Saint Augustine on Self-Knowledge and Dealing with the Circumstances of Life

"Every trial we undergo is designed to prove us, and all such probation is fruitful. We are for the most part an unknown quantity to ourselves; we do not know what we can bear and what we cannot. Sometimes we think we can carry something, though it is really beyond our strength, and at other times we feel hopeless about carrying something that is within our powers. So the trial comes, and it puts us to the question, and we discover ourselves."

--St. Augustine (Expositions of the Psalms)