Popular quotes about Misfortune! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 4
To be out of harmony with one's surroundings is of course a misfortune, but it is not always a misfortune to be avoided at all costs. Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it.
Bertrand RussellHe said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength.
Cormac McCarthyI believe that the confidence of Hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators.
Lajos KossuthOn the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
Amy TanThe government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.
Harry BrowneAs long as you can savor the humorous aspect of misery and misfortune, you can overcome anything.
John CandyThere is no greater fault than sensual indulgence. There is no greater misfortune than malcontent. There is no greater calamity than greed.
LaoziAnyone who's ever had the misfortune of seeing me interact with house pets knows I have a wickedly strong paternal instinct bordering on the maternal.
Jim GoadThere were moments when I hated everybody I came across, innocent or guilty, and looked at them as thieves who were robbing me of my life with impunity. The most unbearable misfortune is when you yourself become unjust, malignant, vile; you realize it, you even reproach yourself - but you just can't help it.
Fyodor DostoevskyTo lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar WildeWhat a misfortune it is that we should thus be compelled to let our boys schooling interfere with their education!
Grant AllenA mother experiences more than one death, even though she herself will only die once. She fears for her husband; she fears for her children; again she fears for the women and children who belong to her children. ... For each of these-whether for loss of possessions, bodily illness, or undesired misfortune-she mourns and grieves no less than those who suffer.
Saint John ChrysostomEvents are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for a Christian, a treasure for a man of parts, and an abyss for a weakling.
Honore de BalzacIt is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in far too much but not decisively in any one thing; all my interests are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.
Soren KierkegaardVictory is for them, not for us. We have not made profit out of our country's misfortune. Victory does not bring us luck.
Ba JinAnd what shall he suffer who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend? I mean the suicide, who deprives himself by violence of his appointed share of life. Not because the law of the state requires him. Nor yet under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune which has come upon him. Nor because he has had to suffer from irremediable and intolerable shame, but who from sloth or want of manliness imposes upon himself an unjust penalty.
PlatoIt is the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoy it completely.
Jane AustenWhen I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only.
Napoleon BonaparteGreat and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.
AristotleWhat ever the course of our lives, we should recieve them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.
Galileo GalileiThe wage earner relies upon the ventures of confident and contented capital. This failing him, his condition is without alleviation, for he can neither prey on the misfortune of others nor hoard his labor.
Grover ClevelandHelen Keller became deaf, dumb, and blind shortly after birth. Despite her greatest misfortune, she has written her name indelibly in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life has served as evidence that no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.
Napoleon HillEven if misfortune is only good for bringing a fool to his senses, it would still be just to deem it good for something.
Jean de La FontaineJust as Daniel Balalcazar said, it makes no sense to suffer in advance a misfortune that may never occur.
Isabel AllendeLittle minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.
Washington IrvingI used to think that you could find peace and it would always be there. And there is a sense of that. But even in the worst moments, catch yourself and remember that within the storm of misfortune there is good fortune. Just get in practice with what they call in Taoism the Wu-wei; the non-action and becoming the observer of it. Just notice and stay at peace with it. I must have admit, that I still have those really disrupting moments.
Wayne DyerNo degree of prosperity can be sufficient to eliminate all misfortune, and sloth is impervious to opportunity.
Dean KoontzMany things would be changed for Americans if they would only admit that there is ill-luck in this world and that misfortune is not a priori a crime.
Simone de BeauvoirThey were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls. Was it fate?Misfortune?Is that what glued them down like that?Of course not.Let's not be stupid.It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.
Markus ZusakTest a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.
ChanakyaEvery reiteration of the idea that _nothing matters_ debases the human spirit. Every reiteration of the idea that there is no drama in modern life, there is only dramatization, that there is no tragedy, there is only unexplained misfortune, debases us. It denies what we know to be true. In denying what we know, we are as a nation which cannot remember its dreams--like an unhappy person who cannot remember his dreams and so denies that he does dream, and denies that there are such things as dreams.
David MametFriendship is the medicine for all misfortune; but ingratitude dries up the fountain of all goodness.
Cardinal RichelieuSex gets people killed, put in jail, beaten up, bankrupted, and disgraced, to say nothing of ruined - personally, politically, and professionally. Looking for sex can lead to misfortune, and if you get lucky and find it, it can leave you maimed, infected, or dead. Other than that, it's swell: the great American pastime. ... You probably won't see it on a bumper sticker, but sex kills.
Edna BuchananThe only thought in the world that is worth anything is free thought. To free thought we owe all past progress and all hope for the future. Since when has any one made it appear that shackled thought could get on better than that which is free? Brains are a great misfortune if one is never to use them.
Richard SavageLife has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.
Lydia SigourneyWhen some incident has shattered the career youโve mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustnโt think youโre down and out. It may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldnโt for anything in the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you for the dull, humdrum existence you would have led if circumstances hadnโt intervened.
W. Somerset MaughamMilton Friedmanโs misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.
John Kenneth GalbraithThe 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 GibbonIf I am a fool then it is no misfortune, for then only one more fool will wander this Earth. Amongst the millions of mentally deranged it would barely be noticed. But what if I am not a fool, and that science itself has erred? Then the tragedy is incalculable!
Viktor SchaubergerThere exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.
Victor HugoPeople don't ever seem to realize that doing what's right, writes no guarantee against misfortune.
William McFeeThere are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune on his army: By commanding the army to advance or to retreat, being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey. This is called hobbling the army. By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds. By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers.
Sun TzuLosing faith is a complicated business and takes time. There are no epiphanies, no "moments of truth." It takes much thought and concentration in the later phases, which thenselves come about through an accumulation of small accidents: examples of general injustice, misfortune falling upon the godly, prayers of one's own unanswered.
Thomas Pynchon