Popular quotes about Suffering! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 12
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering? No, it wouldn't. They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego-but not until you suffer consciously.
Eckhart TolleChristianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.
Timothy KellerStunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.
Leonard CohenSuffering increases your inner strength. Also, the wishing for suffering makes the suffering disappear.
Dalai LamaYour anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get relief. And if you continue with your practice of mindfulness, you understand the roots, the nature of the suffering, and you know the way to transform it.
Nhat HanhJesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.
Timothy KellerSomebody said to me the other day, 'You know, it's really senseless, what you're doing. There's always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you're just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].' My answer is, 'Okay, then, let's start with your grandchild. Don't buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don't take it to the hospital of it has an accident. It's against life-against humanity-to think that way.
Audrey HepburnI think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what Iโm doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say โok, here I am, Iโm going to experience the pain,โ you donโt suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.
Hubert Selby, Jr.In a train...smash. In his arm her last...breath.' He had loved her. But he hated himself more. Such suffering, so much pain. And he thought it made him hateful. As if suffering was shameful, disgusting, as if pain were a crime. Who can judge another man's suffering?
Janet FitchFaith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering. Where certain actions cause no suffering at all, religious dogmatists still maintain that they are evil and worthy of punishment. . . . And yet, where suffering and death are found in abundance their causes are often deemed to be good. . . . This inversion of priorities not only victimizes innocent people and squanders scarce resources; it completely falsifies our ethics.
Sam HarrisI would suggest that excellence occurs in direct proportion to necessary suffering, but in inverse proportion to unnecessary suffering or toxic stress. Connection is the best antidote to unnecessary suffering.
Edward HallowellOnce the awakening happens, with it comes the realization that suffering is unnecessary now. You have reached the end of suffering because you have transcended the world. It is the place that is free of suffering. This seems to be everybody's path. Perhaps it is not everybody's path in this lifetime, but it seems to be a universal path. Even without a spiritual teaching or a spiritual teacher, I believe that everybody would get there eventually. But that could take time.
Eckhart TolleThe dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust โ not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.
Brennan ManningAs a survival-happy species, our successes are calculated in the number of years we have extended our lives, with the reduction of suffering being only incidental to this aim. To stay alive under almost any circumstances is a sickness with us. Nothing could be more unhealthy than to โwatch oneโs healthโ as a means of stalling death. The lengths we will go as procrastinators of that last gasp only demonstrate a morbid dread of that event. By contrast, our fear of suffering is deficient.
Thomas LigottiIt would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road...A stone has no interests because it cannot suffer. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests - at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road because it will suffer if it is.
Peter SingerIn terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.
Richard RohrThe root of compassion is not empathy; that is kindness. Kindness is great, but it is not the ultimate compassion. Ultimate compassion relieves the suffering that comes from separateness. The suffering that comes from separateness is relieved only when you are fully present with another person, not when you are separately present.
Ram DassI think that melodrama is a safe way of suffering, because your suffering is fake. That's why I like melodrama.
Luis NegronEach creature walks a perfect earth. Each one gets the suffering and comfort that he needs. When ALL cravings and needs are satisfied, each bit of Soul, merges again with the One.The amount of joy and suffering in the world is always counterbalanced. One person's evil can terrify thousands, but one person's good can succour thousands too.
ZeinaThere is no physical punishment in chess; suffering goes on inside the mind. You defend a bad position for hours, you suffer. You lose, you suffer like in any other sport. Suffering euphoria comes when the opponent blunders in a winning position, but it is undeserved.
Lubomir KavalekTo the extent that our experience of suffering reminds us of what everyone else also endures, it serves as a powerful inspiration to practice compassion and avoid causing others pain. And to the extent that suffering awakens our empathy and causes us to connect with others, it serves as the basis of compassion and love.
Dalai LamaThe creative act is also in a small way a suffering act - we start out with our ego, this hope of making this thing whatever it be, but so often it eludes us and it collapses and we kind of regress into this mental suffering, we can't find what we're looking for.
Michael LeunigI am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims.
Peter SingerThe great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome our mental suffering...
Dalai LamaSuffering is only suffering if itโs done in silence, in solitude. Pain experienced in public, in view of loving millions, was no longer pain. It was communion.
Dave EggersThe children of God all have a cross to bear. A suffering Savior generally has suffering disciples.
J. C. RyleTo be willing to suffer in order to create is one thing; to realize that one's creation necessitates one's suffering, that suffering is one of the greatest of God's gifts, is almost to reach a mystical solution of the problem of evil.
J. W. N. SullivanMost people wish they could erase suffering out of the dictionary. Today's culture of comfort and instant gratification has no patience for suffering - most people want to drug it, escape it, divorce it; do anything but live with it.
Joni Eareckson TadaBy working to alleviate the suffering of animals you are working at the cause level of human suffering.
Sharon GannonPeople who make war in order to escape slavery may possibly win....This will doubtless bring death and suffering to thousands....But people who tamely allow slavery to be imposed on them without resorting to a defensive war are inevitably doomed to years of death and suffering-and far more of each than any war would bring to them....The army doesn't exist that can annihilate men in their own land-not if they love it sufficiently.
Kenneth RobertsThe whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor's edge of Now - to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now.
Eckhart TolleAt the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.
Arthur Conan DoyleIt is really rather foolish to so often feel we have to say something brilliant and enlightening to someone who is suffering. Job makes it clear that simple companionship is what suffering people often crave - not a course in philosophy.
Kathryn LindskoogI think most good poetry is about suffering; I think that's what underlies the love in these landays pieces - suffering and longing.
Eliza GriswoldPeople have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
Nhat HanhWhen we do not reject our suffering, or add anything to it, pain is simply pain. It is what we add to our pain that turns it into suffering.
Brenda ShoshannaI needed to understand this random bad bit of luck as part of a bigger design. Otherwise I was suffering meaninglessly. This made the suffering a lot worse.
Heidi JulavitsI saw the suffering and I let myself feel itโฆ I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a woman with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer.
Helen PrejeanSuffering itself is beloved: love and suffering are far closer to each other than love and pleasure.
Lydia MilletPain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.
Alan PatonPeace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.
Ralph BuncheThis is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.
Randy AlcornThe doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.
Henry David ThoreauIf God is treated as God during suffering, then suffering can reveal and present him in all his greatness.
Timothy Keller