If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You're going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It's like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people. And I think some suffering, maybe even intense suffering, is a necessary ingredient for life, certainly for developing compassion.

In each of us, there is an innate ability to create joy out of suffering, to find hope in the most hopeless of situations, and to heal any relationship in need of healing.

In Kaifi's poetry and in his work as a social activist, every setback only strengthened his resolve to fight back with renewed vigor and strength.

When I took the habit, the Lord immediately showed me how He favours those who do violence to themselves in order to serve Him. No one saw what I endured... At the moment of my entrance into this new state I felt a joy so great that it has never failed me even to this day; and God converted the dryness of my soul into a very great tenderness.

The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

If you ask me, the church needs a whole lot more grace addicts because grace has a name, and the name is Jesus.

Your Shepherd didn't just say you're going to the valley. He said you are going through the valley. In other words - you are going to make it.

Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered. Peter learned obedience by the things he suffered. Paul learned obedience by the things he suffered. What about you? Have you learned? Or are you hard, calloused, cold, bitter, and resentful? Then you did not learn obedience.

Be ye perfect is not... a command to do the impossible. [God] is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.

It doth not say, the Lord gives gifts and glory, but the Lord gives grace and glory; and blessed is such an one, to whom the Lord gives grace, true grace; for that is a certain forerunner of glory.

Every time he chooses character, he becomes stronger, even if that choice brings negative consequences.