Suffering & Transformation

And these riches, that are derived from this art of wealth-getting, are truly unlimited; for just as the art of medicine is without limit in respect to health, and each of the arts is without limit in respect of its end...

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Laozi Tao Te Ching

4. Magga: In order to end suffering... follow the Eightfold Path ...a path for accomplishing this.

Gautama Buddha Dhammapada & Sutta Pitaka

Christ is the population of the world, and every object as well. There is no roomfor hypocrisy. Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere?

Rumi Masnavi & Divan-e Shams

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra & Beyond Good and Evil

English Translation: "All wanting springs from need, thus from lack, thus from suffering."Original (German): "Alles Wollen entspringt aus Bedürfnis, also aus Mangel, also aus Leiden.

Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena

Montaigne is one of those perennial sources of mental health to which there needs no excuse for returning. He is always necessary and always being rediscovered.

Michel de Montaigne Essais

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace & A Calendar of Wisdom

And all my mother came into mine eyes And gave me up to tears.

William Shakespeare First Folio & Sonnets

Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

Oscar Wilde De Profundis & Essays

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Mark Twain Notebooks & Autobiography

that new saint than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death,—the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays: First and Second Series

To me...Rama, described as the Lord of Sita, son of Dasharatha, is the all-powerful essence whose name, inscribed in the heart, removes all suffering-mental, moral and physical

Mahatma Gandhi The Story of My Experiments with Truth

I have always believed that exercise is the key not only to physical health but to peace of mind.

Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings & Essays

If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.

Carl Sagan Cosmos & Pale Blue Dot

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.

Viktor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.

Rabindranath Tagore Gitanjali & Stray Birds

There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea

Kahlil Gibran The Prophet

In all affairs – love, religion, politics, or business – it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Bertrand Russell The Conquest of Happiness

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

Augustine of Hippo Confessions

We must relax our minds a little; but this opens the door to debauchery. Let us mark the limits. There are no limits in things. Laws would put them there, and the mind cannot suffer it.

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Nothing happens to anyone that he can't endure. (Hays translation)

Marcus Aurelius Meditations

The first teacher and beginner of all these beauties of tragedy.

Plato The Republic & Dialogues

All our knowledge falls with the bounds of experience.

Immanuel Kant Critique of Practical Reason