There are sufferings that have lost their memory and do not remember why they are suffering. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials. – Confucius