SUFFERING QUOTES III
quotations about suffering
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone,
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But it has trouble enough of its own.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Solitude"
The best fruit loads the broken bough;
And in the wounds our sufferings plow,
Immortal love sows sovereign seed.
GERALD MASSEY
"The Ballad of Babe Christabel"
There is no suffering if you don't want anything.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The poet, no doubt, has to learn by suffering, but having learnt, he has then, in my opinion, to help others not to be miserable, but to be happy.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Alas! fond child,
How are thy thoughts beguil'd
To hope for honey from a nest of wasps?
Thou may'st as well
Go seek for ease in hell,
Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps.
The world's a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
But case thou meet
Some petty-petty sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Those who have experienced traumatic events speak about their profound realizations of the importance of kindness, the power of love and their appreciation for what remains. It appears that this level of insight often comes from suffering.
DANA LIGHTMAN
Power Optimism
Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.
SAUL BELLOW
"The Sealed Treasure", It All Adds Up
Suffering is suffering. It doesn't matter if you are addicted to porn on the internet or you're codependent or you're addicted to gambling or if you're addicted to The Real Housewives of Atlanta. You're suffering, and that's what gets us into trouble.
SEAN BROOK
"Sean Brock Opens Up About Rehab and Sobriety to NYT", Eater Charleston, July 5, 2017
Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry.
BRET HARTE
"The Lost Galleon"
Suffering well borne is better than suffering removed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting--since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
ELIE WIESEL
Night
Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.
RAM DASS
One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
Affliction is a spiritual physic for the soul, and is compared to a furnace, for as gold is tried and purified therein, so men are proved and either purified from their dross, and fitted for good uses, or else entirely burnt up and undone forever.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Pain and suffering is a really ghoulish metric. You can't quantify a life. Any effort to do that is, of course, futile. But because our civil justice system, such as it is, only talks about money, that's the exercise we have to engage in.
DAVID B. RANKIN
"When cops kill, paying their victims' families can be a cold, calculating process", Business Insider, June 28, 2017
Your suffering is something you choose. Experience it fully. Without it you will not achieve personal growth and higher consciousness.
ERNIE J. ZELINSKI
The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness
Mortal! that cull'st the flowers of life,
Think not to escape the thorn.
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"The Thorn of Life"
Trouble's made us kin.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
All suffering contorts the countenance so woefully that the pain flies to the beholder likewise.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays