Great Throughts Treasury

"Like any other major experience, illness actually changes us. How? Well for one thing we are temporarily relieved from the pressure of meeting the world head on. We enter a world of introspection and self-analysis. We think soberly, perhaps for the first time, about our past and future. Illness gives us that rarest thing in the world--a second chance, not only at health, but at life itself!"

"Illness knocks a lot of nonsense out of us; it induces humility, cuts us down to size ... When we are a bit scared the salutary effect of sickness is particularly marked. For only when the ... gate grows narrow do some people discover their soul, their God, their life work."