373 Quotes Tagged: suffering

What I hoped was to raise up for the poor and the untaught a friend out of their own midst, some one who had gone through all that they suffer, who was accustomed to earn her own living by the work of her hands as they do, who had never thought herself their better, who saw the world as they see it and knew all their wants. A lady may do good, we know that; but she can’t be the friend of the poor as I understand it; there’s too great a distance between her world and theirs.

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

I knew this guy he'd been in a motorcycle accident and it really ruined him and he was a linesman working on the power
and he was working with someone who had Parkinsons so they both had complimentary inadeqacies and so two of them could do the job of one person
so they're out there fixing powerlines in the freezing cold despite the fact that one was three quarters wrecked and the other one had Parkinsons

That's how our civilization works, there's all these ruined people out there they've got problems like you can't believe,
off they go to work to do things they don't even like and look!
The Lights Are On

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.

Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them.

If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.

Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold.

Sometimes life hurts.
We suffer. We heal. We move on.
But sometimes life hits back. Harder.
Lethal in its cruelty.
Shattering us into a million glittering shards
of pain and loss and anguish.
And we suffer, too broken to heal,
to become what we once were.
So we learn to live
with the shards of pain and loss and anguish
forever embedded in our souls,
and with shaking fingers we piece together
the bloody fragments of who we were
into a mosaic grotesque in its stark reality,
exquisite in its sharp-edged story
of the tragic, breathless beauty of a
human who survived life.
And we move on, often unaware
of the light glittering behind us
showing others the way
through the darkness.

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.

"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 fa

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

I know i am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.

Hard times are a-coming, and people without useful, practical skills are going to suffer. Or suffer most.

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 continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.

Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all; and further, that unavoidable suffering — such as hunger in times of an unavoidable shortage of food — should be distributed as equally as possible.

"O große Lieb, o Lieb ohn alle Maße,
Die dich gebracht auf diese Marterstraße!
Ich lebte mit der Welt in Lust und Freuden,
Und du mußt leiden.

O great love, o love beyond measure,
that brought You to this path of martyrdom!
I lived with the world in delight and joy,
and You had to suffer.

BWV 245 - "Johannes-Passion"
Oratorio for Good Friday, 3. Chorale."