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“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“God aims to exalt himself by working for those who wait for him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God: acknowledging our helplessness and his power, calling upon him for help, seeking his counsel.”
― John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

“The “music of decline” had sounded, as in that wonderful Chinese fable; like a thrumming bass on the organ its reverberations faded slowly out over decades; its throbbing could be heard in the corruption of the schools, periodicals, and universities, in melancholia and insanity among those artists and critics who could still be taken seriously; it raged as untrammeled and amateurish overproduction in all the arts.”
― Hermann Hesse

“To Jesus it is inconceivable that someone would dare ask God for full and free forgiveness while remaining as an unforgiving person towards others. The forgiven forgive and the forgivers are forgiven.”
― James R. Beck, Jesus and Personality Theory: Exploring the Five-Factor Model