I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion.Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
Abigail Adams Letter to John Adams (27 November 1775).
If we can see our difficulties, there is a way of resolving them, or thehope of a way.
Shirk not these crises, hard and difficult though they may appear to be. Difficult they are. Forget not that the habit of confronting crises, is a long-established one within the consciousness of humanity. Man has the "habit of crisis", if I may so call it. They are only the points of examination... They evoke confidence when surmounted, and produce greatly expanded vision. They foster compassion and understanding, for the pain and inner conflict they have engendered is never forgotten, for they draw upon the resources of the heart. They release the light of wisdom within the field of knowledge, and the world is thereby enriched.
Alice Bailey inA Treatise on the Seven Rays: Volume 3: Esoteric Astrology (1951)
Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence, — as a compliment from God.
Henry Ward Beecher,Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895),p. 107
Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about abusiness whose value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.
Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund Burke,Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume iii, page 453
Where, then, is the hope? Is the hope in hardship’s rushing gales? Ah, no, no more than God’s voice was in the rushing gales but in the gentle breeze. Likewisehope, eternity’s hope, is like a gentle breeze, like a whisper in a person’s innermost being, only all too easy to ignore. But what, then, does hardship want? It wants to have this whisper brought forth in the innermost being. But then does not hardship work against itself, must not its storm simply drown out this voice? No, hardship can drown out every earthly voice; it is supposed to do just that, but it cannot down out this voice of eternity deep within. Or the reverse. It is eternity’s voice within that wants to be heard, and in order to gain a hearing it uses the clamor of hardship. When all irrelevant voices are silenced with the help of hardship, then it can be heard, this voice within.
Let them understand in America that the crisis in the country itself is nothing less than a battlefield. There is no better possibility! The Teaching says that while the human spirit is in happy and comfortable harbors it will never awaken. Therefore, only in the days of shocks is it possible to expect spiritual ascent and the realization of true values. The threatening time will compel many to look for a way out and salvation. Try to be at your best, and connect yourselves with the great Focus without delay! Let nobody be deceived by apparent calmness, as it is very deceptive—such calmness may be more dangerous than a storm.
I've always believed that awriter has got to remain an outsider. If I was offered anything like the Nobel Prize for Literature, I'd find it an extremely difficult conflict because I'd be basically disinclined to accept.
