“In addition to voluntary suffering, you must also accept that which comes against your will - I mean slander, material losses and sickness. For if you do not accept these but rebel against them, you are like someone who wants to eat his bread only with honey, never with salt. Such a man does not always have pleasure as his companion, but always has nausea as his neighbor.” SufferingPatienceEnduranceSlanderReproof Author:Ilias the Presbyter
“Suffering deliberately embraced cannot free the soul totally from sin unless the soul is also tried in the fire of suffering that comes unchosen. For the soul is like a sword: if it does not go 'through fire and water' (Ps. 66:12. LXX) - that is, through suffering deliberately embraced and suffering that comes unchosen - it cannot but be shattered by the blows of fortune.” SufferingSin Author:Ilias the Presbyter