To have the opportunity to know your parents is to have the opportunity to truly know yourself.

What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?” the crisis has already begun. Conversion becomes possible the very moment a man ceases to blame God or life and begins to blame himself;...

When you leave home to follow your dreams, your road will probably be riddled with potholes, not always paved in happy Technicolor bricks. You’ll probably be kicked to the ground 150 million times and told...

Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame… at your past, which naturally has a...

Don’t know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.

She looks very virtuous and very melancholy.””Virtue is like the precious odors, most fragrant when it is crushed.

In the midst of hardship, it was the music that restored my soul.

Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.

Those who were raised in poverty and have been successful to overcome the shame of it, understands the hardship of those who are left behind.

I will never forget the hardship that begets wisdom.

Why is it we must suffer the loss of something so dear before we realize what a treasure we had?Why must the sun be darkened before we feel how genuinely impossible it is to live...

The intellect of man is forced to choosePerfection of the life, or of the workAnd if it take the second must refuseA heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

The war had made some into libertines and some into serious, sober men.

Love is not possession, it is acceptance of everything without intention. Fear is not possession, it is acceptance of everything without mention. The act of loving your fear, to nurture this insecurity for a greater...

A dog’s spirit dies hard.

The smaller you get—the smaller life makes you—the easier it is to see the grandeur of grace. While I am far more incapable than I may have initially thought, God is infinitely more capable than...

You can’t just sit in a corner weeping or you’ll die.

Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a...

Living is getting knocked down time and again, then standing up time and again, and once more. It’s easy to act honorable when things are coming along and all your pastures are green. Plenty difficult...

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

Individuals who have learned to endure and persevere through the storms of hardships are those who can dance in the rain during a storm.

What I want to impart through our correspondence is that no matter what anyone may be going through, here’s the thing: If you love each other, and if your relationship is worth the pain or...

Life’s gonna kick you in the butt.That’s what it does. But if you gotta put up with this crap, the least you can expect is that your friends will stand by you. I mean, for...

It’s not about getting over things, it’s about making room for them. It’s about painting the picture with contrast.

(…) poucas vezes a gente encontra pessoas cuja alegria não seja somente digestiva.

Sometimes I was too tired,other times just lazy. Now and then, I was frustrated because nothing seemed to be happening – nosigns from God, no enlightenment, nothing. But that wasn’t the point, the Shaykh explained....

it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at...