The worst that God does to His children is to whip them to heaven.

Affliction promotes holiness. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles!

A contented Christian does not seek to choose his cross but leaves God to choose for him. He is content with both for the kind and the duration. A contented spirit says, 'let God apply what medicine he pleases and let it remain as long as it will, I know that when it has done it's cure and eaten the venom of sin out of my heart, God will take it off again.

The holiness of the saints will not excuse them from sufferings.

The wisdom of God is seen in making the most desperate evils turn to the good of his children. As several poisonable ingredients, wisely tempered by the skill of the artist, make a sovereign medicine, so God makes the most deadly afflictions co-operate for the good of his children. He purifies them, and prepares them for heaven. 2 Cor 4: I7. These hard frosts hasten the spring flowers of glory.

Every cross, to a child of God, is like Paul's cross wind, which, though it broke the ship, it brought Paul to shore upon the broken pieces.

Affliction teaches what sin is. In the word preached, we hear what a dreadful thing sin is, that it is both defiling and damning, but we fear it no more than a painted lion; therefore God lets loose affliction, and then we feel sin bitter in the fruit of it. A sick-bed often teaches more than a sermon.

Affliction may leap on us as the viper did on Paul, but at last it shall be shaken off.

You can be discouraged by failure--or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success. On the far side.

Don't duck the most difficult problems. That just ensures that the hardest part will be left when you are most tired. Get the big one done - it's downhill from then on.

The secret of life is not in what happens to you. It is in what you do with it that happens to you.

The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.