“If there is one who’s not free, then I am not free. If there is one who suffers, then I suffer.”
Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist
Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (6:38 p.m. August 23, 2009)
2000-09, Twitter feeds, 2009
Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at a special hearing in Cape Town https://web.archive.org/web/20050119042614/http://www.doj.gov.za:80/trc/media/1997/9705/s970514a.htm (May 1997) <br class="br">1990s, 1997
“If there is one who’s not free, then I am not free. If there is one who suffers, then I suffer.”
Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist
Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (6:38 p.m. August 23, 2009)
2000-09, Twitter feeds, 2009
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 424-425
Context: What does the Scripture mean when it tells us of the body of one man so extended in space that all can kill him? We must understand these words of ourselves, of our Church, or the body of Christ. For Jesus Christ is one man, having a Head and a body. The Saviour of the body and the members of the body are two in one flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose.
And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone. For if in Christ you consider both the Head and the body, the Christ’s passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you mean only the Head, then Christ’s passion is not in Christ alone. Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you do hear, if you are united with the members of Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are no among the members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. It is added precisely because it was lacking. You fill up the measure; you do not cause it to overflow. You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members, that is, in us. Into this common treasury each pays what he owes, and according to each one’s ability we all contribute our share of suffering. The full measure of the Passion will not be attained until the end of the world.
Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain
Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)
Context: Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.
“He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over.”
Robert J. Sawyer book Flashforward
Source: Flashforward (1999), Chapter 1 epigram (p. 9; quoting Beilby Porteus)
“He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over.”
Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) Bishop of Chester; Bishop of London
Elie Wiesel book Night
Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Robert McAfee Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McAfee_Brown. Preface for the 25th anniversary edition of Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28book%29. Page v, Bantam Books paperback; 1982 reissue edition.
Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian
Source: Inner Management: In the Presence of the Master
“Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.”
Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 84