Quotes & Sayings About Suffering And Wisdom

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud
the obstacles of life and its suffering ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one. — Goldie Hawn

There is no inherent awakening power in cultural forms that have become dissociated from the wisdom and practicality that gave birth to them. They turn into illusions themselves and become part of the drama of religious culture. Although they can make us happy temporarily, they can't free us from suffering, so at some point, they become a source of disappointment and discouragement. Eventually, these forms may inspire nothing more than resistance to their authority. — Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

All I could say, and much more, and much better, you will have said to yourself long ago. And I have so little light and wisdom in me, when it comes to such disaster, that I can see nothing for us but the old Earth turning onward and time feasting on our suffering along with the rest. Somewhere at the heart of the gales of grief (and of love too, I've been told) already they have blown themselves out. — Samuel Beckett

Pema calls these activities "the six ways of compassionate living": generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or wisdom. The basis for all these practices is the cultivation of maitri, an unconditional loving-kindness with ourselves that says, "Start where you are." In Buddhist terms, this path is known as bodhisattva activity. Simply put, a bodhisattva is one who aspires to act from an awakened heart. In terms of the Shambhala teachings, it is the path of warriorship. To join these two streams, Pema likes to use the term warrior-bodhisattva, which implies a fresh and forward-moving energy that is willing to enter into suffering for others' benefit. Such action relates to overcoming the self-deception, self-protection, and other habitual reactions that we use to keep ourselves secure - in a prison of concepts. By gently and precisely cutting through these barriers of ego, we develop a direct experience of bodhichitta. — Pema Chodron

The Lotus in Buddhism is a sacred symbol that represents purity and resurrection as attributes that develop through a spiritual awakening of the self. With humble beginnings in swamplands, the Lotus flower exquisitely blooms, pure and untainted, from this murky world it thrives in. The Lotus flower represents a higher state of mind, a strong spirit cultivated far from the suffering and temptations of this muddied world that personifies beauty through the present moment. — Forrest Curran

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness. — Whittaker Chambers

Why do men create suffering for others and fight over material wealth? Naked we come into the world, naked will go out of the world. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Confusion and suffering may be our birthright, but wisdom and happiness are available. — Sam Harris

He has no need for faith who knows the uncreated, who has cut off rebirth, who has destroyed any opportunity for good or evil, and cast away all desire. He is indeed the ultimate man. — Gautama Buddha

A teacher I once had told me that the older you get, the lonelier you become and the deeper the love you need. Loneliness creates an appetite for deeper love, and the entire predicament deepens. And as a result of suffering, your capacity to love deeply increases. — Leonard Cohen

When one drives away the negligent through vigilance, he climbs the heights of wisdom, and can see the suffering masses. Serene, you look upon the lost like one that stands on a mountain sees those that stand upon the plain. — Gautama Buddha

As long as the belief is: we need suffering to grow, the world will be suffering and the belief will be limiting. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

The Four Noble Truths The Dharma teaches the Buddhists the ways to progress or reach nirvana. In this light, the Dharma teaches that the journey to nirvana should involve following the Four Noble Truths referred to as Pativedhanana or the "wisdom of realization." According to the Buddha, the four truths center around the following concepts: 1) universality of suffering; 2) origin of suffering; 3) overcoming of suffering; and 4) the suppression of suffering. The — Xin Yao

You have a great heart, but will only find it to be so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift ... I have endured much suffering and still remain unbitter and unclosed. — Alison Croggon

We know the value of the things for which we suffer. In this modern day and age, things and people are not actually losing value; but it is the knowledge of the value that is lost. Because in this day and age, everyone wants something that is easy. The easier, the better. And therefore all value is lost, and lost from all things that exist for which one has not toiled or suffered to some degree. All things valuable are worth suffering for. And indeed, the same thing can be multiplied in value, when you add your blood to it through suffering for it. — C. JoyBell C.

When ye look at me I am an idle, idle man; when I look at myself I am a busy, busy man. Since upon the plain of uncreated infinity I am building, building the tower of ecstasy, I have no time for building houses. Since upon the steppe of the void of truth I am breaking, breaking the savage fetter of suffering, I have no time for ploughing family land. Since at the bourn of unity ineffable I am subduing, subduing the demon-foe of self, I have no time for subduing angry foe-men. Since in the palace of mind which transcends duality I am waiting, waiting for spiritual experience as my bride, I have no time for setting up house. Since in the circle of the Buddhas of my body I am fostering, fostering the child of wisdom, I have no time for fostering snivelling children. Since in the frame of the body, the seat of all delight, I am saving, saving precious instruction and reflection, I have no time for saving wordly wealth. — Milarepa

Wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgment and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time. It requires us to be more fully and simply alive than we have been taught to be. It may require us to suffer. But ultimately we will be more than we were when we began. There is the seed of a greater wholeness in everyone. — Rachel Naomi Remen

When you see suffering and sadness, to heal them the least we can offer is our love and kindness. — Debasish Mridha

The time when freedom is no longer held in the highest regard is not during times of want or suffering, but during the era of civility, pleasure, and wealth. — Eric J. Martindale

People must be right sometimes, must feel good sometimes, or we'd never have a herd. They would just give up. The occasional rightness fosters false confidence, reinforcing the crowd's wisdom. It is plausible deniability for TGH. It is how TGH repeatedly sucks the crowd in, makes them ignore negatives, then doles out maximum pain and suffering. — Kenneth L. Fisher

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender. Not all pain and suffering, certainly. If that were the case, the whole world would be tender, since no one escapes pain and suffering. To these elements must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Together they lead to wisdom and tenderness. — Brennan Manning

Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. — Michel De Montaigne

Nineteenth-century Russian literature, swooning with compassion for the suffering brother, had created for Nerzhin, and for everyone reading it for the first time, the image of a haloed, silvery-haired People, embodying all wisdom, moral purity, and spiritual grandeur.
But that was far away, on bookshelves; it was somewhere else, in the villages and fields at the crossroads of the nineteenth century. The heavens unfolded, the twentieth century came, and those places had long since ceased to exist under Russian skies. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Might it be that the voice of truth can come from the suffering soul who has wrestled with God over mysteries and paradoxes? Might the voice of truth be the one that in wisdom and humility says, "I don't know"? — Wendy Vanderwal-Gritter

As for my own religious practice, I try to live my life pursuing what I call the Bodhisattva ideal. According to Buddhist thought, a Bodhisattva is someone on the path to Buddhahood wo dedicates themselves entirely to helping all other sentient beings towards release from suffering. The word Bodhisattva can best be understood by translating the Bodhi and Sattva separately: Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a Sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhissatva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with infinite wisdom. releasing sentient beings from suffering. — Dalai Lama XIV

It is important to reignite our compassion for others because without it we will be lost in the sea of suffering — Radhe Maa

Everyone is longing for love, everyone is suffering from the needs and wants, so be loving, kind, and compassionate to everyone. — Debasish Mridha

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The goal of becoming a better person is within the reach of us all, at every moment. ... We need only invoke the power of mindful awareness in any action of body, speech, or mind to elevate that action from the unconscious reflex of a trained creature to the awakened choice of a human being who is guided to a higher life by wisdom. ... We may not "complete" the work in this lifetime and root out the very mechanism by which our minds and bodies manifest their hereditary karmic toxins. Yet to whatever extent we can notice them as they arise, understand them for what they are, and gently abandon our grasp of them - if only for this moment - we are gaining ground in the grand scheme of things. And even a modest moment of emancipation from the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion is a moment without suffering. — Andrew Olendzki

Fear of suffering destroys our dreams and hope. — Debasish Mridha

Be a human angel! With love, generosity and kindness, let us lighten the burden of suffering from humanity. — Debasish Mridha

It is reason which breeds pride and reflection which fortifies it; reason which turns man inward into himself; reason which separates him from everything which troubles or affects him. It is philosophy which isolates a man, and prompts him to say in secret at the sight of another suffering: 'Perish if you will; I am safe.' No longer can anything but dangers to society in general disturb the tranquil sleep of the philosopher or drag him from his bed. A fellow-man may with impunity be murdered under his window, for the philosopher has only to put his hands over his ears and argue a little with himself to prevent nature, which rebels inside him, from making him identify himself with the victim of the murder. The savage man entirely lacks this admirable talent, and for want of wisdom and reason he always responds recklessly to the first promptings of human feeling. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Let us be the hope for those who are suffering.
Let us be the eyesight for those who are blind.
Let us show the way, nonjudgmental and kind. — Debasish Mridha

When I see the darkness and fight,
I want to be the love and light.
When I see the sadness and suffering,
I want to bring happiness and caring.
When I see ignorance and agony,
I want to cure it as a great alchemy.
When I see frustration and torment,
I want to bring opportunities to invent.
When I see violence and destruction,
I want to win by love with great intention. — Debasish Mridha

It is important never to separate love and knowledge, compassion and wisdom. A wisdom without compassion is closed upon itself and does not bear fruit. A compassion without wisdom is a madness and a cause of suffering. — Jean-Yves Leloup

Clarity is the perception of wisdom and the ability to see the soul in action in the physical world. It turns pain into suffering and evaporates fear. Clarity allows you to see the world of physical matter for what it is, a learning experience that is created jointly by the intentions of the souls that share it. — Gary Zukav

It dawns on you one day ... how precious your life is and how not okay it is for anyone, ever, to cause you any amount of suffering, ever. Then the next time you step out the door you look at everyone and you're thinking, My life is precious and you're not allowed to hurt me. — C. JoyBell C.

Priceless virtues are love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, goodness, long-suffering, patience faithfulness and self-control. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Forgive us for relying on our own wisdom and strength; for the hours we spend trying to rescue ourselves from pain, suffering, and sin, when you have already rescued us in your Son. — Barbara R. Duguid

Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear, and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. — Zora Neale Hurston

Our idealists must own that their velleity to abolish all suffering is most fully expressed in the Fifth Wisdom of Lamaism, the doctrine that teaches that "no durable happiness, nor yet security, for any sentient being can exist while others are a prey to suffering." That truth cannot be questioned and you may take it to heart: in practical terms it means we got ourselves born on the wrong planet
in the wrong universe. — Revilo P. Oliver

Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation. — Oscar Wilde

I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything's easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom. — Shauna Niequist

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

God, the universe, life, whatever name you give to the bigger picture, is experiencing itself through you as a human being. A journey from effortlessness, playfulness, freedom, to human doing, suffering and beyond. You can all return to the effortlessness, playfulness, freedom and being, by allowing your moment-by-moment experience, allowing your feelings of pain, suffering, rage, anger and envy to be felt, observed and tenderly allowed. No more self-beating, no more rushing against the tide, no more trying to steer that canoe, for life knows the way, always has and always will. — Kelly Martin

I laugh at the so-called 'practical' people and their wisdom. If one wants to live like a beast, it could naturally do, to turn its back on humanity's suffering and only care about its own pelt. — Karl Marx

Your self-worth and self-esteem cannot be changed by doing positive affirmations. If that were the case many people would be super confident and are not. It may appear to work for some, but only because they have already faced the hurts inside that have caused low self-worth and low self-esteem, and are ready to feel differently.

Acknowledging the pain and the suffering that take place inside you, and allowing the feelings, will take time, but this new way of handling these feelings will change the way you relate to you and to the outside world. — Kelly Martin

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God. — St. Francis De Sales

Compassion is the feeling of sympathy which the pain of one being awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned they are to re-echo the note of suffering, which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart, bringing all creatures a proof of their kinship in the universal God. And as for man, whose function it is to show respect and love for God's universe and all its creatures, his heart has been created so tender that it feels with the whole organic world ... mourning even for fading flowers; so that, if nothing else, the very nature of his heart must teach him that he is required above everything to fe the brother of all beings, and to recognize the claim of all beings to his love and his beneficence.
Horeb, Chapter 17, Verse 125 — Pirkei Avot

May the Lord comfort the lonely and suffering souls. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Wisdom tells us secrets before we have a right to know them. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to pray for wisdom or make yourself worthy of it. As with the concept of grace in the New Testament, which falls like rain on the just and the unjust alike, the ultimate truth simply is. When we catch a glimpse of it, we become more real in ourselves.
It is undeniable that the outward appearance of life contains suffering and distress. Wisdom reveals that suffering comes and goes while a deeper reality never changes. That reality is founded on truth and love.
Faith makes life better because in the midst of pain and suffering, we need to trust that something else is more powerful. — Deepak Chopra

Kalganov ran back into the front hall, sat down in a corner, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. He sat like that and cried for a long time
cried as though he were still a little boy and not a man of twenty ... 'What are these people, what sort of people can there be after this!' he kept exclaiming incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. At that moment he did not even want to live in the world. 'Is it worth it, is it worth it!' the grieved young man kept exclaiming. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Enlightenment, or Nirvana, is nothing other than the state beyond all obstacles, in the same way that from the peak of a very high mountain one always sees the sun. Nirvana is not a paradise or some special place of happiness, but is in fact the condition beyond all dualistic concepts, including those of happiness and suffering.
When all our obstacles have been overcome, and we find ourselves in a state of total presence, the wisdom of enlightenment manifests spontaneously without limits, just like the infinite rays of the sun. The clouds have dissolved, and the sun is finally free to shine once again. — Namkhai Norbu

It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshipers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshiped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.(138-139) — Zora Neale Hurston

Therefore, we know about God that He loves and shows pity on His creatures, and also that He is the source of wisdom and knows how to govern everything concerning us. Nothing is impossible for Him, but everything is subject to His will. We must also realize that everything He does is for our benefit and we must accept it with thankfulness ... as from a benefactor and a good lord even if is troublesome. For everything is done with right judgment, and God, Who is merciful, does not overlook even the smallest sadness that we suffer. — Dorotheus Of Gaza

Mind is a forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with corrupt mind,
suffering follows,
As the wheel follows the hoof of an ox pulling a cart.

Mind is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a serene mind,
happiness follows,
As surely as one's shadow.

'He abused me, he mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.'
Harboring such thoughts keeps hatred alive.

'He abused me, he mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.'
Releasing such thoughts banishes hatred for all time.

Animosity does not eradicate animosity.
Only by loving kindness is animosity dissolved.
This law is ancient and eternal. — Dhammapada

In the East they say suffering is avoidable and not necessary. Life is bliss! You know why? This is because wisdom, yoga and meditation are ways to avoid suffering which has not yet come. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? — John Keats

Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who indeed knows why there can be comfort in a world of desolation? Now God be thanked that there is a beloved one who can lift up the heart in suffering, that one can play with a child in the face of such misery. Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal. Aye, even the name of a river that runs no more.
Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows for what we live, and struggle and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort, when one's own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom. — Alan Paton

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength - if we have the virtue of resilience. — Eric Greitens

About 2500 years ago Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, wrote, He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. These remarkable photos and the stories that accompany them should be on billboards from sea to shining sea, so the pain and suffering they represent might fall drop by drop upon the American psyche and against our will, by the awful grace of God, wisdom might come to these United States and her foreign policy. — Gioconda Belli

In response, God appears to Job and compels him to live in mystery, not giving an answer to his suffering but asserting his own wisdom and power. Other — John H. Walton

I have prayed many times that God would give me wisdom and I concur with Solomon here when he says that with "much wisdom there is much grief." The more you know, the harder life is. The more pain and suffering you see, the more you come to realize that "it is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men. — Lisa Bedrick

Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the intricate paths of life when difficulties and hardships confront a man, and the darkness of difficulty and suffering becomes long, it is patience only that acts like a light for a Muslim, that keeps him safe from wandering here and there, and saves him from the muddy marsh of disappointment, desperation and frustration. — Al-Ghazali

Must we learn such costly lessons over and over again? Times change, but truth persists. When we fail to profit from the experiences of the past, we are doomed to repeat them with all their heartache, suffering, and anguish. Haven't we the wisdom to obey Him who knows the beginning from the end - our Lord, who designed the plan of salvation - rather than that serpent, who despised its beauty? — Thomas S. Monson

It is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning. — Thomas Merton

The greatest purpose of life is to serve the suffering humanity with love and kindness. — Debasish Mridha

Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ's Cross at the center of that history? ... But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and
to repeat once again
Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man's lot and participates in his destiny. — Pope John Paul II

All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood. — Zora Neale Hurston

You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Let us be kind and lighten the burden of those who are suffering. — Debasish Mridha

The wisdom mind is the core of your being. It is happy, simple, at peace and hopeful, filled with dignity, and self-pride, but always showing humility, for it is aware that all are equal and possess the same wisdom mind. It desires happiness for you and for those around you, being compassionate, sincere, and generous. The ordinary mind on the other hand, surrounds the wisdom mind as a swirling vortex of racing thoughts and ideas, along with negative and troubling emotions, clouding your view of your wisdom mind and causing you much pain and suffering. As — Michael Tsiaming

If a god had made the world, might world always be right, that would be so wise, we'd be spared so much suffering. But we made the world - out of our smallness and weakness. Our lives are awkward and fragile ... — Edward Bond

When gratitude begins, then life finds the abundance and suffering ends. — Debasish Mridha

God's will is determined by His wisdom which always perceives, and His goodness which always embraces the intrinsically good. But when we have said that God commands thing only because they are good, we must add that one of the things intrinsically good is that rational creatures should freely surrender themselves to their Creator in obedience. The content of our obedience - the thing we are commanded to do -- will always be something intrinsically good, something we ought to do even if (by an impossible supposition_ God had not commanded it. But in addition to the content, the mere obeying is also intrinsically good, for, in obeying a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fill, treads Adam's dance backward, and returns. — C.S. Lewis

At times we will be asked to let go of things that we have always wanted to keep for ourselves, or things that we would never have thought that we would to have to let go of, such as the loss of a loved one or the betrayal of a dear friend. A tree never hesitates to shake off her leaves during fall, and so we must take another lesson given to us by the nature: let go when it is time. Although such losses can be difficult and painful, rise above this suffering. Focus within your mind, the image of the Lotus prospering above mud. We are the lotus; rise above. — Forrest Curran

Guided by His wisdom, strong in His strength, there maybe for you struggle and suffering, the darkness and the storm. "The disciple is not above His Master." There may be weeping that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, "a morning without clouds," the morning of an eternal day. — Mark Hopkins

Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Freedom is self liberation and liberation of people from any suffering. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Certainly there are times when God allows suffering and deprives us of the lesser good of pleasure in order to help us toward the greater good of moral and spiritual education. Even the ancient Greeks believed the gods taught wisdom through suffering. Aeschylus wrote: 'Day by day, hour by hour / Pain drips upon the heart / As, against our will, and even in our own despite / Comes Wisdom from the awful grace of God. — Lee Strobel

The enlightened worry more about the problems of the world than about their own problems, and their longing for the well-being of all life grows deeper,
making the suffering of all people, all creatures, and all things their own. This is a gift brought by enlightenment, which, at the same time, brings deep anguish. — Ilchi Lee

Time is not the great teacher. Experience is. A man may live a whole life, but if he never leaves his home to experience that life, he dies knowing nothing. A mere child who has suffered and lived can be the wiser of the two. — Lynsay Sands

But slowly, it happened everywhere, in the West and in the East as well, that the journey to wisdom through suffering became a global art form. — Andrew Ramer

Hakeem: A wise man once said that suffering produces perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Andre: Since when did spouting masochism make one wise? And the sacraments of a bitter existence? Who deemed that a vaunted prize? Nihilistic philosophy only births more pain. It's fruitless to espouse folly, repackage it as wisdom, and spew it in a wise man's name. — Booker T. Mattison

There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect. — John Muir

Real wisdom is recognizing and accepting that every experience is impermanent. With this insight you will not be overwhelmed by ups and downs. And when you are able to maintain an inner balance, you can choose to act in ways that will create happiness for you and for others. Living each moment happily with an equanimous mind, you will surely progress toward the ultimate goal of liberation from all suffering. — S. N. Goenka

The animals feel that this urgency is mutual. Their own suffering has made them aware of human suffering. More frequent contact with us has sensitized them to what troubles us. They feel our anxiety and our confusion and, most of all, our loneliness. The pain of being disconnected from the Earth, from each other, from our fellow creatures, and from the Source of all life is the worst pain they can imagine, and they are concerned about us. They understand even better than we do that the suffering we inflict on them is an expression of our own suffering, and that their physical situation cannot get better unless the human spiritual condition gets better. They want to help. — Linda Bender

You rave about the Holy Place (Masjid al-Haram) and say you've visited God's garden but where is your bunch of flowers? There is some merit in the suffering you have endured but what a pity you have not discovered the Makkah thats inside — Rumi

Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the Winter, when the wind is in the North, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of females is blacker then that of males; that the pig is the only animal liable to measles; that an elephant suffering from insomnia should have its shoulders rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; that women have fewer teeth than men, and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom. — Bertrand Russell

One of the primary conditions for suffering is denial. Shutting our mind to pain, whether in ourselves or others, only ensures that it will continue. We must have the strength to face it without turning away. By opening to the pain we see around us with wisdom and compassion, we start to experience the intimate connection of our relationship with all beings. — Sharon Salzberg

Lord Krishna ... proclaims Self-realization, true wisdom, as the highest branch of all human knowledge-the king of all sciences, the very essence of dharma ("religion")-for it alone permanently uproots the cause of man's threefold suffering and reveals to him his true nature of Bliss. Self-realization is yoga or "oneness" with truth-the direct perception or experience of truth by the all-knowing intuitive faculty of the soul. — Paramahansa Yogananda

When things are good, it is because we remember a time when they were not. When there was pain. But now the pain is gone, so things are 'good'. When we hurt, it is because we recall a time when we did not. When there was no pain. But now we suffer, so things are 'bad'. The tiger sipped from the cup, peering at the boy over the rim. Stars swirled in its eyes. "Good. Bad. The cup holds both. — Brooke Burgess

For the Gnostics and for the fiction writer evil is the source of all moral understanding; the function of evil, in the best of conditions, is tension and imbalance, the eventual creation, through suffering and misfortune, of wisdom. — Susan Neville

Every suffering is a buddha-seed, because suffering impels mortals to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can't say that suffering is buddhahood. Your body and mind are the field. Suffering is the seed, wisdom the sprout, and buddhahood the grain. — Bodhidharma

Through spiritual maturity you will see new ways to avoid unnecessary suffering; wiser ways to endure unavoidable hardships with grace, and opportunities to turn your pain into lessons of service and healing for others. — Bryant McGill

Throughout my life, until this very moment, whatever virtue I have accomplished, including any benefit that may come from this book, I dedicate to the welfare of all beings.
May the roots of suffering diminish. May warfare, violence, neglect, indifference, and addiction also decrease.
May the wisdom and compassion of all beings increase, now and in the future.
May we clearly see all the barriers we erect between ourselves and others to be as insubstantial as our dreams.
May we appreciate the great perfection of all phenomena.
May we continue to open our hearts and minds, in order to work ceaselessly for the benefit of all beings.
May we go to the places that scare us.
May we lead the life of a warrior. — Pema Chodron

What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of the enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of our suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master. — Sogyal Rinpoche

Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross. — John Of The Cross