Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.
HomerWhat greater glory attends a man than what he wins with his racing feet and his striving hands?
Homer...if fifty bands of men surrounded us/ and every sword sang for your blood,/ you could make off still with their cows and sheep.
HomerBut you, Achilles,/ There is not a man in the world more blest than you--/ There never has been, never will be one./ Time was, when you were alive, we Argives/ honored you as a god, and now down here, I see/ You Lord it over the dead in all your power./ So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.โ I reassured the ghost, but he broke out protesting,/ โNo winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!/ By god, Iโd rather slave on earth for another man--/ Some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep aliveโthan rule down here over all the breathless dead.
Homer