SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: SUFFERING

  • As for the outside cross, it is any affliction that the faithful endures for the sake of God, either of his own will or imposed on him.

    —Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. 1

  • And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves;

    —Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life

  • “If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn’t have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought.”

    —Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

  • Both spiritual knowledge and health are good by nature, yet their contraries have been of more benefit to many people.

    —St. Maximos the Confessor, Four-Hundred Texts on Love

  • Sometimes men are tested by pleasure, sometimes by distress or by physical suffering. By means of His prescriptions the Physician of souls administers the remedy according to the cause of the passions lying hidden in the soul.

    —St. Maximos the Confessor, Four-Hundred Texts on Love

  • To those who suppose that they can only progress in the spiritual life when all else is “well,” St. John Cassian replies, “You should not think that you can find virtue when you are not irritated — for it is not in your power to prevent troubles from happening. Rather, you should look for patience as the result of your own humility and longsuffering, for patience does depend upon your own will” (Institutes). Towards the end of his life, St. Seraphim of Sarov suffered from open ulcers on his legs. “Yet,” as his Life tells us, “in appearance he was always bright and cheerful, for in spirit he felt that heavenly peace and joy which are the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints.”

    —Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, ILLNESS AND THE WORK OF PERFECTION

  • If only we could go back and do something differently, perhaps we would feel differently right now. But perhaps not. If things unfolded differently, we may be suffering a different hurt, and wish for that to be different.

    On moving things forward
    Madeleine Dore

  • Remembered suffering never feels as bad as present suffering.

    —Sally Rooney

  • St. Paul did not find his joy in ideal circumstances, but he found his joy in winning others to Christ.

    —Fr. Paul Girguis


  • “How close God is to us when we come to recognize and to accept our abjection and to cast our care entirely upon HIm! Against all human expectation He sustains us when we need to be sustained, helping us to do what seemed impossible. We learn to know Him, now, not in the ‘presence’ that is found in abstract consideration – a presence in which we dress Him in our own finery – but in the emptiness of a hope that may come close to despair. For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair when, instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on the air. Hope is always just about to turn into despair, but never does so, for at the moment of supreme crisis God’s power is suddenly made perfect in our infirmity. So we learn to expect His mercy almost calmly when all is most dangerous, to seek Him quietly in the face of peril, certain that He cannot fail us though we may be upbraided by the just and rejected by those who claim to hold the evidence of His love.”

    —Thomas Merton