Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
Interpretation
Afflictions reveal our problems and can lead to personal growth and healing.
This quote by John Tillotson suggests that while afflictions may initially seem like purely negative experiences, they serve a greater purpose by uncovering our inner issues and prompting a healing process. Such challenges can lead us to self-discovery and improvement, emphasizing the idea that adversity can foster personal growth and resilience.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience during tough times.
Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.
The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.
An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.
Smell and taste differentiate, whereas language, like sight and hearing, integrates.
He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.
When a gift is difficult to give away, it becomes even more rare and precious, somehow gathering a part of the giver to the gift itself.
One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay.
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