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Suffering Quotes

Browse 11485 quotes about Suffering.

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Suffering Quotes

“It is not rude to turn off your telephone by switching it on to an answering machine, which is cheaper and less disruptive than ripping it out of the wall. Those who are offended because they cannot always get through when they seek, at their own convenience, to barge in on people are suffering from a rude expectation.”

PeopleSufferingTurnsWallExpectationsMachinesRudeTelephonesOffendedConvenienceCheaperTurn OffDisruptiveSwitchingAnswering MachinesBarges
Book:Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium
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“Trees and flowers were often more meaningful to me than people. They always helped me, consoled me, giving the soul a chance to believe once more than the world was beautiful and sensible, that the mad absurdities and cruelties of men were against the laws of Nature and the Universal Mind; that sooner or later violence would suffer utter defeat on this Earth. No words collected in books were more effectively convincing to me than foliage, clouds, rippling waters, rain.”

PeopleMenWorldGivingMindBelieveBookSoulEarthBeautifulLawSufferingWaterNatureChanceViolenceTreeFlowerRainUniversalMadDefeatCloudsMeaningfulCrueltySensibleSooner Or LaterAbsurdityConvincingLaws Of NatureFoliage
Author:Svetlana Alliluyeva
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“We plant a tree that won't be big enough to climb until we're too old to climb trees, we write constitutions to protect the rights of people who won't be born for another hundred years and may not be worth the trouble anyway, and we try to take care of our sick, though we all suffer from a disease for which there is no cure and no hope for one. We will not last and we know we will not - and still we write, carve, build, paint and plant to last. We are, it seems to me, very, very brave.”

PeopleKnowsWritingTryingYearsMayStillsEnoughBigsSeemsCareLastsSufferingBornRightsTroubleTreeProtectDiseaseHundredSickConstitutionBravePlantPaintTake CareCuresClimbsNo HopePlant A Tree
Author:Linda Ellerbee
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“It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.”

MenMaySufferingCan DoConcernMovedAffectedSympathyIndifferentSpectatorsAnother ManSubstitution
Book:A philosophical inquiry, etc
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“Nothing feebler than a man does the earth raise up, of all the things which breathe and move on the earth, for he believes that he will never suffer evil in the future, as long as the gods give him success and he flourishes in his strength; but when the blessed gods bring sorrows too to pass, even these he bears, against his will, with steadfast spirit, for the thoughts of earthly men are like the day which the father of gods and men brings upon them.”

MenGivingBelieveLongDoeEarthMovingSpiritSufferingEvilFatherBearsSorrowRaisesBlessedBreatheSteadfastRaise Up
Author:Homer
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“where families suffer from disasters that are preventable, this is a measure of a whole nation's neglect. A society imperils its own future when, out of negligence or contempt, it overlooks the need of children to be reared in a family ... or when, in the midst of plenty, some families cannot give their children adequate food and shelter, safe activity and rest, and an opportunity to grow into full adulthood as people who can care for and cherish other human beings like themselves.”

PeopleNeedsGivingHumansChildrenWholeCareSufferingOpportunityNationsGrowsHuman BeingsFamilySocietyActivitySafeDisasterPlentyMidstNeglectCherishContemptShelterAdulthoodAdequateNegligence
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Everybody's suffering is mine but not everybody's murdering ... I do not distinguish for one moment whether my child is in danger or a child in central Asia. But I will not accept responsibility for what other people do because I happen to belong to that nation or that race or that religion. I do not believe in guilt by association.”

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Author:Margaret Mead
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“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

TryingMayIdeasWarPlaySufferingHumanitySocialSoundAnswersFashionStrangePoetTheoryRevolutionEternalEssenceInjusticeSolveCrueltyRepublicCollapsePlatoAbyssGloomRiddleBannedTime And ChangeSocial Theory
Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.”

IfsGivingWritingYearsHumansHeartSelfReasonSufferingHumanityPassionForceExpressionCivilizationDiscoveryLettersAssumingCardsDevicesSentimentsLeisureDeclineHuman HeartTelephonesSelf ExpressionIngeniousLamentTheoristsDerisionLetter WritingTelegrams
Author:Agnes Repplier
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“To try to stop war by placing before men's eyes the terrible suffering involved will never succeed, because men are willing (in their thoughts and imaginations at least) to face any kind of suffering when motivated by noble aims like the vague and tremendous concept of freedom ... Or, in their humility (or sloth - who knows?) men are quite willing to leave decisions to others 'who know more about it than we do.”

KnowsMenTryingKindWarEyeFacesSufferingImaginationDecisionHumilityWillingInvolvedTerribleSucceedConceptsAimNobleMotivatedKnow MeVagueSlothStop War
Author:Dorothy Day
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“There have been many times when I have been so entirely sickened of life it was very hard to work to keep on, a half dozen times I have been tempted to suicide, but I am glad I did not give way, for I have always felt that the last half of my life would somehow atone for the first half, and I still think it may ... It is not possible to live in this world without suffering unless one is a born stone. But it is also possible to have a great deal of happiness in spite of the suffering.”

ThinkingWorldWayGivingFirstsMayHas BeensStillsHardLastsSufferingFeltBornDealsHalfThis WorldStonesSuicideGladSpiteDozenTempted
Book:Letters of Katherine Anne Porter
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“What good is music? None ... and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, 'You are irrelevant'; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, 'Listen.' For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.”

MenWorldMayStatesSufferingHouseLeaderBreakSkyArmyDenySavedGentleFactoriesArrogantShelterIrrelevantBreaking DownMercifulUncaring
Book:Orsinian Tales
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“Writing is alchemy. Dross becomes gold. Experience is transformed. Pain is changed. Suffering may become song. The ordinary or horrible is pushed by the will of the writer into grace or redemption, a prophetic wail, a screed for justice, an elegy of sadness or sorrow. ... There is always a tension between experience and the thing that finally carries it forward, bears its weight, holds it in. Without that tension, one might as well write a shopping list.”

WritingWellsMayMightPainSufferingSongJusticeGraceSadnessChangedBearsSorrowOrdinaryGoldWeightListsHorribleRedemptionTensionCarrieShoppingTransformedAlchemyPropheticDrossElegy
Author:Andrea Dworkin
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“Grief does not end and love does not die and nothing fills its graven place. With grace, pain is transmuted into the gold of wisdom and compassion and the lesser coin of muted sadness and resignation; but something leaden of it remains, to become the kernel arond which more pain accretes (a black pearl): one pain becomes every other pain ... unless one strips away, one by one, the layers of pain to get to the heart of the pain - and this causes more pain, pain so intense as to feel like evisceration.”

FeelsHeartDoeEndsPainSufferingDiesCausesBlackGriefCompassionGraceSadnessGoldAnd LoveRemainsIntenseLayersPearlsCoinsResignationKernelBlack Pearl
Author:Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
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“For my part I think the Learned, and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 'tis all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense, I am diverted and edified alike by either; the one enjoys himself less, but suffers his Friends to do it more; the other enjoys himself and his own Humour enough, but will let no body else do it in his Company.”

ThinkingMenEnoughBodySufferingEnjoyCompanyHumourEqualNonsenseBlockheads
Book:A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
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“Genius! thou gift of Heav'n! thou Light divine! Amid what dangers art thou doom'd to shine! Oft will the body's weakness check thy force, Oft damp thy Vigour, and impede thy course; And trembling nerves compel thee to restrain Thy noble efforts, to contend with pain; Or Want (sad guest!) will in thy presence come, And breathe around her melancholy gloom: To Life's low cares will thy proud thought confine, And make her sufferings, her impatience, thine.”

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Book:Tales
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