When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.
- This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
- Besides what hope the never-ending flight
- Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
- Worth waiting--since our present lot appears
- For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
- If we procure not to ourselves more woe.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.
SAUL BELLOW, "The Sealed Treasure," It All Adds Up
Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.
You cannot insult a man more atrociously than by refusing to believe he is suffering.
CESARE PAVESE, This Business of Living, Oct. 5, 1938
The role of the human brain was to rationalize suffering.
MAILE MELOY, "The Proxy Marriage", The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
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