Quotes
Quotes about Suffering
Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it "joy"?.
If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself as our own spirit of resistance to it.
Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: It was only in the light of Easter that the disciples understood Jesus' work and intention; they now realized that the Messiah had to undergo rejection and suffering, that he was to conquer not Rome but death and evil. We have no reason to mistrust the New Testament assurance. The Easter message and the historical Jesus are joined by a bridge resting on many piers. Jesus proclaimed the good news of the presence of God who, like a forgiving father, seeks his lost children and grants even sinners the company of the Redeemer; the disciples preached the Gospel of Christ, who appeared as saviour and died on the cross for sinners. In the Holy Spirit Jesus drove out unclean spirits and conquered Satan; from Easter onwards he was extolled as the Lord of all spirits, who gives the Holy Spirit to believers and in him is ever present with them.
Like many of the leaders and teacher [in the church], perhaps I failed to prepare people for the way of suffering. I had not suffered much myself and did not help people to be ready for it. But the fact is: when you follow Jesus, what happened to Him happens to you.
Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of v. 18] The glory to come far outweighs the affliction of the present. The affliction is light and temporary when compared with the all-surpassing and everlasting glory. So Paul, writing against a background of recent and (even for him) unparalleled tribulation, had assured his friends in Corinth a year or two before this that 'this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison' (2 Cor 4:17). It is not merely that the glory is a compensation for the suffering; it actually grows out of the suffering. There is an organic relation between the two for the believer as surely as there was for the Lord.
Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of vv. 29,30] The call intended is the effectual call of the Holy Spirit, by which the soul is renewed and translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. The only evidence of election is therefore vocation, and the only evidence of vocation, is holiness of heart and life, for we are called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Compare again Romans 8:29, where believers are said to be "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." To this they are effectually called. They are made like Christ. Fellowship includes union and communion. We are called to be partakers of Christ; partakers of his life, as members of his body; and herefore, partakers of his character, of his sufferings here and of his glory hereafter.
The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose: the world is run by causes, not by purposes.
The symbol of the New Testament and the Christian Church is a cross, which stands for a love faithful despite physical agony and rejection by the world. No amount of air-conditioning and pew-cusioning in the suburban church can cover over the hard truth that the Christian life... is a narrow way of suffering; that discipleship is costly: that, for the faithful, there is always a cross to be carried. No one can understand Christianity to its depths who comes to it to enjoy it as a pleasant weekend diversion.
Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 God is often faulted for creating a world full of suffering and evil. The issue is complex, both philosophically and theologically; but surely it is inappropriate to blame God for a problem He did not initiate, and [that is] in fact, one which He has sought to alleviate, at great cost to Himself. God sent His Son to inaugurate the Kingdom and to "destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14). God is not the cause of suffering and sickness; He is its cure! Jesus' ministry and death guarantee this.
Never again are we to look at the stars, as we did when we were children, and wonder how far it is to God. A being outside our world would be a spectator, looking on but taking no part in this life, where we try to be brave despite all the bafflement. A god who created, and withdrew, could be mighty, but he could not be love. Who could love a God remote, when suffering is our lot? Our God is closer than our problems, for they are out there, to be faced; He is here, beside us, Emmanuel.
It is possible that for a Jew nothing more was required than the assurance that his sins were 'remitted', 'blotted out'; he might thereafter feel himself automatically restored to the relation of favour on God's part and confidence on his own, which was the hereditary prerogative of his people. But it was different with those who could claim no such prerogative, and with those Jews who had become uneasy as to the grounds of such a relation and their validityâin a word, with any who had been led by conscience to take a deeper view of the consequences of sin. So long as these were found mainly in punishment, suffering, judgment, so long 'remission of sins'âletting off the consequencesâmight suffice. But when it was recognized that sin had a far more serious consequence in alienation from God, the severing of the fellowship between God and His children, then Justification... ceased to be sufficient. 'Forgiveness' took on a deeper meaning; it connoted restoration of the fellowship, the establishment or reestablishment of a relation which could be described on the one side as fatherly, on the other as filial.
I cannot answer all the curious questions of the brain concerning prayer and law, not half of them, indeed, and I will not attempt to; but I will cast my anchor here in this revealing fact, that He, the Holiest of the Holy and the Wisest of the Wise, He prays. Therefore I am assured that this anchorage of Divine example will hold the vessel in the tossings of the wildest sea of doubt, and I shall be as safe as He was, if the vessel itself is engulfed in the waves of suffering and sorrow. His act is an argument. His prayer is an inspiration. His achievements are the everlasting and all-sufficient vindication of prayer.
If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
Now conscience wakes despair That slumber'd, wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue!
I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by living, by losing.
Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.
The whole of what we know is a system of compensations. Each suffering is rewarded; each sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -Helen Keller.
How far must suffering and misery go before we see that even in the day of vast cities and powerful machines, the good earth is our mother and that if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves?
Suffering brings experience.
Men ought to be most annoyed by the sufferings which come from their own faults.] [Lat., Ea molestissime ferre homines debent quae ipsorum culpa ferenda sunt.]
The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.
Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys. -Alphonse de Lamartine.
