To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and success with humility. — Thomas S. Monson
—What lingers after this line?
Facing Challenges with Bravery
This part highlights the importance of courage when confronting difficulties. To 'live greatly' requires resilience in the face of adversity, rather than succumbing to fear.
Responding to Disappointment
Monson emphasizes the need for maintaining a positive attitude even when facing setbacks. Cheerfulness in disappointment can help prevent despair and promote personal growth.
Handling Success Gracefully
The quote also advises that true greatness requires one to remain humble in times of success. Arrogance can erode achievements, while humility fosters sustained personal and professional development.
Balance in Life's Journey
Thomas S. Monson suggests that greatness in life comes from balance—facing hardships with courage, accepting failures gracefully, and achieving success without letting it inflate one’s ego.
Wisdom in Leadership
Monson, a religious leader and former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often spoke on leadership and personal values. This quote encapsulates his view that leadership comes from demonstrating strength, optimism, and humility in life's trials and triumphs.
Recommended Reading
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
One-minute reflection
What does this quote ask you to notice today?
Related Quotes
6 selectedEmotional strength is not about suppressing feelings, but about having the courage to feel them. — Brené Brown
Brené Brown
At first glance, emotional strength is often mistaken for stoicism—the ability to remain untouched, unreadable, and perfectly controlled. Yet Brené Brown’s quote overturns that assumption by suggesting that true strength...
Read full interpretation →To learn is to admit you do not know. The moment you stop being a student is the moment your growth ends. — Confucius
Confucius
Confucius frames learning not as the display of knowledge but as the honest recognition of its limits. In that sense, to learn is to begin with humility: one must first admit, without shame, that there is something missi...
Read full interpretation →To know what you want to do and to do it is the same courage. — Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
At first glance, Kierkegaard’s line seems to separate thought from action, yet it quickly reunites them under a single demand: courage. To know what one truly wants is not a passive discovery, because genuine self-knowle...
Read full interpretation →Humility is the mother of all virtues. — G.K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton’s statement presents humility not as one virtue among many, but as the source from which the rest arise. In calling it the “mother of all virtues,” he suggests that courage, justice, patience, and charity beco...
Read full interpretation →Humility is attentive patience. — Simone Weil
Simone Weil
At first glance, Simone Weil’s remark seems to redefine humility altogether. Rather than treating it as self-deprecation or mere politeness, she presents it as a disciplined way of being: patient, watchful, and receptive...
Read full interpretation →Love the humble art you have learned and take rest in it. — Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius turns attention away from grand ambition and toward the quiet dignity of what one already knows how to do. In this brief line, he suggests that peace comes not from chasing endless recognition, but from l...
Read full interpretation →More From Author
More from Thomas S. Monson →