After all, what is suffering but an awareness of suffering?

It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message of male initiation rites is LIFE – IS – HARD.

I don’t think it makes much difference what we’re recovering from, all suffering eventually points to the need for healing.

Were we incapable of empathy – of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own – then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is...

My life consists of two things,Pain and hardship that no one but me can describe,Love and joy that can only be mesured in who I am

Ethically, she couldn’t cause the suffering of any living thing. Logically, bacon cheeseburgers were delicious.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love. (157)

There are some wounds that one can heal only by deepening them and making them worse.

If all were perfect, what should we have to suffer from others for God’s sake? But God has so ordained, that we may learn to bear with one another’s burdens, for there is no man...

When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has...

the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will...

[The sound of the wind] was just more proof that the workings of the world were random, that beauty, like suffering, was meaningless, that human life was as pointless as waves on sand.

Resurrection hope turned those who believed it into a counter-empire, an alternative society that knew the worst that tyrants could do and knew that the true God had the answer.

onze aarde hangt niet voor niets scheef. Het is een ironische onderstreping van al het zijn op haar bodem. –it’s for a reason our earth is slanting. It’s an ironical emphasis of all being on...

Anna Petrovna: Do you know what, Kolya? Try and sing, laugh, get angry, as you once did… You stay in, we’ll laugh and drink fruit liqueur and we’ll drive away your depression in a flash....

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is...

Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves – mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about...

I had great pity on Ansje, because she always acted very happy, but I believed that it was really a front. I could see through it. Inside she was crying because she was really very...

Tears are the silent passion for suffering

I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I did not consider it advisable...

A thief is one who insists on sharing his victimhood.

Together we learned why God has given us His name as “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). His grace always proved itself sufficient in the moment of need, but never before the necessary time, and rarely afterwards....

Although we may wish for more or strive to do better than we have, in these times it is enough to keep your soul.

How can the most cruel and despicable create something as breathtaking beautiful as this?

Conversion can also occur among those who already have the faith. Christians will become real Christians, with less façade and more foundation. Catastrophe will divide them from the world, force them to declare their basic...

They suffer, of course… but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?

,Cómo voy asobrevivir a esta añoranza? ,Cómo lo hacen otros? La gente muereconstantemente. Todos los días. A todas horas. Hay familias por todo elmundo mirando camas donde ya no duerme nadie, zapatos que ya nadie...

He understood then that neither time nor distance had lessened his love for her.But was love that made him ache with suffering truly worth fighting for?

I don’t complain about the horror of life; I complain about the horror of my life. The only fact I worry about is that I exist and suffer and can’t even dream of being removed...

Until the Second Coming, sin will remain a part of earthly existence. And as long as there is sin, there will be suffering and pain. But suffering by persecution is not a sine qua non...

What ages you faster, suffering or experience?

True joy does not discount real suffering; it shines all the greater in the midst of it.

Because we suddenly see that making everything all right would NOT make everything all right. We would not be human beings. We would then be no more than puppets obeying the strings of the master...

If pain doesn’t lead to humility, you have wasted your suffering.

If ever in pain, I think the best thing we can do is to create something.

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:- I shall not fear anyone on Earth. – I shall fear only God. – I shall not bear ill...

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe

I have learnt that a good marriage is healing for the soul, something to relish. But a bad marriage is long-suffering, a thing to be endured. The only good thing about marriage is that it’s...

Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle...

Dear God,I hurt. Please hold me.Amen

That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example that it may be said that there was finally some...

But they both agreed that it’s always nice to know that your wife is desired by another man, although they wouldn’t go any further than that.

Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the...

If you suffer and make your loved ones suffer, there is nothing that can justify your desire.

Life is a form of continuous sufferings and lies.

But she was so happy in her gilded cage, wasn’t she? She ate well, slept well, enjoyed herself She lacked nothing. And then, look, a bunch of mental cases turn her away from her happiness...