"This, too, shall pass." -- William Shakespeare
"Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude, then clusters when there is hardly time to breathe."-- May Sarton
"Pain is never permanent."-- Saint Teresa of Avila
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."-- C. S. Lewis
"Pain and suffering are not necessarily signs of God's anger; they may be exactly the opposite."-- William Bridges
"Suffering times are teaching times."-- William Bridges
"A man is not known by his effervescence but by the amount of real suffering he can stand."-- C. T. Studd
"The Scriptures show conclusively that tribulation is a natural by-product of genuine Christianity."-- William E. Cox
"There never yet was an unscarred saint." -- Anonymous
"God sometimes puts his children to bed in the dark."-- Anonymous
"I had a million questions to ask God: but when I met Him they all fled my mind; and it didn't seem to matter." -- Christopher Morley
"When you and I hurt deeply, what we really need is not an explanation from God but a revelation of God."-- Warren Wiersbe
Dealing with Difficulties
"He is the best preacher, not that tickles the ear, but that breaks the heart." --Thomas Brooks
"The minister's task is not to coddle the saints but to collar the sinners." --Hugh Price Hughes
"If you would try out a preacher, send him to preach to farmers: if he cannot make the grade there, let him reconsider his call - or maybe he needs to be converted." --Vance Havner
"The elements which determine the make of any particular sermon are three; the preacher, the material, and the audience; just as the character of any battle is determined by three elements; the gun (including the gunner), the ammunition, and the fortress against which the attack is made." --Phillips Brooks
"A preacher who is too big for a little crowd would be too little for a big crowd." --Vance Havner
"There are moments when the minister can derive stimulus and courage for his work only by falling back upon the irrefutable fact of his divine call." --George Barlow
"No encounter with a dragon is complete failure unless one fights venom with venom. No victory is worth winning if it forces us to become bilious. If I become a beast in order to overcome a beast, all that reigns is beastliness."--Marshall Shelley
"God never sent a messenger with an empty envelope."--Joel Horne
"Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life." --E.M. Bounds
"There is a lot of difference between pouring out one's heart and getting something off one's chest." --Vance Havner
"No man ever yet thought whether he was preaching well without weakening his sermon." --Phillips Brooks
"Most churches have plenty of strong personalities but a shortage of gentleness." --Marshall Shelley
Preacher