The heathen spirit is wingless. It cannot lift itself to heights from which the totality of being is visible, and it therefore loses itself in details.
Sholem AschAn illness is like a journey into a far country; it sifts all one's experience and removes it to a point so remote that it appears like a vision.
Sholem AschYouth has the resilience to absorb disaster and weave it into the pattern of its life, no mater how anguishing the thorn that penetrates its flesh.
Sholem Asch