There's mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought,
Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot. [ William Cowper ]

Calamity is man's true touchstone. [ Beaumont and Fletcher ]

There is healing in the bitter cup. [ Southey ]

Affliction is enamored of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity. [ William Shakespeare ]

Alas by some degree of woe,
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can never a transport know,
That never feels a pain. [ Lord Lyttleton ]

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before. [ Richard Baxter ]

I am a feather for each wind that blows. [ William Shakespeare ]

Friendship has a power
To soothe affliction in her darkest hour. [ H. K. White ]

Affliction is but the shadow of God's wing. [ George Macdonald ]

Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray,
As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man. [ Young ]

'T is a physic that is bitter to sweet end. [ William Shakespeare ]

Death is the port where all may refuge find,
The end of labor, entry into rest;
Death hath the bounds of misery confin'd
Whose sanctuary shrouds affliction best. [ Earl of Stirling ]

Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes. [ Pomfret ]

We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile -
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry. [ Young ]

Affliction is not sent in vain -
From that good God who chastens whom He loves! [ Southey ]

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! [ Burns ]

Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. [ Matthew Henry ]

Thy pleasure points the shaft, and bends the bow;
The cluster blasts, or bids it brightly glow. [ Dr. Young ]

Afflictions clarify the soul,
And like hard masters, give more hard directions,
Tutoring the non-age of uncurbed affections. [ Quarles ]

Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths. [ P. J. Bailey ]

Amid my list of blessings infinite
Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled; [ Young ]

Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. [ Job v. 7 ]

Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene;
Resumes them, to prepare us for the next. [ Young ]

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites. [ Bovee ]

What region of the earth is not full of our calamities? [ Virgil ]

As sure as God ever puts His children into the furnace.
He will be in the furnace with them. [ C. H. Spurgeon ]

Corn is cleaned with wind, and the soul with chastenings. [ George Herbert ]

The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough. [ Carlyle ]

A well-balanced mind is the best remedy against affliction. [ Plautus ]

We only see clearly when we have reached the depths of woe. [ Ouida ]

Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father's house. [ Thomas Brooks ]

He who tenders doubtful safety to those in trouble refuses it. [ Seneca ]

The afflictions to which we are accustomed, do not disturb us. [ Claudianus ]

It is the best thing for a stricken heart to be helping others. [ A. H. E ]

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. [ William Shakespeare ]

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. [ Spurgeon ]

The good are better made by ill, as odors crushed are sweeter still! [ Rogers ]

Distress is virtue's opportunity: we only live to teach us how to die. [ Southern ]

What seem to us but dim funereal tapers may be heaven's distant lamps. [ Longfellow ]

Every fresh acquirement is another remedy against affliction and time. [ Willmott ]

Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow! [ William Shakespeare ]

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune. [ Laurence Sterne ]

The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in heaven before unfelt. [ Bovee ]

How blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt! [ Blair ]

It is not affliction itself, but affliction rightly borne, that does us good. [ Aughey ]

David's pen never wrote more sweetly than when dipped in the ink of affliction. [ G. Mason ]

As threshing separates the corn from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue. [ Bacon ]

Consolation indiscreetly pressed only aggravates the poignancy of the affliction. [ Rousseau ]

As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue. [ Robert Burton ]

In time of affliction, a vow; in the time of prosperity, an increase of wickedness. [ Hebrew Proverb ]

If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches. [ Burgh ]

Oft the cloud that wraps the present hour serves but to brighten all our future days. [ Wm. Browne ]

It is from the remembrance of joys we have lost that the arrows of affliction are pointed. [ Mackenzie ]

With the wind of tribulation God separates in the floor of the soul, the chaff from the corn. [ Molinos ]

Believe me, the gods spare the afflicted, and do not always oppress those who are unfortunate. [ Ovid ]

Affliction is a school of virtue: it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning. [ Atterbury ]

Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed. [ Hannah More ]

God afflicts with the mind of a father, and kills for no other purpose but that he may raise again. [ South ]

Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified cross is a fruitful tree. [ Rutherford ]

Love is eternally awake, never tired with labour, nor oppressed with affliction, nor discouraged by fear. [ Thomas à Kempis ]

The very afflictions of our earthly pilgrimage are presages of our future glory, as shadows indicate the sun. [ Richter ]

We should be more anxious that our afflictions should benefit us than that they should be speedily removed from us. [ Robert Hall ]

Both beauty and ugliness are equally to be dreaded; the one as a dangerous gift, the other as a melancholy affliction. [ Eliza Cook ]

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. [ Matthew Henry ]

God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments. [ T. L. Cuyller ]

Affliction is the wholesome soul of virtue; Where patience, honor, sweet humanity. Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish. [ Mallet and Thomson ]

Thou art never at any time nearer to God than when under tribulation; which He permits for the purification and beautifying of thy soul. [ Miguel Molinos ]

Affliction of itself does not sanctify any body, but the reverse. I believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions. [ C. H. Spurgeon ]

With every anguish of our earthly part the spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meant when Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay. [ Lowell ]

Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us by the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. [ C. H. Spurgeon ]

Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. [ Channing ]

If the ear is the road to the heart, and the heart to the affections, how keen must the affliction of deafness be to those who possess great tenderness of the one, and susceptibility of the other. [ J. Ellis ]

The truly great and good in affliction bear a countenance more princely than they are wont, for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burdened. [ S. P. Sidney ]

Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain. [ Richard Cecil ]

Honest men esteem and value nothing so much in this world as a real friend. Such a one is as it were another self, to whom we impart our most secret thoughts, who partakes of our joy, and comforts us in our affliction; add to this, that his company is an everlasting pleasure to us. [ Pilpay ]