Affliction Quotes

“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.”
― Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

“The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.”
― Richard Sibbes

“It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.”
― Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“Bad luck with women is a determined man's road to success. For every affliction, he makes, out of indignation, yet another advancement in order to exceed the man that the woman chose over him. This goes to show that great men are made great because they once learned how to fight the feeling of rejection.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“There's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to console the afflicted.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ's love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the gospel should make them.”
― Timothy Keller, Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just

“It's shame that gets us killed. Shame is the anchor, the heaviest burden to carry from the battlefield. Fortunately shame was an affliction I'd never suffered from.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools

“While racial minorities across every civilized country in the world are still waiting for their break, our kind (stutterers) became emperors (i.e., Claudius) and kings (i.e., George VI) for thousands of years. Imagine how well we’re doing for ourselves now.”
― Anas Hamshari, Businessman With An Affliction

“Just as sick people need surgery and cautery to recover the health they have lost, so we need trials, and toils of repentance, and fear of death and punishment, so that we may regain our former health of soul and shake off the sickness which our folly has induced. The more the Physician of our souls bestows upon us voluntary and involuntary suffering, the more we should thank Him for His compassion and accept the suffering joyfully: For it is to help us that He increases our tribulation, both through the sufferings we willingly embrace in our repentance and through the trials and punishments not subject to our will. In this way, if we voluntarily accept affliction, we will be freed from our sickness and from the punishments to come, and perhaps even from present punishments as well.”
― St. Peter of Damascus

“Trouble sharpens the vision.”
― P. G. Wodehouse

“To endure affliction is better than turning to do evil.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“J'avais passé un quart d'heure avec mes enfants.
Et ça a duré des mois qu'elle se plaignait que j'avais aucune reconnaissance.
Les Blancs, c'est un vrai chagrin, dit Sofia.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Affliction of a man leads him to seek his Maker.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“God's word is like an energy drink. It gives vigor to the depressed, the addicted, the traumatized, the downtrodden, the fallen, the cursed, the possessed and every soul that has sank deep in sin.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Affliction is not misery. Misery is the abasement of spirit which comes from the loss of God and good.”
― John Webster

“Trials put every man to test in the journey of life.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“In the land of affliction is where every good soldier of Christ undergoes graceful training.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Every good soldier of Christ has endured suffering in the land of affliction.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The thorn is one of the most cursed and angry
and crabbed weeds that the earth yields, and yet out of it springs the rose, one of the sweetest smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye.”
― Samuel Rutherford, Letters of Samuel Rutherford

“God speaks to man in his affliction to deliever his soul from death.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“None but the godly are capable of desertion. Wicked men know not what God’s love means, nor what it is to want it. They know what it is to want health, friends, trade, but not what it is to want God’s favour. You fear you are not God’s child because you are deserted. The Lord cannot be said to withdraw His love from the wicked, because they never had it. The being deserted evidences you to be a child of God. How could you complain that God has estranged Himself, if you had not sometimes received smiles and tokens of love from Him?”
― Thomas Watson, All Things for Good

“It is good for me to be afflicted that I may die wholly to this world and all that is in it.”
― David Brainerd, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd

“Fear—real, honest-to-God debilitating fear—is an affliction.”
― Magie Dominic, Street Angel

“The Lord afflicts us not in His fury, but in His faithfulness”
― Royal Raj S

“In ballads, love is a disease, an affliction. You contract it as a mortal might contract one of their viruses. Perhaps a touch of hands or a brush of lips, and then it is as though your whole body is fevered and fighting it. But there's no way to prevent it from running its course.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon