"Every noble work is at first impossible." — Thomas Carlyle

Socrates:  "What the most decent people experience in relation to their community is so hard to bear that there's no other experience like it."

Abraham Lincoln:  "I am like the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. When they asked him how he felt about it, he said that if it were not for the honor of the thing, he would rather have walked."

"Sometimes the only writing material you have is your own blood."
— Daniel Berrigan

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." — Matthew 10:16

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." — Matthew 5:44

Father, let my mercy toward others make up for the sins done to me.

"Wisdom is crystallized pain." — Rudolf Steiner

"All true, great cognition is born from pain and sorrow. When we set out on the path to higher worlds using the means of cognition described in anthroposophical spiritual science, we can reach our goal only by enduring pain. Through suffering—much suffering—we are freed from the oppressive aspects of pain. Without this step, we cannot perceive the spiritual world." — Rudolf Steiner

"Valor transposed into the spiritual, bravery transposed into the spiritual, is love." — Rudolf Steiner

"The hero is he who is immovably centered." — Emerson

"Every noble work is at first impossible." — Thomas Carlyle

"If there is something more powerful than destiny, this must be the human being who bears destiny unshaken." — Rudolf Steiner

"Our value for the world must be seen to lie wholly in acts of love, not in what is done for the sake of self-perfecting. Let us be under no illusion about this. When a person is endeavoring to follow Christ through love of wisdom and dedicates that wisdom to the service of the world, it only takes real effect to the extent it is filled with love." — Rudolf Steiner

"No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." — Hebrews 12:11

“Character is that which can do without success.” — Emerson

"Martyrs are spiritual heroes. Every man has his years of martyrdom. Christ was the great martyr of our race. Through Him martyrdom has become infinitely meaningful and holy. Oh! that I had a taste for martyrdom!"
— Novalis

Related post: The Surrendered Life: 33 Years at the Himalayan Institute 

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-surrendered-life-33-years-at.html