Quotes About Misery

We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love: not from the fact that we love but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery.

Whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn.

A man of fashion does not like to be reckoned poor, no more than he likes to be reckoned unhappy. We none of us endeavor to be happy, Sir, but merely to be thought so; and for my part, I had rather be in a state of misery, and envied for my supposed happiness, than in a state of happiness, and pitied for my supposed misery.

Religion informs us that misery and sin were produced together. The depravation of human will was followed by a disorder of the harmony of nature; and by that Providence which often places antidotes in the neighborhood of poisons, vice was checked by misery, lest it should swell to universal and unlimited dominion.

Why does it help to read others' stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others' experiences did help with my emotional struggle.

There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.

Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalization. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 'cannot be remembered'; itself, being a rememberable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos.

Art thou in misery, brother? Then I pray Be comforted. Thy grief shall pass away. Art thou elated? Ah, be not too gay; Temper thy joy: this, too, shall pass away. Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway, And cling to hope: this, too, shall pass away. Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay One truth to heart: this, too, shall pass away. Do rays of loftier glory round thee play? Kinglike art thou? This, too, shall pass away! Whate'er thou art, wher'er thy footsteps stray, Heed these wise words: This, too, shall pass away.

Life is too short to nurse one's misery. Hurry across the lowlands so that you may spend more time on the mountain tops.

Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.

Religion must be used in furthering great works of justice and reform. It must be used to establish right relations between different groups of men, and thus to make a reality of brotherhood. It must be used to abolish poverty, the breeding ground of all misery and crime, by distributing equably among men the abundance of the soil. And it must be used to get rid of war and to establish enduring peace. Here is the supreme test of the effectiveness of religion.

It is not only poverty that torments the Negro; it is the fact of poverty amid plenty. It is a misery generated by the gulf between the affluence he sees in the mass media and the deprivation he experiences in his everyday life.

There were several parallels between Jonestown and Escuela Caribe. Both places used isolation to control a large group of people and censored their communication with the outside world so their loved ones wouldn't know about the rampant physical abuse and misery of the residents. I think the worst fallout, in both cases, was the living in constant fear, witnessing other residents get assaulted and worrying that you'd be next. That's where Post Traumatic Stress Disorder comes from.

Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

To fully appreciate the music, you have to see the misery.

Life: in all it's pain, misery, grandiosity and glory. I sing for myself, yet if others truly find inspiration through my words, then I have accidently done something brilliant in my life.

They didn't need to be specifically South American or Latin American. Instead we discovered we were talking about human beings in general. We realized that these are not issues only pertinent to Latin America: poverty, misery, consumerism, etc.

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

Can princes born in palaces be sensible of the misery of those who dwell in cottages?

Misery is complexity. Happiness is simplicity.

Mistrusts sometimes come over one's mind of the justice of God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we fly? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up?

Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation - because these societies have taken away all celebration in your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation, your life can become a danger to the culture. Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don't feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false.

I think a lot of the misery that people experience comes from that sensation of boundlessness, of infinite possibility.

He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to sit and listen to her talk about books until his ears fell off. 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.

Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

I think that Poe is so resonant because he represents that part of us that is in misery or sorrowful or wants to explore the darkness. He wrote a great story called 'The Imp of the Perverse' about the instinct towards self-destruction. Poe is the godfather of Goth literature and that whole movement.

Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the freedom you want. There is no security in freedom, at least not in the sense that we normally think of security. This is, of course, why it is so free: there's nothing there to grab hold of.

The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress.

All solitary enjoyments, quickly fall, or become painful, so that, perhaps, no more insufferable misery can be conceived than that which must follow incommunicable privileges. Only imagine a human being condemned to perpetual youth while all around him decay and die. O, how sincerely would he call upon death for deliverance!

Because 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.

Thinking aloud is a habit which is responsible for most of mankind's misery.

Self-inflicted misery smirks under its crown of thorns.

I used to have a phrase: Liberalism is spreading misery equally. And now the ruling class throughout Washington seems to have adopted this.

Fate finds for every man; his share of misery.

Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.

Almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take not distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather live in much pain and misery than lose.

Every family had its own peculiar cult, to which no stranger was ever admitted, and which alone could appease and satisfy the gods of that family. The cult was handed down from father to son, from generation to generation, and could not be lost without condemning the whole series of ancestors to eternal misery.

I hate all pain, Given or received; we have enough within us The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch, Not to add to each other's natural burden Of mortal misery.

This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.

Let me tell you that every misery I miss is a new blessing. [Not only be grateful for the good that you have but also for the bad you don't!]

Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment.

Why 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?

It is one of the great ironies of human history that some mortals with incorrect understanding of God and life's purposes sometimes scold God because of the abundance of human misery and suffering-which, indeed, lies all about us. Such individuals almost dare God to demonstrate His existence by straightening things out-and at once! But He is a much different kind of Father than that. Surely it is requisite to eternal life that we come to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (see John 17:3).

While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.

For the first time she had dimly realized that only the hopeless are starkly sincere and that only the unhappy can either give or take sympathy--even some of the bitter and dangerous voluptuousness of misery.

Can wealth give happiness? look around and see, what gay distress! what splendid misery! Whatever fortunes lavishly can pour, the mind annihilates and calls for more.