Affliction

Affliction is suffering, perceived by some as a test or lesson from a higher power.

• AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
  That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,—
  That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
  Serves but to brighten all our future days.
  • John Brown, Barbarossa (1754), Act V, Scene 3.

• Cum in omni fere litterarum studio dulce laboris lenimen et summum doloris solamen dum uiuitur insitum considerem, tum delectabilius et maioris praerogatiua claritatis historiarum splendorem amplectendum crediderim.
  • It is my considered opinion that the sweetest relief from suffering and the best comfort in affliction that this world affords are to be found almost entirely in the study of literature, and so I believe that the splendour of historical writing is to be cherished with the greatest delight and given the pre-eminent and most glorious position.
  • Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People), in Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), Prologue, pp. 2-3. ISBN 0198222246.

• There is nothing that can hurt the soul but sin; it is not affliction that hurts it, it often makes it better, as the furnace makes gold the purer; but it is sin that damnifies.
  • Thomas Watson, "Christ The Redeemer" in A Body of Divinity (1692).

• The love of these things that are outside visible Christianity keeps me outside the Church... But it also seems to me that when one speaks to you of unbelievers who are in affliction and accept their affliction as a part of the order of the world, it does not impress you in the same way as if it were a question of Christians and of submission to the will of God. Yet it is the same thing.
  • Simone Weil, Last letter to Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, from a refugee camp in Casablanca (26 May 1942), as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 111.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 12.

• Afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate.
  • Book of Common Prayer. Prayer for all Conditions of Men.

• Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
  A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
  • Robert Burns, A Winter Night.

• Damna minus consueta movent.
  • The afflictions to which we are accustomed, do not disturb us.
  • Claudianus, In Eutropium, II. 149.

• Crede mihi, miseris cœlestia numina parcunt;
  Nec semper læsos, et sine fine, premunt.
  • Believe me, the gods spare the afflicted, and do not always oppress those who are unfortunate.
  • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, III. 6. 21.

• Henceforth I'll bear
  Affliction till it do cry out itself,
  Enough, enough, and die.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act IV, scene 6, line 75.

• Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
  Upon a wheel of fire; that mine own tears
  Do scald like molten lead.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act IV, scene 7, line 46.

• Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
  And thou art wedded to calamity.
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act III, scene 3, line 2.

• Affliction is not sent in vain, young man,
  From that good God, who chastens whom he loves.
  • Robert Southey, Madoc in Wales, III, line 176.

• The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
  • Charles Spurgeon, Gleanings Among the Sheaves, Sorrow's Discipline.

• Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris.
  • What region of the earth is not full of our calamities?
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 460.

• With silence only as their benediction,
  God's angels come
  Where in the shadow of a great affliction,
  The soul sits dumb!
  • John Greenleaf Whittier, To my Friend on the Death of his Sister.

• Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
  Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;
  As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 415.

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths.
  • Philip James Bailey, p. 9.

• Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before.
  • Richard Baxter, p. 11.

• The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best strength, that he may be able to bear the burden.
  • Phillips Brooks, p. 11.

• Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father's house.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 9.

• If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once, and attentively, to what it teaches.
  • James Burgh, p. 10.

• Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain.
  • Richard Cecil, p. 9.

• God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 8.

• However bitter the cup we have to drink, we are sure it contains nothing unnecessary or unkind; and we should take it from His hand with as much meekness as we accept of eternal life with thankfulness.
  • William Goodell, p. 11.

• We should be more anxious that our afflictions should benefit us than that they should be speedily removed from us.
  • Robert Hall, p. 10.

• What He tells thee in the darkness,
  Weary watcher for the day,
  Grateful lip and heart should utter
  When the shadows flee away.
  • Frances Ridley Havergal, p. 10.

• It is the best thing for a stricken heart to be helping others.
  • Arthur Henry Kenney, p. 10.

• The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow.
  • Walter Savage Landor, p. 8.

• Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,
  Rehind the clouds the sun is shining;
  Thy fate is the common fate of all;
  Into each life some rain must fall, —
  Some days must be dark and dreary.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, p. 8.

• What seem to us but dim funereal tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, p. 9.

• Afflictions are but the shadow of God's wings.
  • George MacDonald, p. 8.

• The cup which my Saviour giveth me, can it be any thing but a cup of salvation?
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 10.

• Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as " in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 11.

• Human character is never found "to enter into its glory," except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.
  • James Martineau, p. 8.

• Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.
  • Hannah More, p. 8.

• Seek holiness rather than consolation.
  • John Owen, p. 10.

• Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified cross is a fruitful tree.
  • Samuel Rutherford, p. 10.

• The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upward when they are most burdened.
  • Sir Philip Sidney, p. 10.

• Affliction of itself does not sanctify any body, but the reverse. I believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 9.

• Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us by the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 9.

• The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 9.

• As sure as God ever puts His children into the furnace, He will be in the furnace with them.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 10.

• Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.
  • Edward Young, p. 9.

• In the dark and cloudy day,
  When earth's riches flee away,
  And the last hope will not stay,
  Saviour, comfort me.
  • Unidentified, p. 11.