Suffering

"The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all – from the most simple task to the most complex. If you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others."

"When you suffer, think not on how you can escape suffering, but concentrate your efforts on what kind of inner moral and spiritual perfection this suffering requires."

"For men love one another with a spiritual love only when they have suffered the same sorrow together, when through long days they have ploughed the stony ground bowed beneath the common yoke of a common grief. It is then that they know one another and feel one another, and feel with one another. In their common anguish, they pity one another and they love one another. For to love goes with pity and if bodies are united by pleasure, souls are united by pain."

"... [M]uch suffering serves absolutely no function and entails no silver lining whatsoever, such as the suffering endured by countless individuals every second who are eaten alive while fully conscious and unable to escape, or the suffering entailed by debilitating chronic pain. The world contains vast amounts of such useless suffering, and we should all be able to agree that this suffering is worth preventing."

"Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand “under the shelter of the wall,” as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence. … It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought."

"Suffering is admittedly one of the central problems of human existence; but this is because we have a suspicion that it is all for nothing. If we had a certainty about meaning, the suffering would be bearable. With no certainty of meaning, even comfort begins to feel futile."

"He could afford to suffer With those whom he saw suffer."

"Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity."

"To each his suff'rings; all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise."

"Ho! why dost thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Grey? And why does thy nose look so blue?"

"And taste The melancholy joys of evils pass'd, For he who much has suffer'd, much will know."

"I have trodden the wine-press alone."

"Graviora quæ patiantur videntur jam hominibus quam quæ metuant."

"They, the holy ones and weakly, Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more!"

"It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

"Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim."

"Leniter ex merito quidquid patiare ferendum est, Quæ venit indigne pœna dolenda venit."

"Si stimulos pugnis cædis manibus plus dolet."

"Levia perpessi sumus Si flenda patimur."

"Those who inflict must suffer, for they see The work of their own hearts, and that must be Our chastisement or recompense."

"There's a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone."

"Can it be, O Christ in heaven, that the holiest suffer most, That the strongest wander furthest, and more hopelessly are lost?"

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Angers leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven."

"There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stoop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the least half of the lesson earth has to give."

"He knows the bitter, weary way, The endless striving day by day, The souls that weep, the souls that pray He knows! He knows! Oh thought so full of bliss! For though on earth our joy we miss, We still can bear it, feeling this,— He knows' He knows; O heart take up thy cross, And know earth's treasures are but dross, And He will prove as gain our loss! He knows."

"Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children; He chastens them in love; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise."

"Suffering is my gain; I bow To my Heavenly Father's will, And receive it hushed and still; Suffering is my worship now."

"Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys — sickness destroying the flavor of them all — did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him — this is all."

"Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them."

"The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face."

"In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation."