Quotes About Misfortune

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

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

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.

I ask the political economists and the moralists if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralisation, degradation, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man.

Any real New Yorker is a you-name-it-we-have-it-snob whose heart brims with sympathy for the millions of unfortunates who through misfortune, misguidedness or pure stupidity live anywhere else in the world.

in prosperity prayers seem but a mere medley of words, until misfortune comes and the unhappy sufferer first understands the meaning of the sublime language in which he invokes the pity of heaven!

The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Blanche: No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor. I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drugstore Romeos with a reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe!

Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.

No 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.

It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.

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

I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.

I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by neces-sity.

Victory is for them, not for us. We have not made profit out of our country's misfortune. Victory does not bring us luck.

Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter - Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes - A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting.

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

It is the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoy it completely.

When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only.

For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving.

There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.

Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune.

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

There are some vile and contemptible men who, allowing themselves to be conquered by misfortune, seek a refuge in death.

Germany had the misfortune of becoming poisoned, first because of plenty, and then because of want.

We must learn from misfortune the means of future strength.

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos that the more tragic parts of life become endurable.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

Every 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.

The fact that God has prohibited despair gives misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves hope free to dare all things.

People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

You must moderate yourself according to your strength. When you have done all that you can to see that no Christian is perverted, you must find your consolation in Our Lord, who could prevent this misfortune and who is not doing so.

In the lottery of life there are more prizes drawn than blanks, and to one misfortune there are fifty advantages. Despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.

I am now considered such a monster, that I hesitate to darken with my shadow, the doors of those I love, lest I should bring upon them misfortune.

The constant man loses not his virtue in misfortune. A torch may point towards the ground, but its flame will still point upwards.

The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.

I think that the theory of evolution is the most unscientific, faith-based, fundamentally brainless idea that ever had the misfortune to come out of a human mind. To compare it to true science is a joke. There is nothing even slightly scientific about it.

There is no greater offence than harbouring desires. There is no greater disaster than discontent. There is no greater misfortune than wanting more.

With every one, the expectation of a misfortune constitutes a dreadful, punishment. Suffering then assumes the proportions of the unknown, which is the soul's infinite.

... the English think of an opinion as something which a decent person, if he has the misfortune to have one, does all he can to hide.

Ron," said Hermione in a dignified voice, "you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.

We interest others by the misfortune we spread around us.

All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune-make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.

The authors of all our misfortune.

In praise of Thy goodness I must confess that Thou didst try with all Thy means to draw me to Thee. Sometimes it pleased Thee to let me feel the heavy hand of Thy displeasure and to humiliate my proud heart by manifold castigations. Sickness and misfortune didst Thou send upon me to turn my thoughts to my errantries.-One thing, only, O Father, do I ask: cease not to labor for my betterment. In whatsoever manner it be, let me turn to Thee and become fruitful in good works.

Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.