Ordeal Quotes

“I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.”

“I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.”

“You’ve had many ordeals in the past. During these ordeals, life seemed unbearable. You may have collapsed from the exhaustion of hopelessness and curled into a fetal position. Regardless of how difficult this new ordeal may be, as with the others, this too will be overcome. It will make you stronger.”

“My journey through the Congo had its ow unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly wasn't pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats when in the Congo. The challenge was to assess and choose the option best suited to making progress. But there were moments when there were no alternatives, or shortcuts or clever ideas. At these times, ordeal travel became really no ordeal at all.”

“Be grateful for all ordeals, they are the shortest way to the Divine.”

“It is impossible to climb to greater heights while holding on to one's past ordeals.”

“I don’t know what more to say... I did not follow up in the days to come. I did not, I did, I should, I could... Just like that, I let that entire ordeal go.”

“A man cannot despair if he can imagine a better life, and if he can enact something of its possibility. It is only when I am ensnarled in the meaningless ordeals and the ordeals of meaninglessness, of which our public and political life is now so productive, that I lose the awareness of something better, and feel the despair of having come to the dead end of possibility.”

“METAPHYSICAL LECTURE 1It has been said that after undergoing certain ordeals — whether ecstatic or abysmal — we should be obliged to change our names, as we are no longer who we once were. Instead the opposite rule is applied: our names linger long after anything resembling what we were, or thought we were, has disappeared entirely. Not that there was ever much to begin with — only a few questionable memories and impulses drifting about like snowflakes in a gray and endless winter. But each soon floats down and settles into a cold and nameless void.”

“The ordeal is not that truth does not win”

“For people who live on expectations to face up to their realization is something of an ordeal.”