God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.
-William Nicholson
"Shadowlands"
Quotations
Suffering
Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.
-Tennessee Williams
The more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect His people.
-Thomas Guthrie
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.
-Charles Dickens
"Great Expectations"
It's easy to look at people and make quick judgements about them, their present and their pasts, but you'd be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceburg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it's lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul.
-Sherrilyn Kenyon
"Acheron"
The end is the beginning of all things, suppressed and hidden, awaiting to be released through the rhythm of pain and pleasure… Pain itself destroys pain. Suffering itself frees man from suffering.
-J. Krishnamurti "J. Krishnamurti"
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.
-Paulo Coelho
Suffering is a journey which has an end.
-Matthew Fox
I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.
-Colette
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
