Quotes About Suffering

What is certain is that to become of interest, for one's life to be interesting, has nothing to do with what you can turn your hand to but is a fateful privilege which, like every privilege in the world of spirit, can only be purchased in deep pain.

Whereas in the old days one acquired eternal happiness by the grace of God, now too often the eternal happiness seems to have become like an aged and infirm pensioner who sustains his life in the house of the rich on the wretched crust of poverty.

Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one's own self) when it is said of a man in despair, He is consuming himself. For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self.

Quise mantener mi sufrimiento oculto para entonces embellecer la vida a los demás.

Infinite humiliation and grace, and then a striving born of gratitude — this is Christianity.

vivir así, alegre y feliz, instante tras instante, siempre en virtud del absurdo; ver constantemente pender la espada sobre la cabeza de la persona amada, y sin embargo no encontrar reposo en el dolor de la resignación sino gozo en virtud del absurdo. Quien es capaz de obrar así es grande de verdad, un hombre sin par (…)

Mil gracias merece el que encontrándose con uno a quien han asaltado las tribulaciones de esta vida hasta dejarlo desnudo, le ofrece con la fuerza de sus palabras con qué cubrir su miseria.

A man can wish to slink away from many things in life, and he may even succeed, so that life's favored one can say in the last moment, "I slipped away from all the cares under which other men suffered." But if such a person wishes to bluster out of, to defy, or to slink away from remorse, alas, which is indeed the most terrible to say of him, that he failed, or — that he succeeded?

The truth is that to become a Christian is to become unhappy for this life. The situation is this: the more thou hast to do with God, and the more He loves thee, the more wilt thou become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life, the more thou wilt have to suffer in this life.

The most painful state of being is remembering the future.)

Søren Kierkegaard

Remember, one lives only once; if it is neglected, if you do not come to suffer, if you avoid it—it is eternally irreparable

To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself—this is the formula for all despair.

The truth is: to become a Christian is to become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life; the proportion is: the more you involve yourself with God and the more he loves you, the more you will become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life, the more you will come to suffer in this life

What is it to be God's elect ? It is to be denied in youth the wishes of youth, so as with great pains to get them fulfilled in old age.

In the New Testament Christ calls the Apostles and the disciples witnesses, requires them to witness to Him. Let us see now what is to be understood by this. These are men who by the renunciation of all things, in poverty, in lowliness, and thus ready for every suffering, were to go out into the world which expresses mortal hostility to the Christian way of life. This is what Christ calls witnesses and witnessing.

O God, You know me to be set in the midst of great peril. Grant me such strength of mind and body, that those evils which I suffer for my sins I may overcome through Thy assistance. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

God can cause us to forget all our toil and make us fruitful even in the land of our affliction. That

Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep. The pain has weaned me ... Into Thy hands, O Lord, into Thy hands ...

In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

When you pray for what you most want in the world, its opposite comes along with it. I was given a woman whom I truly loved and who truly loved me. The opposite side of such a love is the pain of its loss. I can only feel such pain today because until yesterday I knew that love.

The beautiful came to this city [Hollywood] in huge pathetic herds, to suffer, to be humiliated, to see the powerful currency of their beauty devalued like the Russian ruble or Argentine peso;to work as bellhops, as bar hostesses, as garbage collectors, as maids. The city was a cliff and they were its stampeding lemmings. At the foot of the cliff was the valley of the broken dolls.

And blessed be the first sweet suffering that I felt in being conjoined with love and the bow and the shafts with which I was pierced, and the wounds that run to the depths of my heart…" any man who loves this poem as I do, must be my master... And any man who feels as I do about these words must be my drinking companion.

After they stopped torturing him they locked him in the jail cell again and pretended they would forget him... Then, eventually, and unexpectedly, release. Into ignominy, oblivion, married life.