Quotes About Suffering

My drawing - now there are drops, tears, from the two branches of the tributary and six circles above it. Then I know - I have drawn the opening up of my brain and all that is in there - tears pain blood rage terror. The broken suitcase with the circles, its contents - me, former me - spilling out.

The devout are not spared.

worse shape than you and helping the poor person. It's about a relationship between equals. You understand their suffering. You're completely in their shoes. It comes from softening our hearts, opening up to our own and others' pain. To me, that's enlightenment.

Religion hurts people.

The light of love shines " in the darkness" (John 1:5), in suffering, in confusion, in all that we will never understand. Love makes darkness itself shine. This opens altogether new possibilities for dealing creatively with the shadow side of reality. Words can only serve as pointers; we must put this to the test in our own dark hours. Those who have done so, those who have suffered lovingly, have discovered the transformative power of love.

I now saw, in my situation, several points of similarity with that of the oxen. They were property, so was I; they were to be broken, so was I. Covey was to break me, I was to break them; break and be broken—such is life.

Imagine that. Vomiting until all that was left to sick up was your own blood!

God's people have no assurances that the dark experiences of life will be held at bay, much less that God will provide some sort of running commentary on the meaning of each day's allotment of confusion, boredom, pain, or achievement.

Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.

Hell is a place on earth. Heaven is a place in your head.

I wanted to curl up into a fetal position and start sucking my thumb, let my tears and dripping saliva pool under me. Sorry. I tried living, tried being sentient. Can't do it. Can't live in the same universe with that.

You can lie to yourself, say that you never had a choice, that you weren't cut out for this. But deep down you'll know. You'll know that humans aren't cut out for anything. We cut ourselves out. Slowly, with a rusty knife.

And no one cares. You kick and scream and cry out into the darkness, and no answer comes. You rage against the unfathomable injustice and two blocks away some guy watches a baseball game and scratches his balls.

You know, I observed a man who masturbated until he bled. Did he want to do that?

Sorry, Dave. My grandpa used to tell me, toward the end when he was going crazy, that talking through a dog ain't like talking through a sausage. Molly is in here with me and I gotta compete with the barker.

It's not enough to look for the truth, however a noble journey that might be. [...] You must be able to say "yes" to what you see. [...] He is the yeasayer who could look upon evil, disease and suffering, all the worst incarnations of the Eternal No, and not fall insane. He is the great-souled one who can affirm the truth of the Universe.

The motivating force behind the UNDHR and the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees was a desire to ensure that never again would there be such suffering as that experienced in the wake of the Second World War. Unfortunately that is exactly what is happening now.

hope and passion slip through your fingers like sand and in front of you lies a vast stretch of darkness

It's not history repeating itself in Gaza, it's horror repeating itself

But struggling and suffering, as I now saw it, were the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not constantly demanding more from yourself—expanding and learning as you go—you're choosing a numb existence. You're denying yourself an extraordinary trip.

The most crime is; when a brave person hid to tell the Truth because many people will suffer most.

He considered that a moment, rolling the sweet over his tongue. "There are times when it is entirely safe to show one's vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.

I sat down and put my fingertips to my temples, rubbing hard. "We have one fallen tree, one destroyed Rookery, one delusional butler and no good brandy. Is that what you are telling me?" "And the cook's down with piles and more than half the staff are suffering from catarrh," she added maliciously. I looked to Brisbane, who was smiling broadly. "God bless us, everyone," he said, spreading his arms wide.

There are times when it is entirely safe to show one's vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.