The Errant Pilgrim's Progress

“There is no happiness in comfort; happiness is bought with suffering.

Man is not born for happiness. Man earns his happiness, and always by suffering. There's no injustice here, because the knowledge of life and consciousness (that is, that which is felt immediately with your body and spirit, that is, through the whole vital process of life) is acquired by experience pro and contra, which one must take upon one's self. (By suffering, such is the law of our planet, but this immediate awareness, felt with the life process, is such a great joy that one gladly pays with years of suffering for it.)”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“A man misbehaves himself towards me; what is that to me? The action is his, and the disposition that led him to it is his, and therefore let him look to it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“There is a Finnish word, 'sisu,' which expresses this ultimate hidden resource in man when courage goes and consciousness is blackened, which insists on continuing to live no matter what life is worth. This may mean only that the skeleton wishes to keep its accustomed garment of flesh, that the eyeball fears to feel naked without the many-coloured protection of sight; but it might mean that the whole of us knows some argument in favour of life which the mind has not yet apprehended.”
― Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

“If any one can convince me of an error, I shall be very glad to change my opinion, for truth is my business, and nobody was ever yet hurt by it. No; he that continues in ignorance and mistake, it is he that receives the mischief.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations