SUFFERING QUOTES III

quotations about suffering

Suffering quote

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone,
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But it has trouble enough of its own.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"Solitude"

Tags: Ella Wheeler Wilcox


The poet, no doubt, has to learn by suffering, but having learnt, he has then, in my opinion, to help others not to be miserable, but to be happy.

ALFRED AUSTIN

The Bridling of Pegasus

Tags: Alfred Austin


This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting--since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.

JOHN MILTON

Paradise Lost

Tags: John Milton


Suffering well borne is better than suffering removed.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher


Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


There is no suffering if you don't want anything.

ELIF BATUMAN

The Idiot


Pain and suffering is a really ghoulish metric. You can't quantify a life. Any effort to do that is, of course, futile. But because our civil justice system, such as it is, only talks about money, that's the exercise we have to engage in.

DAVID B. RANKIN

"When cops kill, paying their victims' families can be a cold, calculating process", Business Insider, June 28, 2017


There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first.

CESARE PAVESE

This Business of Living, October 19, 1940

Tags: Cesare Pavese


Mortal! that cull'st the flowers of life,
Think not to escape the thorn.

WILLIAM B. TAPPAN

"The Thorn of Life"

Tags: William B. Tappan


Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry.

BRET HARTE

"The Lost Galleon"

Tags: Bret Harte


Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.

RAM DASS

One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life


The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished, and glorified through the furnace of tribulation.

E. H. CHAPIN

Living Words


Pain and illness, the deaths of those one loves, and discomforts and disappointments mar the happy norm, but they do not alter the fact that happiness is the norm, nor affect the tendency of the continuum to restore it, to heal it, after any disturbance.

JEAN LIEDLOFF

The Continuum Concept

Tags: Jean Liedloff


Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

ELIE WIESEL

Night

Tags: Elie Wiesel


Alas! fond child,
How are thy thoughts beguil'd
To hope for honey from a nest of wasps?
Thou may'st as well
Go seek for ease in hell,
Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps.
The world's a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
But case thou meet
Some petty-petty sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems

Tags: Francis Quarles


Suffering is suffering. It doesn't matter if you are addicted to porn on the internet or you're codependent or you're addicted to gambling or if you're addicted to The Real Housewives of Atlanta. You're suffering, and that's what gets us into trouble.

SEAN BROOK

"Sean Brock Opens Up About Rehab and Sobriety to NYT", Eater Charleston, July 5, 2017


A heart is that which opens
To trouble's thousand ways;
An unseen arrow wounds it,
To halt through all its days.
An evil eye may scatter blight,
A flitting mite may sting;
No wonder that a heartache
Is such a common thing!

CAROLINE SPENCER

"Heartache"

Tags: Caroline Spencer


Trouble's made us kin.

GEORGE ELIOT

Adam Bede


Your suffering is something you choose. Experience it fully. Without it you will not achieve personal growth and higher consciousness.

ERNIE J. ZELINSKI

The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness

Tags: Ernie J. Zelinski


To rest in your own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.

T. S. ELIOT

The Family Reunion

Tags: T. S. Eliot