Popular quotes about Misfortune! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
There is no greater fortune than having few concerns, no greater misfortune than having many worries. Only those who have suffered over their concerns know the blessing of having few concerns. Only those who have calmed their minds know the misfortune of having many worries.
Zicheng HongI believe that the confidence of Hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators.
Lajos KossuthIt is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody.
Baltasar GracianThe ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are ..said to have resilience or courage.
Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiThere is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise.
Winston ChurchillNo misfortune is so bad that whining about it wonโt make it worse. (Apr 2007 Gen Conf)
Jeffrey R. HollandThe pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.
Victor Hugothe size of a misfortune is not determinable by an outsiderโs measurement of it but only by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected by it.
Mark TwainThey must take me for a fool, or even worse, a lunatic. And no wonder ,for I am so intensely conscious of my misfortune and my misery is so overwhelming that I am powerless to resist it and am being turned into stone, devoid of all knowledge or feeling.
Miguel de CervantesNo one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.
Susie OrbachIf we remove the hope of profit as a means to alleviate misfortune - poverty, illness, misery, disaster - we shall increase our misfortunes and make them permanent.
Leonard ReadPrayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying!
Pope John Paul IIA source of permanent, accessible pleasure, our genitals exist. The god who created our misfortune, who made us short-lived, vain and cruel, has also provided this form of meagre compensation. If we couldn't have sex from time to time, what would life be? A futile struggle against joints that stiffen, caries that form. All of which, moreover, is as uninteresting as humanly possible - the collagen which makes muscles stiffen, the appearance of microbic cavities in the gums.
Michel HouellebecqThose who wander in the world avowedly and purposely in pursuit of happiness, who view every scene of present joy with an eye to what may succeed, certainly are more liable to disappointment, misfortune and unhappiness, than those who give up their fate to chance and take the goods and evils of fortune as they come, without making happiness their study, or misery their foresight.
Fanny BurneyIt is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.
ThucydidesWorry is when you choose from millions of possible thoughts, only the few which deal with a potential misfortune or problem. Once you accept your worrying as the act of choosing specific thoughts, you can consciously make an effort to avoid those thoughts that cause you needless pain and choose more constructive, positive thoughts.
Zelig PliskinIn the beginning was belief, foolish belief, and faith, empty faith, and illusion, the terrible illusion. ... We believed in God, had faith in man, and lived with the illusion that in each one of us is a sacred spark from the fire of the shekinah, that each one carried in his eyes and in his soul the sign of God. This was the sourceโif not the causeโof all our misfortune.
Elie WieselI have yet to hear an instance where misfortune hit a man because he worked overtime. I know lots of instances where it hit men who did not.
Charles M. SchwabEvery decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
Elias CanettiChimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will. Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race. What crimes would have been spared the world, if they had choked the first imbecile who thought of speaking of you.
Marquis de SadeYou will find the most pronounced hatred of other nations on the lowest cultural levels. There is, though, a level where the hatred disappears completely and where one so to speak stands above the nations and where one experiences fortune or misfortune of a neighboring country as if they had happened to one's own.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTest a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.
ChanakyaSometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lordโs wounds at armโs length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other peopleโs lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.
Pope FrancisI am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus- the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.
Helen KellerTo be mistaken is a misfortune to be pitied; but to know the truth and not to conform one's actions to it is a crime which Heaven and Earth condemn.
Giuseppe MazziniThe brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their female captives; and a nice question of casuistry was seriously agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost, by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. There were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind and more general concern.
Edward GibbonIt is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.
Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiI will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
Daniel HandlerThe world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset MaughamThe worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
Austin O'MalleyMisfortune can force you into doing things you should be doing anyway. Lessons come from adversity. Anything can happen to anyone... You can find a new lease on life - more meaning than you thought possible in simple things... Let go. Live in the moment. Go forward.
Christopher ReeveIt is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry; the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places.
Henri PoincareSo now, from this mad passion Which made me take art for an idol and a king I have learnt the burden of error that it bore And what misfortune springs from man's desire... The world's frivolities have robbed me of the time That I was given for reflecting upon God.
MichelangeloNo-one is exempt from speaking nonsense โ the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Michel de MontaigneTogether we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune.
Barack ObamaThis is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to--become evil!
Friedrich NietzscheThe greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention.
Franz SchubertA man once jumped from the top floor of a burning house in which many members of his family had already perished. He managed to save his life; but as he was falling he hit a person standing down below and broke that person's legs and arms. The jumping man had no choice; yet to the man with the broken limbs he was the cause of his misfortune. If both behaved rationally, they would not become enemies.
Isaac Deutscher