Malcolm Muggeridge Quotes

It is tough: sometimes the pain that you feel makes you grow.

As an old man...looking back on one's life, it's one of the things that strikes you most forcibly-that the only thing that's taught one anything is suffering. Not success, not happiness, not anything like that. The only thing that really teaches one what life's about...is suffering, affliction.

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.

We rarely grow when we're happy, we grow when we hurt.

Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

Possibly because I've lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life.

I get why we don't want to be in pain, but there's something very essential about what happens when we're in pain and some of the growth that can come from it if we stare at it straight in the face.

In our culture, I feel like everyone just wants the good life, the dream life, but I'm learning to embrace suffering because with suffering there's so much good that comes out of it.

Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us where it found us.

Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us

Every failure, every adversity, every heartache may be a blessing in disguise providing it softens the animal portion of our nature.

It's impossible to go through life unscathed. Nor should you want to. By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.

Without dark clouds in our lives, we would never know the joy of sunshine. We can become callous and unteachable if we do not learn from pain.

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.

You can't lead a true life without suffering

Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.

Hardships make us strong. Problems give birth to wisdom. Sorrows cultivate compassion. Those who have suffered the most will become the happiest.

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

Suffering is a good teacher. It keeps you in its grip until you've learned your lesson.

And I reminded myself that it's easy to be grateful for the obvious blessings in life, much harder to be grateful for the tough moments and the lessons they teach.

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.\

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.

The tears of affliction are often needed to keep the eye of faith bright.

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.