#uf

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen ↗

— Elisabeth Kubler-ros

#suffering #beauty

We are here in a wood of little beeches: And the leaves are like black lace Against a sky of nacre. One bough of clear promise Across the moon. It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me. He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh, Stilling it in an eternal peace, Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite hands Toward him, And is eased of its hunger. And I know that this passes: This implacable fury and torment of men, As a thing insensate and vain: And the stillness hath said unto me, Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame, Out of the terrible beauty of wrath, I alone am eternal. One bough of clear promise Across the moon ↗

— Frederic Manning

#path #sufi #sword-sentiments #transience #beauty

No, it’s a car. The love of my life will be a woman with my last name. ↗

— Jamie McGuire

#cute-stuff-guys-say #love #swoon-worthy #beauty

We will never become the people of hope and blessing we're meant to be until we learn how to wake up and pay attention to the glory and pain, beauty and suffering that are in lives all around us. ↗

— Richard Dahlstrom

#blessing #glory #hope #justice #life

Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they’ll have jobs and get enough money to buy things. ↗

— Philip Slater

#commercialism #economy #endless-circles #failed-systems #greed

I don't feel like I can change the world. I don't even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering. ↗

— Somaly Mam

#life #suffering #world #change

You or I might think that at least one would show courage and put up a fight. But neither you nor I have suffered as they, and even we have born witness in silence to lesser ills under less dire threat. Yet, in the face of evil, to sit silent is an even greater evil. Complacency is ever the enabler of darkest deeds; ↗

— Robert Fanney

#courage #enablement #evil #fantasy #fight

I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#miss-marchmont #selfish #suffering #villette #nature

Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues. ↗

— Anatole France

#virtue #courage

Certainly it is true that we need to maintain independence in certain areas of life. We must not be passive but active agents in this strenuous, challenging world. At the same time, we must not make a fetish out of our self-sufficiency. It is normal and wise for us to rely at moments upon the insights, the courage, and the consolation which our human brothers can give us , knowing full well that they in turn sill rely upon our gifts and strength on other critical occasions. Let us not be too proud to admit weakness at moments and to absorb strength from others in our day of need. The ruthless repression of our common human problems and fears can only make us hard or ill; the sharing of these problems with our human comrades alone can save us from the sin of pride, the idolatry of self-sufficiency. ↗

— Joshua Loth Liebman

#self-sufficiency #courage