Michael J. Knowles Quotes

The most audacious thing I could possibly state in this day and age is that life is worth living. It's worth being bashed against. It's worth getting scarred by. It's worth pouring yourself over every one of its coals.

Be patient, my soul: thou hath suffered worse than this.

There are a lot of ups and downs. But there are always people who have it worse.

He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.

The more you complain the longer God lets you live

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Hard times make you bitter or make you more compassionate.

When you are at the bottom, you find beauty in such little things, and goodness in such little gestures. When I compare any struggle today to ones that I may have had in my childhood, there is nothing that can bring me down.

Bear the Cross cheerfully and it will bear you.

I always have this image of a woman running across a desert carrying children, trying to find water and food, not knowing when they'll get that. And her feet are slashed up from the dry, hard earth... Even when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, or just cold... I think, 'Thank God for what I've got.'

A good thing to remember is somebody's got it a lot worse than we do.

Endure the present, and watch for better things.

We're all human beings, and we all have the same problems. I do remember how blessed I am, and no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.

To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.

Life has never been easy. Nor is it meant to be. It is a matter of being joyous in the face of sorrow.

I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there be no redress.

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.

I know that I'm very lucky to be alive. For 35 or 40 years I've spilt my blood and broke my bones and spent years in hospitals.

I was happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences.

A friend said to me, 'Be glad for your troubles - they strengthen you.' Well, if that's the truth, I'm going to be so strong they'll have to beat me to death!

'On earth the living have much to bear;' the difference is chiefly in the manner of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

To the stars through thorns.

Misery is, by her own nature, a passing phase of sorrow, one that does not linger uninvited. Her sojourns seem to be part of life's required curriculum, perhaps because Misery endows us with compassion and empathy.

Sometimes you want to complain and be like, 'Why? Life is so horrible.' But it doesn't change that there are redeeming qualities and a universal capacity for redemption and grace. There are still things that make it worth it and bearable.