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Distress Quotes

Browse 626 quotes about Distress.

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Distress Quotes

“Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.”

ThinkingWorldGivingShouldShowsMightTurnsNationsSidesPleasureFieldsThis WorldSorrowGayBattleDiseaseOceanDiversityBallsCourtPrisonNotionStrangerTyrannyHospitalsOperaShould IDistressCrowdedFaminePestilenceDebtors
Book:Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)
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“Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.”

TwoSoulBodyMightFormDesirePleasureThirdsAffectionDuesSeatsEntityDistressAversionEmployingFear And Courage
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
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“Blanket compassion will shift the distribution decisively towards the manipulative end of the spectrum, and may paradoxically decrease the compassion with which the genuinely despairing are treated: for they are apt to get lost in the great mass of pseudo-distress and manipulation, and often their conduct draws less attention precisely because it is less attention-seeking.”

MayEndsLostAttentionCompassionMassDrawsSeekingTreatedManipulationDistressDistributionSpectrumBlanketDecreasePseudoManipulativeAttention Seeking
Author:Anthony Daniels
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“To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface.”

PeopleMayLittlesHas BeensLawEvilIndividualPoorCommonEnglandSpreadSurfaceMisfortunesIntensityRemedyDistress
Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated
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“If one fourth of the capital of a country were suddenly destroyed, or entirely transferred to a different part of the world, without any other cause occurring of a diminished demand for commodities, this scantiness of capital would certainly occasion great inconvenience to consumers, and great distress among the working classes; but it would be attended with great advantages to the remaining capitalists.”

IfsWorldDifferentCountryWould BeCausesClassDemandAdvantageDestroyedOccasionsConsumersCapitalistFourthDistressCommodityWorking ClassInconvenience
Author:Thomas Malthus
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“It is generally allowed, that no man ever found the happiness of possession proportionate to that expectation which incited his desire, and invigorated his pursuit; nor has any man found the evils of life so formidable in reality, as they were described to him by his own imagination; every species of distress brings with it some peculiar supports, some unforeseen means of resisting, or powers of enduring.”

MenMeanRealityDesireEvilFoundImaginationSupportExpectationsSpeciesEndurePossessionPursuitPeculiarDistressResistingFormidableUnforeseen
Book:The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler
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“When coming up with Wonder Woman cover designs, sometimes people will pitch ideas to me, either the writer or the editor. And it's interesting, because I know they're not trying to, but they end up pitching things that end up feeling like damsel-in-distress covers, where the tension comes from her needing to be rescued somehow. And it's something I immediately push back against.”

PeopleKnowsTryingBookIdeasEndsSometimesFeelingsInterestingWonderDesignComicTensionEditorsDistressComic BookPitchingWonder WomanDamsel In Distress
Author:Cliff Chiang
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“Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.”

KnowsWritingBookMightLiteratureAttentionSubjectsSonReaderHeroPeriodsBattleFameIncreaseFortuneMemoirContractsDistressObligedPublicationVicissitudes
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
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“As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise... The destiny of man, of all men and of each man, is that he is condemned to invent what he will be - condemned if he is fearful but blessed if he welcomes the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress.”

IfsMenHumansHeartLastsDestinyCreativeAtheismAdventureSourceAchievementResponsibleBlessedPositive AtheismAnalysisExcitementEnterpriseFearfulDistressGreat Adventure
Author:Paul Kurtz
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“National Socialist Germany wishes for peace because it recognises the simple fact that no war would be likely to substantially to ameliorate the state of distress in Europe. The distress would probably be made the greater thereby. If only the leaders and rulers had wanted peace, the people would never have wished for war.”

PeopleIfsMadeWarStatesFactsWould BeWantedWishSimpleLeaderGreaterEuropeGermanyRulersSocialistDistressRecogniseNo War
Author:Adolf Hitler
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“As a newborn baby breathes and cries, so the signs of life in a newborn Christian are faith and repentance, inhaling the love of God and exhaling an initial cry of distress. And at that point what God provides, exactly as for a newborn infant, is the comfort, protection, and nurturing promise of a mother. "If God is our father, the church is our mother." The words are those of the Swiss Reformer John Calvin ... it is as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself as it is to be a newborn baby all by yourself.”

IfsChristianMotherFatherChurchImpossibleCryBabyComfortPromiseProtectionBreatheGod LoveRepentanceUnnecessaryDistressInfantInitialsOur FatherNurturingNewbornReformersSwissUndesirableNewborn BabySigns Of LifeGod ProvidesExhaling
Author:N. T. Wright
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“If there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress--if there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the death-bed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.”

IfsMenMightEarthPainPurposeEnjoyPleasureBedReflectionDevilAngelCharityEndureIllPossessionEnvyPityPossessedDistressDoing GoodDeath Bed
Book:L.P.
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“The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.”

IfsStatesLawSocialJusticeUnitedUnited StatesEconomicUltimateCourtSupremeEnormousRevolutionaryProgressiveDistressSupreme CourtGrievanceRecourseWellspringRetrograde
Book:Technical Difficulties: African-American Notes on the State of the Union
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“How we delight to build our recollections upon some basis of reality,--a place, a country, a local habitation! how the events of life, as we look back upon them, have grown into the well-remembered background of the places where they fell upon us! Here is some sunny garden or summer lane, beautified and canonized forever, with the flood of a great joy; and here are dim and silent places,--rooms always shadowed and dark to us, whatever they may be to others,--where distress or death came once, and since then dwells forevermore.”

WellsLooksMayCountryRealityJoyDarkRoomsForeverEventsSummerGardenBasesSilentDelightBackgroundsLocalsRememberedAssociationFloodDistressSunnyLanesRecollectionGreat Joy
Author:Washington Irving
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“There is yet a silent agony in which the mind appears to disdain all external help, and broods over its distresses with gloomy reserve. This is the most dangerous state of mind; accidents or friendships may lessen the louder kinds of grief, but all remedies for this must be had from within, and there despair too often finds the most deadly enemy.”

MindKindMayStatesHelpingGriefEnemyDangerousDespairSilentAccidentsOver ItState Of MindRemedyAgonyReservesDistressGloomyDisdain
Book:The Works of Oliver Goldsmith
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“It is a widespread and firm belief among guests that their departure is always a matter of distress to their hosts, and that in order to indicate that they have been pleasantly entertained, they must demonstrate an extreme unwillingness to allow the entertainment to conclude. This is not necessarily true.”

Has BeensMatterOrderBeliefEntertainmentExtremesFirmHostGuestsDistressHospitalityDepartureFirm Beliefs
Book:Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium
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“Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.”

WarHandsLeftCausesPsychologyEnvironmentCrimeConflictStrikesCommitCarrieCategoriesDistressWombNeighbourLeft Hand
Book:The meaning of treason
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“Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it. Disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed.”

MadeStrongMusicEarsHarmonyRemainsConvincedStatementsOccasionsLengthDisorderDistressSomething BetterUneasyMomentaryDiscordUnsatisfiedDissonanceAmendsParaphraseDisharmony
Author:John Cage
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“A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body.”

WorldMindLongBodyFoodCookingMiseryDetailsCulinaryDistressMind And BodyInventorRecreationHarassmentOverlookedWearinessBanquets
Book:Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition
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“Distress is virtue's opportunity: we only live to teach us how to die.”

DiesOpportunityTeachVirtueDistressAffliction
Book:The maid's last prayer: or, Any, rather than fail. The fatal marriage: or, The innocent adultery. Oroonoko. The fate of Capua. [Taken from general t-p; some variations on special t-ps, e.g. Sir Antony Love
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“I don't know about being a Catholic anymore, though I had a great romance with the Church. But its male hierarchy causes me pain and distress. So I can't really pay too much attention. When that encyclical from the Pope - the one about contraception - began 'Dear Sons and Brothers' I figured it must be private mail and had nothing to do with me. So I didn't read it.”

KnowsI CanPainRomanceReligionCausesChurchPayAttentionToo MuchSonBrotherCatholicMalesDearMailDistressPopeHierarchyContraceptionGreat Romance
Author:Joan Hackett
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