John Tillotson Quotes

As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.

Every tribulation which ever comes our way either is sent to be medicinal, if we will take it as such, or may become medicinal, if we will make it such, or is better than medicinal, unless we forsake it.

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.

Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

I never question God. Sometimes I say, 'Why me? Why do I have such a hard life? Why do I have this disease? Why do I have siblings who died?' But then I think and say, 'Why not me?'

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

I think without struggle, you can't grow as a person - I think you need that in your life.

"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."

Tribulation first makes one realize what one is.

The scar will remain, but it is better for a man to lose both arms than his soul; and these hard years, instead of being lost, may be made the most precious of your lives, if they teach you to rule yourselves.

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.

It doesn't matter how you travel it, it's the same road. It doesn't get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it.

I think with all the odd jobs I ever had, there was some kind of enlightenment but, yes, a lot of pain and suffering that I don't want to relive.

The agony of a man's affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says: "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word.

Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think ofhimself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.

Think of the ills from which you are exempt, and it will aid you to bear patiently those which now you may suffer.

Pain is the doorway to wisdom and to truth.

God already knows what we're made of, but perhaps He wants us to learn what we're made of. I think we would all agree that we learn more from our tough times than from our easy times.

Deliverance is about what I went through the first time. And I chalk it up as a learning experience.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

Adversity has a way of introducing a man to himself.