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 things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of suffering.
—Thomas Merton
Life is thick sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
—Voltaire
There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated.
—James Boswell
The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes.
—John Ruskin
The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
