Everything has two handles,--one by which it may be borne another by which it cannot.

Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

What we desperately do want to avoid is not merely suffering but suffering without meaning.

Don Quixote was for Bonhoeffer an important picture of the human condition.

To renounce a full life and its real joys in order to avoid pain is neither Christian nor human.

Stifter once said, "Pain is a holy angel, who shows treasures to men which otherwise remain forever hidden; through him men have become greater than through all joys of the world.

If our suffering has a purpose, it is infinitely easier to bear than if our suffering has no purpose and no larger meaning. When a mother endures childbirth, she knows that it is leading to something life changing and glorious.

Bonhoeffer's experiences with African American community underscored an idea that was developing in his mind: the only real piety and power that he had seen in the American church seemed to be in the churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering.

Sometimes all we can do is trust that hardship is a path to peace.

Fireproof doesn't mean that a fire will never come, but that when it comes you'll be able to withstand it.

Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.