The idea that "suffering is good for you, therefore you need to put up with the conditions we are laying upon you" is at best callous and patronizing. At worst it is unpardonable and abusive. Jesus himself, warning that suffering was bound to come, pronounced a solemn woe on the person through whom it came (Matt. 18:7). Life will throw quite enough problems at us without the church adding more while telling us sanctimoniously that it's good for us.

It is a tragedy to see the medical profession move from suicide prevention to suicide facilitation. The right-to-die movement presents euthanasia as compassionate. But disparaging human life as expendable is not compassionate. The term 'compassion' literally means 'to suffer with' (com=with, passion=suffer). True compassion means being willing to suffer on behalf of others, loving them enough to bear the burden of caring for them.

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

One can put up with the petty things that hardly cause any discomfort, but not with senseless, ubiquitous cruelty. It's perfectly simple—if other people are happy, we're happy too. The simplest equation in the world.

Only a piece of machinery could possibly carry all the world's pain. Only a machine, simple, effective and just. But if everything were to happen mechanically, our prayers wouldn't be needed.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. WILLIAM HAZLITT

Outrage is appropriate in response to genuine wrong, tears in response to grief, shock in response to unexpected disaster. We mustn't force ourselves to thank God for these things or we will be harder on ourselves and softer on evil than God is. It is not that even Christians need not give thanks for these things, but that Christians especially should not give thanks for them. We should always be as human as God made us.

I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you.

The place for the comforter is not that of one who preaches, but of the comrade who says nothing and prays to God about the matter. The biggest thing you can do for those who are suffering is not to talk platitudes, not to ask questions, but to get into contact with God, and the "greater work" will be done by prayer.