Quotes About Suffering

A stream that eats away the bank, Grows foul, and undermines the tree. So you would stain your honour, while You plunge me into misery.

Si tus ligaduras no son quebrantadas mientras vives ¿Qué esperanza de liberación puedes tener en la muerte?

Kako lahko nekdo, ki je v okovih, osvobodi okovanega ?loveka? Odrešitev pri?akuj le od nekoga, ki je že svoboden.

When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment about me: When I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its folds. So when I give up passion, I see that anger remains; And when I renounce anger, greed is still with me still; And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain; When the mind is detached and casts Maya away,still it clings to the latter. Kabir says, 'Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely found.

The world is dying, but knows none how to Die: But, whosoever knows how to Die, dies not again.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

permanent form of cruelty.

indifference to the sufferings one causes . . . is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty.

Isaac the Syrian warns us that God's wrath visits all who refuse the bitter cross of agony, the cross of active suffering, and who, striving after visions and special graces of prayer, waywardly seek to appropriate the glories of the Cross. He also says, "God's grace comes of itself, suddenly, without our seeing it approach. It comes when the place is clean." Therefore, carefully, diligently, constantly clean the place; sweep it with the broom of humility.

The power of God is shown, not so much in his creation of the world or in any of his miracles, but rather in the fact that out of love God has "emptied himself" (Phil. 2:7), has poured himself out in generous self-giving, by his own free choice consenting to suffer and to die. And this self-emptying is a self-fulfillment: kenosis is plerosis.

The old men used to say that we should each of us look upon our neighbor's experiences as if they were our own. We should suffer with our neighbor in everything and weep with him, and should behave as if we were inside his body; and if any trouble befalls him, we should feel as much distress as we would for ourselves"21 (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers). All this is true, precisely because man is made in the image of God the Trinity.

I think Shehnaz was right. In the end it wasn't about the Poet, or me or anyone. It was about a minute, five minutes, ten minutes in which she believed, with utter certainty, that she simply could not endure any more.' It seemed impossible, already, to have denied this truth for so long.

In his prison poems, the bars on his windows are merely the grid through which he sees shooting stars, each lash of a whip is a reminder of the insecurity of tyrants, and a rumour that orders for his execution have been dispatched is reason to weep for the executioner.

Men know nothing of inevitable pain.

Life punishes us for forgetting when we should remember, sleeping when we should be awake. As we sleep – a metaphor for unconscious living and lack of awareness – black snakes of negative, hurtful thoughts and feelings slither into our bodies and our brains, multiply due to our lack of attention, and wreak havoc with our peace. Looking at it another way, we all house black snakes in our bodies and minds that only suffering can bring to consciousness and expel.

Aquel que busca ayuda se convierte en esclavo y el que se da a los demás queda prisionero de su propio afecto, El que acata las reglas de este mundo sufre en consecuencia, pero el que no lo hace se nos presenta como un loco. Donde sea que vivamos y hagamos lo que hagamos, ¿es posible acaso que por un solo instante hallemos cómo descansar nuestro cuerpo y cómo apaciguar nuestro corazón?

Masses of Iraqis keep on dying for no palpably tangible reason that they can so much as identify to themselves, far less anyone else. Why?

Gone was the slightest implication of compassion if it had ever existed before. "I have seen young boys burned alive," he said. "I have seen Iranian and Iraqi boys tearing each other literally with their nails and teeth. It is raging hate against raging hate.

I once believed man was different from other animals, but Yodok showed me that reality doesn't support this opinion. In the camp, there was no difference between man and beast, except maybe that a very hungry human was capable of stealing food from its little ones while an animal, perhaps, was not.

The negative turned positive, black misery sublimated into heightened consciousness, suffering into solidarity!

Only around 1983 did I begin to realize that not he but rather Kim Il-sung and his regime were the real causes of my suffering. They were the ones responsible for the camp and for filling it with innocent people. All during my childhood, Kim Il-sung had been like a god to me. A few years in the camp cured me of my faith.

A clear-eyed view of the hell I had landed in certainly would have thrown me deeper into despair. There is nothing like thought to deepen one's gloom.