Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes. – Aesop

I bear a little more than I can bear. – Elinor Hoyt Wylie

Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills. We feel a thousand miseries till we are lucky enough to feel misery. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Watch a man in times of… adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off. – Lucretius, On the Nature of Things