Sufferance

“ Oh! suffering world, Oh! known and unknown of my common flesh, Caught in this common net of death and woe, And life which binds to both! I see, I feel The vastness of the agony of earth, The vainness of its joys, the mockery Of all its best, the anguish of its worst; Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age, And love in loss, and life in hateful death, And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke Men to their wheel again to whirl the round Of false delights and woes that are not false. ”

“ And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven
To misery's brink,
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink! ”

“ Therese I begin to understand more and more the source of your surprising strength in pain, and suffering, for what can be impossible to one who leans on God Almighty's power, living in the loving consciousness of His abiding presence in the soul? ”

“ But God sends us suffering also because "He longs to give us a magnificent reward." What is this reward? "He knows that suffering is the only means of preparing us to know Him as He knows Himself, and to become ourselves divine." ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, has impressed me so deeply as the clear view I have of almost all, if not quite the whole, of the suffering I have witnessed being the consequence of vice or ignorance. But when my heart has sickened at the sight, and at the thought of so much gratuitous pain, it has grown strong again in the reflection that, if unnecessary, this misery is temporary,—that the true ground of mourning would be if the pain were not from causes which are remediable. ”

“ Suffering is birth, suffering is old age, suffering is sickness, suffering is death. O thirst to be led from birth to birth! Thirst for power, thirst for pleasure, thirst for being, thirsts that are the source of all suffering! O evil thirsts, the saint knows you not, the saint who extinguishes his desires, the saint who knows the noble eight-fold path. ”

“ So that suffering, physical and spiritual, is the cry for mercy from the depths of transgression, and is the sign of hope and the assurance of a "present help in time of need," unless the desire of sufferers exceeds the measure of the divine and human compassion. ”

“ What gnawing grief, what hidden sorrows have you not been called upon to endure, from the death of your mother to the birth of your child! Who would ever believe such ills could reach one so envied, so admired, and so calculated to enjoy and impart happiness to others?"
"Oh, my lord, there are some sorrows so deep, so unapproachable, that for worlds we would not even have them suspected; and the severest increase of suffering would arise from the very doubt of our being the enviable creatures we are believed to be." ”

“ The body by the mind being thus stripped For glory of much suffering, and the bliss Which they shall win—say holy books—whose woe Shames gods that send us woe, and makes men gods Stronger to suffer than hell is to harm. Whom sadly eyeing spake our Lord to one, Chief of the woe-begones: "Much-suffering sir These many moons I dwell upon the hill— Who am a seeker of the Truth—and see My brothers here, and thee, so piteously Self-anguished; wherefore add ye ills to life Which is so evil?" ”

“ Behold, I God, have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer if they would repent, but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit. ”

“ Such was the mystical explanation of that election of suffering, the raison d’etre of that being who was so harshly separated from her fellows, weighed down by disease, transformed into the pitiable field of every human affliction. ”

“ But we can bear each day and night of pain, only by taking each by itself. We can break each rod, but not the bundle.” And the sufferer, in real great suffering, is well described as turning to the wall in blank despair, when he looks too far on. ”

“ She ventures sadly to assure him of the harsh necessities of life: "Courage, child! Every one must take his share of suffering. Shift not thy body so vehemently. Pain, taken quietly, is easier to bear." ”

“ I am so weary of the Curse of Living The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears. Surely, if life were any God's free giving, He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears. Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying, Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past. ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ Beloved sufferings, which, in depriving me of all human aids, restore me to God, and render him mine only resource in all my sorrows! Precious afflictions, which in turning me aside from all creatures, are the cause that I now become the continual object of the remembrance and of the mercies of my Lord! ”

“ It is true, that God has given us multiply’d and various instances, in the last stages of his servants in most ages, both of triumphant superiority to sickness, pain and death in some: of holy mourning, deep abasement, and patient resignation, in others: and there have been those likewise, whose last ♦sicknesses have been such times of painful purgation from human foibles, and sore conflict from diabolical temptations, that the utmost they have been able to do, has been to abide in the furnace; till patience having had its perfect work, they just stept from the cross—to the crown! ”

“ When you find yourself suddenly precipitated into an abyss of moral suffering, after the terrible shock which stuns, which bruises even the most delicate fibres of your heart, that which is, above all, most frightful, is this sudden night, black and profound, of the soul, which does not permit one to see even the thousand wounds by which it is torn. ”

“ But of her far keener suffering, for the loss she had sustained, little shew was made; for real misery delights not in reproaches and complaints. It is like charity and love—silent, long suffering and mild. ”

“ To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits! ”

“ But this sparkling sensibility to one struggling under infirmity, or with grief or poverty, is very dreadful. The soul is too nicely and keenly hinged to be wrenched without mischief. How it shrinks, like a hurt child, from all that is vulgar, harsh and crude! ”

“ That night he crept into his bed to the stillness of the black room, to suffer a long hour that first overwhelming anguish that can only be suffered once, that no other suffering can compare to, that is complete, because the knowledge of other suffering has not yet come, and he who suffers suffers alone. ”

“ The suffering is there and must be borne; the work, whatever it is, is being done; the transformation is being effected. Do you want your beloved to suffer instead of you, or simply because you are suffering? ”

“ Open the pages of history, look around you in the present day, and you will see a thousand-fold sufferings, unmerited sufferings, which, after a long agony lead—to despair. But another, a happier life! ”

“ I must be pardoned for giving these distressing details; but how otherwise can I depict the misery, moral and physical, which we are enduring? And with it all, I dare not venture to hope that we have reached the climax of our sufferings. ”

“ Do we indeed suffer all the sorrows and uncertainties of life,—do we indeed strive, and endure, and struggle,—do we, indeed, learn to labour and to wait, to bear the burden of the day and the torture of the night, for no other purpose, with no other prospect, than when the brief fever is over, to pass away into nothingness? ”

“ I have been shot at, pursued, hunted like a wild beast, and exposed to disease, and pain, and extreme weakness—whilst I was, unless at intervals, denied the voice that soothes, the truth that cheers, and the looks of sympathy that mitigate in the extremest suffering ”

“ All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed, Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, Ends:—Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed, Return to whence they came—with like intent, And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent, Wax grey and ghastly, withering ere their time, And perish with the reed on which they leant; Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were formed to sink or climb. ”

“ Surely, however broad the view we take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old and common sorrow;—the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. ”

“ It may be more difficult to formulate that species of anguish in words, and it may seem a less positive and substantial grief than some others, but the plagues of the soul are real tortures, and I set few sufferings above them, few difficulties and few pains beyond those that have their source not in the outward dispensation of events, but in the inward conditions of our physical and moral constitutions. ”

“ Possibility of the Spirit Suffering: It is just as real, this suffering of the spirit for the violation of the moral law, as the suffering of physical pain that comes from the violation of some physical law. The mind no less than the body may be hurt, wounded as deeply as the body, and carry its scars as the evidence of its wounds as long. Mental suffering is as real and poignant as physical pain ”

“ Don't you think we make more of suffering than there's any need for? Suffering is nothing much—except, I suppose, the suffering that comes from want. That's tragic. But physical pain—and the things we call trials—are nothing so terrible if you know the right way to bear them. ”

“ Do you wish to see the Prophets and servants of God imprisoned, bound in chains, and sacrificed in blood? When you are brought face to face with suffering, you see nothing in it that is desirable, then why cultivate a morbid desire for suffering? ”

“ No circle in any hell would have contained more concentrated suffering than was crowded into his every conscious moment—horrible, brute, physical suffering, tearing at every nerve, suffering that degraded him, that left him no humanity. ”

“ How sick we turn—it is not there! And this torment we must undergo daily, till a kind Providence guides that long-desired letter to our hands—too often, when it comes, the bearer of ill-tidings, of change, of sickness, of death. ”

“ Kill not for food, and where Necessity Demands the sacrifice of sentient life, Kill with all kindness and with due regard To Physical—and Mental—feelings. Pain Is a nerve-racking, dread experience, Especially unto the dumb Creation, Who cannot question, yet are forced to bear That dread experience, all unwillingly. ”

“ See if you can go through the day carrying your load of sorrow, or disappointment or chagrin, with so serene a face that the sick for whom you are caring will not suspect that you have a burden at all. ”

“ Cessation of suffering is simultaneous with extinction of lust, craving, and desire (p. 139) . 4. Extinction of lust, craving, and desire, and cessation of suffering are 44 accomplished by perseverance in the noble eightfold path (ariyo aṭṭhangiko maggo) , viz. right belief or views (sammā diṭṭhi) , right resolve (saṅkappo) , right speech, right work (kammanto) , right livelihood (ājīvo) , right exercise or training (vāyāmo = vyāyāma) , right mindfulness (sati, p. 50) , right mental concentration (samādhi) .
And how is all life mere suffering (I.6.19) ?—
‘Birth is suffering. ”

“ Sickness and bodily pain, trouble and anguish of mind, poverty and temporal misfortunes, loss of good name by detraction and calumny, and many other crosses of the kind are guests that come uninvited, that we must daily behold with weeping eyes, and bear with sweating hands, and grieve for with sorrowing hearts. ”

“ And it is from this cause that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself not only in contortions, but in shrieks and groans—that in anger, and fear, and grief, the gesticulations are accompanied by shouts and screams—that delightful sensations are followed by exclamations—and that we hear screams of joy and shouts of exultation. ”

“ But in view of the bigger things of life, the tremendous struggle going on so near, the agony of the sick and wounded, the suffering of the women and children, my own little qualms get lost in the shuffle, and my one consuming desire is to help in any way I can. ”

“ I tell you the greater part of the suffering in the world is caused not by wicked intents and hard hearts, but by the careless desire to shirk unpleasant facts, and the soft-heartedness that will assuage momentary pain at the price of making a life-long cripple, either mentally, morally, or physically. ”

“ Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the only sound the sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten prayer of a dying man? ”

“ My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell! ”

“ Saved from a great peril, even the bitterness of death, they forget the danger that has passed, deny that they uttered cries of distress and appeals for help, and swagger in all the insolence of recovered strength. ”

“ Pain and sorrow, both physical and mental, seem to soften the porous shell, so to speak, of the human intelligence, seem to throw back certain shutter-like shards or scales with which it protects its malignant ignorance. ”