“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” This highlights the inevitability of suffering in the human experience, even for the sinless. Saint Augustine of Hippo

“For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.” This quote reflects the willingness to endure suffering for the sake of faith. Saint Maximilian Kolbe

“Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.” This emphasizes the closeness to Jesus that suffering can bring. Saint Teresa of Calcutta

“Don’t waste your suffering!” This encourages individuals to find purpose in their suffering and to offer it up for the good of others. Saint John Paul II

“I do not desire to die soon, because in Heaven there is no suffering. I desire to live a long time because I yearn to suffer much for the love of my Spouse.” This reflects a profound understanding of suffering as a means to deepen one’s love for God. Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi

“The more the wicked abound, so much the more must we suffer with them in patience.” This quote speaks to the communal aspect of suffering and the call to endure alongside others. Pope Saint Gregory the Great

For my heart is always with Him, day and night it thinks unceasingly of its heavenly and divine Friend, to whom it wants to prove its affection. Also within it arises this desire: not to die, but to suffer long, to suffer for God, to give Him its life while praying for poor sinners.
–Bl Elizabeth of the Trinity

If God sends you many sufferings, it is a sign that He has great plans for you and certainly wants to make you a saint.
–St. Ignatius Loyola

The road is narrow. He who wishes to travel it more easily must cast off all things and use the cross as his cane. In other words, he must be truly resolved to suffer willingly for the love of God in all things.
–St. John of the Cross

In order to purify a soul, Jesus uses whatever instruments he likes. My soul underwent a complete abandonment on the part of creatures; often my best intentions were misinterpreted by the sisters, a type of suffering which is most painful; but God allows it, and we must accept it because in this way we become more like Jesus.
–St. Faustina

If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ.
–Saint Ignatius of Loyola

One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer.
–St. Teresa of Avila

Suffering is a great favor. Remember that everything soon comes to an end . . . and take courage. Think of how our gain is eternal.
–St. Teresa of Avila

He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake.
–St. Aloysius Gonzaga

It is You Jesus, stretched out on the cross, who gives me strength and are always close to the suffering soul. Creatures will abandon a person in his suffering, but You, O Lord, are faithful.
–St. Faustina

“I always want to see you behaving like a brave soldier who does not complain about his own suffering but takes his comrades’ wounds seriously and treats his own as nothing but scratches.”
–Saint Therese of Lisieux, to her novices

“Nothing afflicts the heart of Jesus so much as to see all His sufferings of no avail to so many.”
–Saint John Mary Vianney

“One day, I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end of the road without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And there numbers were so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings.”
-Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska,

Let us therefore without ceasing hold fast by our hope and by the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who took up our sins in His own body upon the tree, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but for our sakes He endured all things, that we might live in Him. Let us therefore become imitators of His endurance; and if we should suffer for His name’s sake, let us glorify Him. For He gave this example to us in His own person, and we believed this.
–Saint Ploycarp of Smyrna

“If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.”
–St. Gemma Galgani