Suffering Quotes - Page 2

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. As I anticipated suffering in my imagination and thought of what these cruel soldiers would do next, I quivered with fear. I broke out in a cold sweat of horror. As I heard them drive into our village, day or night, my mouth would go dry: my heart would miss a beat. Fear gripped me in an awful vice. But when the moment came for action, He gave me a quiet, cool exterior that He used to give others courage too: He filled me with a peace and an assurance about what to say or do that amazed me and often defeated the immediate tactics of the enemy.

Helen Roseveare

That morning set in motion a series of events that caused me to wrestle with questions of God’s goodness.

K. Howard Joslin

The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering.

Oswald Spengler

That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self — struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence — you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself. The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

Ted Hughes

I don't feel like I can change the world. I don't even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering.

Somaly Mam

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.

Gary Snyder

I saw that she didn't want to answer that question and so I asked again: when mouths close it's because there's something important to be said.

Paulo Coelho

The undisciplined mind confuses misfortune with mistakes.

Mark Caney

When you come to a place where you have to left or right,' says Sister Ruth, 'go straight ahead.

Kathleen Norris

Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've run out of chances for happiness

Orhan Pamuk

You are certainly unique. Everyone is unique. Nobody has ever suffered quite like you before because nobody has ever been you before.

Robertson Davies

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

Langston Hughes

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

A.W. Tozer

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 to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.

Charlotte Brontë

I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one... That is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.

Mother Teresa

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.

Oswald Chambers

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

Nancy Farmer

As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.

Virginia Woolf

No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it’s only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying, once gone, what is left is only an object.

Diana Gabaldon

This last week has been a little hell for both of us simply because I didn't understand my own feelings. And because I can't understand them, I blame her for provoking in me feelings that make my world seem suddenly unsafe.

Paulo Coelho

The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of "mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indication that one is starting to realize that life lived outside unity consciousness is ultimately painful, distressing, and sorrowful. The life of boundaries is a life of battles—of fear, anxiety, pain, and finally death. It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions, and enchantments that we agree not to question our illusory boundaries, the root cause of the endless wheel of agony. But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail their soothing and concealing purpose. As a consequence, we begin to suffer in one way or another, because our awareness is finally directed toward the conflict-ridden nature of our false boundaries and the fragmented life supported by them.

Ken Wilber

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God actually rises up storms of conflict in relationships at times in order to accomplish that deeper work in our character. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength. This is graduate-level grace. Are you willing to enter this school? Are you willing to take the test? If you pass, you can expect to be elevated to a new level in the Kingdom. For He brings us through these tests as preparation for greater use in the Kingdom. You must pass the test first.

A.W. Tozer

The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.

Ally Condie

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way un which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity -even under the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not".

Viktor E. Frankl

We are breeding creatures incapable of surviving in any place other than the most artificial settings. We have focused the awesome power of modern genetic knowledge to bring into being animals that suffer more.

Jonathan Safran Foer

What is heroic is not making life any harder that it has to be.

Marty Rubin

Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life.

Rachel Naomi Remen

I know that suffering is one place where He ministers to us the most. So to think that we've had our quota would be foolish. I am just longing for the day when all the pain stops.

Mary Beth Chapman

It's hard to know, isn't it, whether the things we face are just because the world is full of sin and sinful people, or if God is working out a plan,' Grandma continued. 'I happen to think it's both. There's sin, but through it all, He takes the mess we make and paints a masterpiece. In fact, I'm quite certain that before God can ever bless a woman—and use her to impact many—He uses the hammer, the file, and the furnace to do a holy work.

Tricia Goyer

God pours out his choicest blessings on those who are anxious that nothing shall stick to their hands. Individuals who value the rainy day above the present agony of the world will get no blessing from God.

William MacDonald

By looking to the Source, to the Creator of nature, we can remember how to navigate life organically, with less struggle, and less suffering.

Jeffrey R. Anderson

You are enjoying the gift of genius. When ordinary people are confronted with multiple tragedies, the pain scarcely increases. They simple can't feel the extra burdens. But you have a greater capacity for suffering.

Vernor Vinge

Straight tribulation is easier to bear than tribulation which advertises itself as pleasure.

C.S. Lewis

...it was inevitable I loved you - we were soul mates - for the same reason, we were fated to suffer...

John Geddes

When you observe that the fire in your room is getting dull, you do not always put on more coal, but simply stir with the poker; so God often uses the black poker of adversity in order that the flames of devotion may burn more brightly.

Arthur W. Pink

The world is already yours - why try to conquer it?

Rasheed Ogunlaru

The soul that loves and suffers is in the sublime state.

Victor Hugo

Just because a person successfully steers a voyage through hell doesn't mean he ever wants to sail that route again.

Richelle E. Goodrich

...everything I treasure is broken - it's of no use to anybody but me...

John Geddes

Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about

John Green

We come to the end of suffering, through suffering.

T. Scott McLeod

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

John Green

...love is suffering - that's the happy ending...

John Geddes

it seemed to him that no matter what evils a man had committed, making him suffer purely for the sake of suffering was pointless. It didn't undo the harm he had wrought; it didn't please anyone or improve anyone's life.

Kim Fielding

And you thought: they're used to it. But that was how those who suffered less always thought about those who suffered more, that they were used to it, that they no longer felt it as you did. Nobody ever got used to it. All they learned to do was to stop letting it show.

James Meek

...you go back to liberate the captives and sadly realize, some want to remain tied down in the cave...

John Geddes

This was too much for him to handle. It was like watching memories of his life play out from a different camera angle, sometimes with new scenes added. He was living DVD extras.

Dennis Sharpe

...the real absurdity is that to love is to suffer, but the reverse isn't always true...

John Geddes

Why does it hurt so much? Why does it have to hurt?

Zoë Marriott

...it's always somebody's fault - I blame you for my helpless love - do you think I chose this? Your beauty compelled me...

John Geddes

This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those oozing walls, --what declaimers!

Victor Hugo

...you can't rationalize suffering - it's indeterminate - the real unknowable variable God substitutes in...

John Geddes

in my cowardice I became at once a man, and did what all we grown men do when face to face with suffering and injustice; I preferred not to see them

Marcel Proust

It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you.

John Green

The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast...The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God...Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

C.S. Lewis

For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight. The water falls , drop after drop after drop, like the second hand of a watch, carving up time. The shock of each individual drop is insignificant, but the sensation is impossible to ignore. At first, one might manage to think about other things, but after five hours, after ten hours, it becomes unendurable. The repeated stimulation excites the nerves to a point where they literally explode, and every sensation in the body is absorbed into that one spot on the forehead---indeed, you come to feel that you are nothing but a forehead, into which a fine needle is being forced millimeter by millimeter. You can’t sleep or even speak, hypnotized by a suffering that is greater than any mere pain. In general, the victim goes mad before a day has passed.

Yōko Ogawa

She would have thought that working and living in continuous happiness, harmony, and security day after day would lead to mental lethargy, that her writing would suffer from too much happiness, that she needed a balanced life with down days and miseries to keep the sharp edge on her work. But the idea that an artist needed to suffer to do her best work was a conceit of the young and inexperienced. The happier she grew, the better she wrote.

Dean Koontz

Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ's Cross at the center of that history? . . . But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and--to repeat once again--Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man's lot and participates in his destiny.

John Paul II

I love my mother.My mother loves my dad.Those two facts are undeniable.I want my father to live.I want him to fight to live as long as he can.My mother wants to let him pass.She does not want him suffering anymore.She says that I am not there in the middle of the night at home, when he begs her to let him die.I say that he should not be taking the medicine that the doctor is prescribing, that it made Mike Tyson want to eat his opponents young.

JohnA Passaro

The acts of daily forbearance, the headache, or toothache, or heavy cold; the tiresome peculiarities of husband or wife, the broken glass...all of these sufferings, small as they are, if accepted lovingly, are most pleasing to God's Goodness.

Francis de Sales

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Suffering Quotes - Page 2

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