Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

I have to welcome the pain like I welcome the joy.

I think that hurting gives us a way to measure being happy. How can you know one without knowing the other.

Without pain, we couldn't know joy.

If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains. If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.

Our greatest hope is for the experience of joy, and often we are not as smart as we think we are when it comes to predicting what would bring us that joy. . . Hope that is attached to a particular outcome is looking for pleasure but fishing for pain, because attachment itself is a source of pain. It is best to hope for an experience of life in all its fullness-a life that can embrace both joy and sorrow, and will still be at peace.

The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal.

Sorrow is brief but joy is endless

Pain is short, and joy is eternal.

Just as there are laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or destroyed. But one can be converted into the other.

The deep hurt is the mirror image of the deep joy that still awaits you.

You can have peace of mind, improved health and an ever-increasing flow of energy. Life can be full of joy and satisfaction.

How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.

It is easy to live multiple lives! What is hard is to be a whole person

Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures.

Are we even now? Or do you want to rape my body as much as you’ve raped my soul? (Acheron)

The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel

Letting go of someone we love is the hardest thing we will ever do. Some people never surrender to love for the fear of being hurt. But to not have loved, to not have felt the immense joy it brings, would have been a far worse kind of death.

Life is a blend of laughter and tears, a combination of rain and sunshine.

When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom.

A thin line separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. Our lives constantly walk that line. When we slip off on one side or the other, we're taken by surprise. But who said there wouldn't be surprises? Knowing God just means that all the rules will be fair; at the end of our life drama, we'll see that. We never know how things will turn out, but if we know with certainty they will make sense regardless of how they turn out, we're on to something.

Just having someone make you laugh so hard that it hurts is so healing to me.

Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Love is the root of all joy and sorrow.