We tend to be compassionate to the extent that we have suffered the Passion in our own lives.

Our cup is often so full of pain that joy seems completely unreachable. When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone? We

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse.

Some people can be so disoriented to God that when he begins to work around them, they actually become annoyed at the interruption!

Christ will lead you into many situations that will seem impossible, but don't try to avoid them. Stay in the middle of them, for that is where you will experience God.

For the scene of suffering is a scene of joy when the suffering is past; and the silent reminiscence of hardships departed is sweeter than the presence of delight.

Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!

He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.

The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

Joy is in learning to say yes to what is and to surrender into flow with what is, even when it's what you don't want.