“It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.”

“But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do -- remember that -- and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.”

“We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

“The conflicts we have with the outside world are often conflicts we have within ourselves.”

“Even in the world today, it is often at the point where we are frustrated by the gap between fallen reality and our sense of God’s desires that we are moved to action in a cause greater than ourselves.”

“But we all have moments when we must listen in tears to the silence of the swarming path inside ourselves.”