Louise Bourgeois Quotes

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

"Great suffering has a silver-lining that we can be grateful for, because it builds up a human being and puts him or her within reach of self-knowledge."

I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.

A tragedy can turn out to be our greatest good if we approach it in ways which we can grow.

The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

You can't appreciate a great day unless you've experienced bad ones." - Rabbi Glassman

I become a happier man each time I suffer

We're always attracted to characters who are people we could identify with and yet are put through incredibly tortured or difficult circumstances - the idea being that you don't really know who you are until you've been tested or suffered in some way.

If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.

'I Will Not Be Broken' has really become very healing for me. Any time you go through a cataclysmic event... it's going to inform the richness that you sing from... The experiences of life make all your emotions, I think, deeper.

Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is a correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light.

The reward of suffering is experience.

But my experience is that people who have been through painful, difficult times are filled with compassion.

When you go through heartbreak, you just do the things that get you by. Eventually, you realise it's about making the most of life.

I have learnt that life is full of ups and downs. And even though I've had rough times, I can't complain.

I don't think I'm any worse for my bad experiences. Actually, they have made me better.

When stuff happens to you, it just makes you tougher, man.

I try to see the lightness of life, and that comes from having a hard time growing up.

I've had some ups and downs in my personal life, but I have overcame them.

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

Pain is the great teacher of mankind. Beneath its breath souls develop.

The world brought me to my knees, what have you brung you?

Without dark clouds in our lives, we would never know the joy of sunshine. We can become callous and unteachable if we do not learn from pain.

Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured.