Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran

‎The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (via nedhepburn)

(via jess-agi)

Source: everydayepiphanies

After a certain point, a heart with so many stress fractures can never be anything but broken.
Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls
You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering, that’s the sad truth. Maybe they’ll break your heart, maybe you’ll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way. Those are the risks. You see two people and you think they belong together, but nothing happens. The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable. That’s the burden. Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens that allow us to fly.
T.J. Thyne, Bones
But monotony doesn’t make for painlessness. In the first century CE, Roman authorities punished St. Appollonia by crushing her teeth one by one with pliers. Colin often thought about this in relationship to the monotony of dumping: we have thirty two teeth. After a while, having each tooth individually destroyed probably gets repetitive, even dull. But it never stops hurting.
John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
If my whole world is going to crash down around me then I am going to make the sound of the crashing. I want to scream until all my bones break.
John Green and David Levithan , Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you’d been before the fall.
Jodi Picoult
I am well in body although considerably rumpled up in spirit, thank you.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
I’m convinced that tragedy wants to harden us, and that our mission is to never let it.
Janeane Garofalo, Felecity
I’m not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.
John Green, Paper Towns
Knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel keeps us going through it, but understanding the darkness in the tunnel helps us negotiate it. The full truth is that power comes with pain. Hardship is the neglected and misunderstood second half of the truth, and it completes the view. True spirituality is not about making you feel good. It is about making you feel real.
Andrew Holecek, The Power and the Pain (via walkwhilereading)

Source: walkwhilereading

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
Helen Keller
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
Franz Kafka
The easiest way to not get hurt is to not care, but that’s the hardest thing to do.
Julian Gough (via jovialtulip)

Source: quote-book

He put that bottle to his head, and pulled the trigger /
And finally drank away her memory /
Life is short - but this time it was bigger /
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees /
Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby