quotations about suffering
Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound; each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
The Unquiet Grave
Affliction is a spiritual physic for the soul, and is compared to a furnace, for as gold is tried and purified therein, so men are proved and either purified from their dross, and fitted for good uses, or else entirely burnt up and undone forever.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Alas! fond child,
How are thy thoughts beguil'd
To hope for honey from a nest of wasps?
Thou may'st as well
Go seek for ease in hell,
Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps.
The world's a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
But case thou meet
Some petty-petty sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
All suffering contorts the countenance so woefully that the pain flies to the beholder likewise.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
ELIE WIESEL
Night
Troubles come to us like mire and filth; but, when mingled with the soil, they change to flower and fruit.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
To rest in your own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.
T. S. ELIOT
The Family Reunion
Your suffering is something you choose. Experience it fully. Without it you will not achieve personal growth and higher consciousness.
ERNIE J. ZELINSKI
The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness
Nothing brings suffering as does
the untamed, uncontrolled unattended and unrestrained heart.
That heart brings suffering.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Anguttara Nikaya
Trouble's made us kin.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.
SAUL BELLOW
"The Sealed Treasure", It All Adds Up
The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished, and glorified through the furnace of tribulation.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.
RAM DASS
One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
The role of the human brain was to rationalize suffering.
MAILE MELOY
"The Proxy Marriage", The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
Seek not life's jewels where the poppies grow,
Nor where Desire, all passion-poisoned, rears
Her luring domes, but in the heart of woe,
With shores far washed by sanctifying tears.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR
"Life's Jewels"
Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.
EPICTETUS
Discourses
No man ever grows to a full man's estate without the ministration of suffering.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
As one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less to hurt.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
Sick system built on suffering
Sick system built on pain
It's a bullet in the head
Of every happy boy and girl
NASUM
"Sick System"