quotations about suffering
Suffering of sentient beings is like decay; it fertilizes the growth of their souls.
ANNE RICE
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Memnoch the Devil
As long as one suffers one lives.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan.
THOMAS GRAY
Odes on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
A morbid propensity that causes great suffering in domestic life is often curiously infectious to the very person for whom it creates most suffering.
ADA LEVERSON
Bird of Paradise
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"
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
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
There would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men -- and God knows why they are so fashioned -- did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Birth, death, and suffering all bring us to the very edge of what our minds can understand.
RAM DASS
One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, he allows it to spill all over the people around him. When you suffer, you make people around you suffer. That's very natural. This is why we have to learn how to handle our suffering, so we won't spread it everywhere.
THICH NHAT HANH
Anger
One does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.
WILLIAM STYRON
Darkness Visible
You know, my dear, you're wrong that suffering ennobles people.... It simply makes one cross.
GREGORY BENFORD
"Nooncoming", In Alien Flesh
Suffering must be the inevitable tariff exacted from spirit for residing in human form.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays
One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
No man ever grows to a full man's estate without the ministration of suffering.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Learn to bear suffering, and it shall bear thee.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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"
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"
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words