this too shall pass

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

The only difference between stepping stones and stumbling blocks is the way we address the rocks cast into our path.

When you have His joy in your heart, it doesn't necessarily mean your pain or hurt will be taken away. It means you'll be able to bear it.

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.

The love of flowers is a consequence of modesty and an accommodation with disappointment. Some things need to go permanently wrong before we can start to admire the stem of a rose or the petals of a bluebell.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

It is worth pointing out that feeling things (which usually means feeling them painfully ) is at some level linked to the acquisition of knowledge.

I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.

Those sentimental radio hits, with their artificial naivete and empty crudities, are the pitiful remains and the maximum that people will tolerate by way of mental effort; it's a ghastly desolation and impoverishmment. By contrast, we can be very glad when something affects us deeply, and regard the accompanying pains as an enrichment.