suffering

There's no cure, except the retreat into love,
For the suffering of subtly afflicted hearts.

Suffering also has its worth.
Through sorrow, pride is driven out
And pity felt for those who wander in samsara;
Evil is avoided, goodness seems delightful.

We can only hold as much joy as the pain and suffering that we've had carved out of us.

Because of the very intimate character of philosophical norms and criticisms, a teacher in philosophy has to be like Alexander the Great:  never issuing dictates as to what his soldiers ought to do that he was not ready and willing to leap into doing himself.  An excellent teacher is one accomplished in serving as an exemplar, every act of every kind of thinking and every form of perspective must be something he is prepared to illustrate by carrying out himself.  Students need to see the incandescent arc-welding that joins ideas together into thoughts.  If one is saying something that inflicts suffering, one by all rights had better be prepared to suffer along with the student, to sympathize and assure them that the profit for this agony consists in freedom and clarity. 

A world without suffering is a world without life.

From beginningless time up until this moment, we have cared solely for ourselves and worked solely for our own benefit. Every exertion we performed was for our own benefit alone. But by acting in this way, all we have actually accomplished is more and more suffering. So this time, instead of caring for ourselves, we must care for others. As Shantideva said, "All the sufferings that beings experience in this universe arise from caring for oneself, and all the happiness that beings experience in this world arise from caring for others."

Most men will renounce any pleasures you like but they will not give up their suffering.

"It is not a matter of how much pain or suffering one experiences that deems one as worthy. It is not how productive one is, either."

"People who've never suffered haven't yet developed an ability to utilize their own creativity to solve a challenging situation. An analogy would be that of a person who has fallen into a well. After many attempts of trying to climb out of the well, they develop strength, ingenuity. That is what many are doing on this earth. However, devastating struggle is always karmic. It might seem karmic if one has had a bad day or week. However, "little suffering" is for the purpose of building character and inner trust. On the other hand, "extreme suffering" for no apparent reason is an indication one is dealing with big karma."

The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain.