Charles Spurgeon Quotes

Our work is to keep our hearts open in hell.

To bear other people's afflictions, everyone has courage and enough to spare.

Love becomes greater and nobler in calamity.

Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.

I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that's ever happened to me has taught me compassion.

No matter how bad you think you have it, there's always - always somebody who's got it way, way worse.

Myself acquainted with misfortune, I learn to help the unfortunate.

I learned that my upbringing was rough, but there's other people out there where their upbringing is even worse than mine. It just gives you even more of a reason to want to help.

I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

... Not only are we comforted in our trials, but our trials can equip us to comfort others.

Every single person has a story that will break your heart. And if you're paying attention, many people... have a story that will bring you to your knees. Nobody rides for free.

It's like growing lotus flowers. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. You have to grow them on the mud. Without mud you cannot have lotus flowers. Without suffering, you have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.

It's easy to endure adversity -- if it happens to someone else.

Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination.

There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.

You know things are bad when a woman without any legs and who recently lost two of her own kids feels sorry for you.

Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.

Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation.

Maybe I should have cut him some slack. With his broken wing and lifetime of eating roadkill, he probably had a lot to be ungrateful about. Too much hard luck can create a permanent meanness of spirit in any creature.

I believe the hard heartest, most cross grained and most unloving Christians in all the world are those who have not had much trouble in their life. And those that are the most sympathizing, loving and Christlike are generally those who have the most affliction. The worse thing that can happen to any of us is to have a path made too smooth. One of the greatest blessings the Lord ever gave us was a cross.

We can take suffering to be an opportunity to learn and to grow. But if we are honest, we should remember that this is making the best of a bad job, and that minimising suffering takes priority over optimising its outcome.

Hard times make you bitter or make you more compassionate.

Life asks not merely what you can do; it asks how much can you endure and not be spoiled.

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.