quotations about suffering
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays
Seek not life's jewels where the poppies grow,
Nor where Desire, all passion-poisoned, rears
Her luring domes, but in the heart of woe,
With shores far washed by sanctifying tears.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR
"Life's Jewels"
Sick system built on suffering
Sick system built on pain
It's a bullet in the head
Of every happy boy and girl
NASUM
"Sick System"
You cannot insult a man more atrociously than by refusing to believe he is suffering.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, October 5, 1938
A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.
HOMER
The Odyssey
The public's spirit of solidarity in face of suffering is heartening and reminds us of our common humanity.
DIPTI PARDESHI
"Refugee Week: British solidarity in the face of suffering", The London Economic, June 25, 2017
Suffering of sentient beings is like decay; it fertilizes the growth of their souls.
ANNE RICE
Memnoch the Devil
When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.
BERTOLT BRECHT
"When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain"
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.
C. S. LEWIS
The Problem of Pain
Suffering is as God's letter. Open it and read it. Many a one will find that he is titled, or that there is an inheritance laid up for him.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
You know, my dear, you're wrong that suffering ennobles people.... It simply makes one cross.
GREGORY BENFORD
"Nooncoming", In Alien Flesh
One does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.
WILLIAM STYRON
Darkness Visible
Sometimes the only way around suffering is to go straight through it.
ANONYMOUS
Suffering must be the inevitable tariff exacted from spirit for residing in human form.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating or applying. Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take measure of the body.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan.
THOMAS GRAY
Odes on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
Some people seem to be born to suffer.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
Easter
Life is suffering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Life is suffering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Cold and shuddering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Cruel and pummeling
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Smile on little buddha, smile on
Little buddha, smile on
It's only illusion then it's gone
TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
"Little Buddha"
It is a comfort, in anguish, to be reminded of the scale of one's own troubles against the mighty breadth of the world.
JACQUELINE CAREY
Kushiel's Dart
As long as one suffers one lives.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair