Popular quotes about Misery! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 47
We want to be saved from our misery, but not from our sin. We want to sin without misery, just as the prodigal son wanted inheritance without the father. The foremost spiritual law of the physical universe is that this hope can never be realized. Sin always accompanies misery. There is no victimless crime, and all creation is subject to decay because of humanityโs rebellion from God.
R. C. SproulPity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.
C. S. LewisA special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space.
Fyodor DostoevskyI find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.
Danny BoyleToday's misery is real unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index - and it's at a record high. It's going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - it's going to take a new president.
Mitt RomneyEither the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it, or else, for ever and ever, the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.
C. S. LewisI'm against American corporations buying politicians to remove limits to greed, capitalizing on other people's misery, actively creating misery on which to capitalize, "financializing" every moment of our enslaved lives. Then when China or somebody takes over, then it will be [them] doing those things that I'll be against.
Greg SaunierThe way that the stories go in the Snicket books is just the way stories naturally go to me. They're full of misery, and yet the misery ends up being slightly hilarious. And in terms of the warnings on the back of the books, that really started as an honest assessment of their marketability.
Daniel HandlerWith everything we do in life we identify ourselves. Here is a man who says harsh words to me. I feel anger coming on me. In a few seconds anger and I are one, and then comes misery. Attach yourselves to the Lord and to nothing else, because everything else is unreal. Attachment to the unreal will bring misery. There is only one Existence that is real, only one Life in which there is neither object nor [subject].
Swami VivekanandaYes, when you see for the first time, a great laughter arises in you - the laughter about the whole ridiculousness of your misery, the laughter about the whole foolishness of your problems, the laughter about the whole absurdity of your suffering.
RajneeshRightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 'cannot be remembered'; itself, being a rememberable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos.
Thomas de QuinceyGod makes all chosen souls pass through a fearful time of poverty, misery, and nothingness. He desires to destroy in them gradually all the help and confidence they derive from themselves so that He may be their sole source of support, their confidence, their hope, their only resource.
Jean-Pierre de CaussadeFor there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.
John CalvinThose who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.
Albert CamusBut say That death be not one stroke, as I supposed, Bereaving sense, but endless misery From this day onward, which I feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuity; ay me, that fear Comes thund'ring back with dreadful revolution On my defenceless head; both Death and I Am found eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in me all Paradise Lost Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony That I must leave ye, sons; O were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
John MiltonIn the middle of this despair [of postwar Germany], my family learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the healing message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This message made all the difference; it lifted us above our daily misery. Life was still thorny and the circumstances still horrible, but the gospel brought light, hope, and joy into our lives. The plain and simple truths of the gospel warmed our hearts and enlightened our minds. They helped us look at ourselves and the world around us with different eyes and from an elevated viewpoint.
Dieter F. UchtdorfThou hast seen many sorrows, travel-stained pilgrim of the world, But that which hath vexed thee most, hath been the looking for evil; And though calamities have crossed thee, and misery been heaped on thy head, Yet ills that never happened, have chiefly made thee wretched.
Martin Farquhar TupperAgape means love for another self not because of any lovable qualities which he or she may possess, but purely and entirely because it is a self capable of experiencing happiness and misery and endowed with the power to choose between good and evil. The love of humans is thus more than a feeling, it is a state of the will.
Obert C. TannerAs men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.
Blaise PascalThere may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened.
Swami VivekanandaEconomic and social misery increases in direct proportion to the size and power of the central government of a nation or state.
Kirkpatrick SaleDon't settle for comfortable misery, a sad state where you're hanging on to what is most predictable and familiar at the risk of letting exciting opportunities pass you by.
Dan MillerAll those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.
George MacDonaldThe second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas JeffersonThe Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.
C. S. Lewis.. that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species.
David HumeHe who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage, and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind - that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for one is the way to be free.
Swami VivekanandaI had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end.
Joyce Carol OatesLife is a joyous thing essentially, but when you bind life by all these rigid moralities and traditions, and dogmas and creeds, then there is misery.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiSociety may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.
Robert OwenIt is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.
Friedrich August von HayekThere is a stage in any misery when the victim begins to find a deep satisfaction in it.
Storm JamesonBecause we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery.
Milton FriedmanI fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.
Swami VivekanandaKnowledge is like a knife. In the hands of a well-balanced adult it is an instrument for good of inestimable value; but in the hands of a child, an idiot, a criminal, a drunkard or an insane man, it may cause havoc, misery, suffering and crime. Science and religion have this in common, that their noble aims, their power for good, have often, with wrong men, deteriorated into a boomerang to the human race.
Leo BaekelandIf people become ecstatic the whole society will have to change, because this society is based on misery. If people are blissful you cannot lead them to war -- to Vietnam, or to Egypt, or to Israel. No. Someone who is blissful will just laugh and say: This is nonsense!
RajneeshBe again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.
Samuel BeckettI don't believe in happiness anyway... it's too much of an American pastime, this search for happiness. Just forget happiness and enjoy your misery.
Frank McCourtWhy should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?
William Butler YeatsWe have experienced the truth of this prophecy, for England has become the habitation of outsiders and the dominion of foreigners. Today, no Englishman is earl, bishop, or abbott, and newcomers gnaw away at the riches and very innards of England; nor is there any hope for an end of this misery.
William of MalmesburyWell, I always tried to look nice and be feminine even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there's no reason to add to everyone's misery by looking miserable yourself. That's my philosophy. This is why I always wore makeup and jewelry into the jungle-nothing too extravagant, but maybe just a nice gold bracelet and some earrings, a little lipstick, good perfume. Just enough to show that I still had my self-respect.
Elizabeth GilbertThis hideous doctrine of eternal torment after death has probably caused more terror and misery, more cruelty and more violation of natural human sympathy, than any belief in the history of mankind. Yet this doctrine was taught unambiguously by Jesus.
Margaret E. KnightWe come together only to go apart again. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it.
R.K. Narayan