Quotes About Suffering

I came away from that time in my life with a special sense of a couple of verses in second Corinthians: "'For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.' " . . . . I try to look for the things which aren't seen.

Though we don't do it often enough, it's easy to have a grateful heart for food and shelter, love and hope, health and peace. But what about the hard stuff, the stuff that darkens your world and wounds you to the quick? Just what is this everything business? "It's the hook. It's the key. Everything is the word on which this whole powerful command stands and has its being.

We are not necessarily doubting," said C. S. Lewis, "that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Julian of Norwich said as she suffered a devastating illness of her own: 'All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.' You may know that during her suffering she had gazed into the face of God, and out of that mighty encounter this truth was rendered for you, for all of us, for all time...

St. Francis de Sales had spoken ably to that: "Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

sometimes there have been moments when I have perfectly understood the self-portrait called Man Screaming which Egon Schiele painted after his return from Trieste to Vienna, and it has dawned upon me what a nightmare hiatus we all pass through, on the way from birth to death. Surely the only logical response would be to stand on a bridge and scream? But no, self-deception sees us through.

Without suffering there is no struggle, without struggle no victory, without victory no crown.

Without suffering there is no struggle, without struggle no victory, without victory no crown." Maria van Beethoven (Beethoven's mom)

En daarom, Michiel, laat je niet misleiden door de romantiek van de oorlog, de romantiek van heldenmoet, opoffering, spanning, avontuur. Oorlog betekent verwondingen, verdriet, gemarteld, gevangenissen, honger, ontberingen, onrecht. Niks romantisch aan.

The most fundamental dillemma of all, which the international community to its detriment never resolved was a moral one. How could one combine moral imperative to alleviate suffering with the moral imperative not to let agression pay? Was it right to have opposed ethnic cleansing and instituted safe areas in eastern Bosnia, if one was unwilling to put one`s life at risk to protect people in those areas?....

Als iemand haar uit de narigheid haalt sterft ze.

I think the absence of hope removes all empathy. Then all you want is for the rest of the world to suffer like you do.

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it unless it has all been suffering, nothing but suffering.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.

and my professional idol Vanessa Redgrave. There is a quality about Vanessa that makes me feel as if she resides in a nether-world of mystery that eludes the rest of us mortals. Her voice seems to come from some deep place that knows all suffering and all secrets. Watching her work is like seeing through layers of glass, each layer painted in mythic watercolor images, layer after layer, until it becomes dark—but even then you know you haven't come to the bottom of it.

Thousands of people who say they love animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs.

The heart's reasons seen clearly, even the hardest will carry its whip-marks and sadness and must be forgiven. As the drought-starved eland forgives the drought-starved lion who finally takes her, enters willingly then the life she cannot refuse, and is lion, is fed, and does not remember the other. So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance. The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it.

As human beings we all suffer from a fundamental anxiety that creeps into all our activities and makes lasting peace or joy impossible.

The more we cling to the belief in a self, the more pain and alienation we feel.

Suffering is an approximate translation of the Pali word dukkha. Dukkha implies impermanence, imperfection and unsatisfactoriness. The Buddha did not start teaching by talking of his enlightenment, of bliss or openness or clarity; he started by talking about the truth of suffering.

Paradoxically, if we accept our own suffering and fully relate it with the suffering of others, we transform that pain into a means of liberation.

The soul's bliss and suffering are bound together.

Suffering is not good for the soul, unless it teaches you how to stop suffering. That is its purpose.