Quotes about Suffering

Pain was something to get used to, to inure yourself against. I would rather hurt myself than be hurt by someone else, and so I took up this practice with a sense of purpose and without remorse.

We do not believe in heaven or hell...; we do not believe in eternal damnation. We believe only in the unavoidable horror of hurting others and of likewise being hurt.

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.

Well, sometime Mr —— git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways. You ought to bash Mr —— head open, she say. Think bout heaven later.

My heart hurt so much I can't believe it. How can it keep beating, feeling like this?

the earth on which we live is the body of God. All people and living things are the body and soul of God. And...we serve God not by making the earth and its people suffer but by making the earth and its people whole.

Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after while every tune I got mad, or start to feels mad. I got sick. Felt like throwing up.Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel Nothing at all. Sofia Frown. Nothing at all? Well, sometime Mr._____ git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband I shrug my shoulders.This life soon be over.I say.Heaven last all ways

You telling me I won't even be able to love my own say, say Miss Eleanor Jane. No, say Sofia. That's not what I'm telling you. I'm telling you I won't be able to love your own son. You can love him just as much as you want to. But be ready to suffer the consequences. That's how the colored live.

We love them. We try every way we can to show that love. But they reject us. They never even listen to how we've suffered. And if they listen they say stupid things. Why don't you speak our language? they ask. Why can't you remember the old ways? Why aren't you happy in America, if everyone there drives motorcars?

There is so much we don't understand. And so much unhappiness comes because of that.

It is because when you truly love someone you wish them no suffering, although they must suffer, just in the course of life. You are always reaching out to them, to heal them. They instinctively do the same for you.

The brilliance of enslaving the spirit is that it is an invisible prison from which the inmate appears to derive some comfort.