Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass.
― Gravity and Grace
The mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.
― Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
For many years a tree might wage a slow and silent warfare against an encumbering wall, without making any visible progress. One day the wall would topple–not because the tree had suddenly laid hold upon some supernormal energy, but because its patient work of self-defense and self release had reached fulfillment. The long-imprisoned tree had freed itself. Nature had had her way.
―Lloyd Douglas, The Robe
I was silent as a child, and silenced as a young woman; I am taking my lumps and bumps for being a big mouth, now, but usually from those whose opinion I don’t respect.
By identifying with a craving (‘I want this,” “don’t want’ that”), you tighten the clutch and intensify its resistance. Instead of being a state of mind that you have, it becomes a compulsion that has you. As with understanding anguish, the challenge in letting go of craving is to act before habitual reactions incapacitate us.
―Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
If you couldn’t sense heat, you’d not be alive. And if that heat never grew uncomfortable, you would never move. And if you were stagnant—unchallenged by unpredictable flares—you would never grow capable of shielding yourself from harsher flames. So yes, life was meant to drag you straight through the fire.
―Richelle Goodrich, Making Wishes
Truth came home one day, naked and wounded, having been beaten and cursed by the people who did not wish to hear, while his brother Falsehood went dressed in the brightest garments and feasted with every household.
They took my books
because my message was love.
They took my pen
because my words were love.
Then they took my voice
because my song was love.
Soon they’ll take myself
so nothing remains.
But they don’t know that when I’m gone
my love will stay.
All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.
–Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in a letter to his father written after he was dismissed by the Archbishop of Salzburg