essays on Religion (posthumous publication), Theism, Part II: Attributes

“Difficulties give us the opportunity to prove our greatness by overcoming them.”
Message dictated to Sanjeeva Reddy at Guruprasad (6 June 1960), as quoted in The God-Man : The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an Interpretation of His Silence and Spiritual Teaching (1964) by Charles Benjamin Purdom, p. 353 <!-- also quoted in The Silent Master : Meher Baba, Avatar of the Age (1987), by Irwin Luck, p. 15 -->
General sources
Context: It is better to deny God, than to defy God.
Sometimes our weakness is considered strength, and we take delight in borrowed greatness.
To profess to be a lover of God and then to be dishonest to God, to the world and to himself, is unparalleled hypocrisy. Difficulties give us the opportunity to prove our greatness by overcoming them.
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1870s, Self-Made Men (1872)