I grew up performing in glee club at my school; I was the ostrich in 'Peter Pan,' and then I was super-involved in church choir and worship leading at my church. So I always loved music and was involved with it, but never really thought it was what I wanted to do until I started writing. - Kelsea Ballerini

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Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. some people are better at hiding it than others.

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For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life. ― Aeschylus

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White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books. The bravery of hundreds of our ancestors who took part in slave rebellions has been lost in the mists of time, since plantation owners did their best to prevent any written accounts of uprisings. — Huey Newton

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Smiling is the best way to face every problem, to crush every fear, to hide every pain.

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One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.

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The real test of love is loving those who we feel are the hardest ones to love. ― Criss Jami

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Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.

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Power is find at the limit of pain. ― Lailah Gifty Akita

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The breaking of the alabaster box and the anointing of the Lord filled the house with the odor, with the sweetest odor. Everyone could smell it. Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered; been limited, gone through things for the Lord, willing to be imprisoned by the Lord, just being satisfied with Him and nothing else, immediately you scent the fragrance. There is a savor of the Lord. Something has been crushed, something has been broken, and there is a resulting odor of sweetness.

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