Quotations of the Week: On Suffering

                                                                                

In light of the terrible events in Haiti this week, I felt led to post several quotations on suffering:

"Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus."
-- Wallace Stegner

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings."
-- Elie Wiesel