
“2666. If Afflictions refine some, they consume others.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
No. 257 (25 December 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“2666. If Afflictions refine some, they consume others.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtues fall.”
“Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.”
Speech at the Nobel Banquet (1991)
Context: I certainly find being the recipient at this celebratory dinner more pleasurable and rewarding than chicken-pox, having now in my life experienced both. But the small girl was not entirely wrong. Writing is indeed, some kind of affliction in its demands as the most solitary and introspective of occupations.
Of Adversity
Essays (1625)
Context: The virtue of prosperity, is temperance; the virtue of adversity, is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job, than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 159 : in a letter to madame Charpentier, Autumn 1881
“…for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens…”
"Holy Living" (1650) ch. 2, section 6. "Of Contentedness in all Estates".