quotations about misery
A little misery sweetens existence. It is the salt that makes it palatable and wholesome.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
We are apt to measure the happiness or misery of the world by that portion of either which has fallen to our lot.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Here is a thing which the more you fear and avoid it the nearer you approach to it, and this is misery; the more you flee from it the more miserable and restless you will become.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness.
CASSANDRA CLARE
Clockwork Prince
There is no people so miserable, but that at some time or other, in some respect or other, they have reason to account themselves happy. And if they would but duly consider how it is with many of their neighbours, they would find it their duty to be thankful, that it is no worse with themselves; for it is some relief to the unfortunate to show them that there are others yet more miserable.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery.
C. S. LEWIS
The Magician's Nephew
To be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
To the Lighthouse
He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Of Human Bondage
Misery is a veil through which the world can see our errors, but seldom discover our virtues.
WILLIAM OCCAM
attributed, Day's Collacon
All of which misery I saw, part of which I was.
VIRGIL
Aeneid
No misery is unlooked for by men, for we find good fortune lasting only for a day.
DIPHILUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then -- we went on dancing.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
Misery travels free through the whole world!
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Wallenstein's Tod
It is a consolation of human life that the sick forget what it is like to feel well, or the miserable to be happy.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
The Condemned Playground
Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Possessed
Misery appears to improve the intellect, but this is only because it dismisses fear.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
There is a lightness, a lightening, that comes along with misery: vast portions of your life are shorn off, suddenly ignorable.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
You begin to see that you yourself, innocent, upright you, have contributed and do contribute to the misery of the world. Which will never end because we're what we are.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
Perhaps it may be found more easy to forget those tempers we learnt in misery.
EDMUND LAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
The wretched hasten to hear of their own miseries.
SENECA THE YOUNGER
Hercules Oetaeus