Quotes About Misfortune

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.

It is our misfortune, as a historical generation, to live through the largest expansion in expressive capability in human history, a misfortune because abundance breaks more things than scarcity.

Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. 'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty, too. I would not despair unless I saw misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.

For certain people, misfortune is a beacon that lights up the dark and baser sides of social life.

Misery is evil; quarreling, a misfortune. There is only one possibility of avoiding both: a clear division of society. [Otherwise] the strong tyrannize the weak, the intelligent frighten the stupid, the inferior resist the superior, and the young mock the old.

Atra gulai un ilian tauthr ono un atra ono waise skolir fra rauthr. - Let luck and happiness follow you and may you be shielded from misfortune.

It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody.

Misfortune is no excuse for cruelty.

The devil is not only a liar, but also a murderer, he constantly seeks our life, and wreaks his anger whenever he can afflict our bodies with misfortune and harm. Hence it comes that he often breaks men's necks or drives them to insanity, drowns some, and incites many to commit suicide, and to many other terrible calamities. Therefore there is nothing for us to do upon earth but to pray against this arch enemy without ceasing. For unless God preserved us, we would not be safe from him even for an hour.

The diamond of character is revealed by the concussion of misfortune, as the splendor of the precious jewel of the mine is developed by the blows of the lapidary.

Love feels like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.

It seems unfortunate that strong people are usually so disagreeable and overbearing that no one cares for them. In fact, to be different from your fellow creatures is always a misfortune.

Misfortune, no less than happiness, inspires us to dream.

[T]hese losses of the Church in the past hundred years give us reason to fear in the present misfortune that in another hundred years we may lose the Church entirely in Europe. So, keeping this fear in mind, blessed are those who cooperate in extending the Church elsewhere.

It is a great evil, as well as a misfortune, to be unable to utter a prompt and decided 'no'.

Whatever impatience we may feel towards our neighbor, and whatever indignation our race may rouse in us, we are chained one to another, and, companions in labour and misfortune, have everything to lose by mutual recrimination and reproach. Let us be silent as to each other's weakness, helpful, tolerant, many, tender towards each other! Or, if we cannot feel tenderness, may we at least feel pity!

It doesn't require much for misfortune to strike in the King's Gambit - one incautious move, and Black can be on the edge of the abyss.

It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm - which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.

I don't regard Jews as a class. I regard them as a privileged misfortune.

The misfortune to be born when I was, where I was. That was a piece of bad luck.

The death of a man's wife is like cutting down an ancient oak that has long shaded the family mansion. Henceforth the glare of the world, with its cares and vicissitudes falls upon the old widower's heart, and there is nothing to break their force, or shield him from the full weight of misfortune. It is as if his right hand were withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and every movement that he made brought him to the ground.

The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance

Misfortune comes to people who live only on the memory of their past grandeur.

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

The rice grain suffers under the blow of the pestle. But admire its whiteness once the order is over. So it is with men and the world we live in. To be a man one must suffer the blows of misfortune.

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone's malignity.

Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

The memory of man is as old as misfortune

How would you feel if you had no fear? Feel like that. How would you behave toward other people if you realized their powerlessness to hurt you? Behave like that. How would your react to so-called misfortune if you saw its inability to bother you? React like that. How would you think toward yourself if you knew you were really all right? Think like that.

Misfortune is the best fortune. Rejection by all is victory.

Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.

The vital consideration of incentives is almost systematically overlooked in the proposals of agitators for more and bigger government welfare schemes. We should all be concerned about the plight of the poor and unfortunate. But the hard two-part question that any plan for relieving poverty must answer is: How can we mitigate the penalties of failure and misfortune without undermining the incentives to effort and success.

Never find delight in another's misfortune.

Blindness has not been for me a total misfortune; it should not be seen in a pathetic way. It should be seen as a way of life: one of the styles of living.

It 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.

To love a fool is a misfortune, but does not make one a fool.

No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.

Sounds a little like my quote for the week. Do you want to hear it? This is by Augustine: O soul, He only who created thee can satisfy thee. If thou ask for anything else, it is thy misfortune, for He alone made thee in His image can satisfy thee. That's rich, isn't it?

This 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!

It's the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.

If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.

In misfortune if you cultivate a cheerful disposition you will reap the advantage of it.

No misfortune is worse than underestimating the enemy. Underestimating the enemy, I risk losing my treasure.