
“We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us.”
Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
The Pageant of Life (1964), On Suffering
“We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us.”
Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
Love and Death (1975)
“On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering.”
Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), III
Context: On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort of love. I want suffering in order to love. I long, I thirst, this very instant, to kiss with tears the earth that I have left, and I don't want, I won't accept life on any other!
He Who Lets Us Be: A Theology of Love (1975), p. 4
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
“…we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.”
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 64
“Suffering makes us human. A person without suffering is just grass.”
Васіль Быкаў. Трэцяя ракета http://rv-blr.com/literature/charter/11223 // rv-blr.com (in Belarusian)
“the pain we suffer is a way to make us appreciate what comes next.”
Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven