Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.
Interpretation
Understanding hardship helps us value the good times in life.
This quote suggests that experiencing difficult or dark times can enhance our appreciation for the positive moments in life. By knowing the struggles and challenges, we gain a deeper understanding and gratitude for joy and light, making the positive experiences more profound and meaningful.
In practice
In a motivational speech discussing resilience and the journey of personal growth.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
Desires are seeds waiting for their season to sprout. From a single seed of desire, whole forests grow.
Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest.
Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men. Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to manβs destruction. Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Brain be published before the destruction takes place.
I just don't think of age and time in respect of years. I have too much experience of people in their seventies who are vigorous and useful and people who are thirty-five who are in lousy physical shape and can't think straight. I don't think age has that much to do with it.
From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.
Anger is energising. The opposite of anger is depression, which is anger turned inward.
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