MISERY QUOTES

quotations about misery

What misery to live in this world! We are like men whose enemies are at the door, who must not lay aside their arms, even while sleeping or eating, and are always in dread lest the foe should enter the fortress by some breach in the walls. O my Lord and my all! How canst thou wish us to prize such a wretched existence?

TERESA OF AVILA

The Interior Castle

Tags: Teresa of Avila


In misery it is great comfort to have a companion.

JOHN LYLY

Euphues

Tags: John Lyly


So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it.

HERMAN MELVILLE

Bartleby, the Scrivener

Tags: Herman Melville


Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Tempest

Tags: William Shakespeare


Those who have suffered, who have known poverty or oppression, are generally the most prone to kindness. Perhaps it is well to endure some misery if only to learn this lesson.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life

Tags: Arthur Alfred Lynch


It is better not to exist than to live in misery.

SOPHOCLES

fragment, Peleus

Tags: Sophocles


There are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


It is a comfort to the miserable to have companions in their sad state. This may seem to be a kind of malicious satisfaction, that one man derives from the Misfortunes of another, but the philosophy of this reflection stands upon another foundation; for our comfort does not arise from others being miserable, but from this inference upon the balance, that we suffer only the lot of human nature, and as we are happy or miserable compared with others, so others are miserable or happy compared with us.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


And now I'm right back where I started. Sober and miserable.

ALYSON NOEL

Evermore


Twins even from their birth are misery and men.

HOMER

The Odyssey

Tags: Homer


Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

Tags: Thomas Jefferson


Misery loves company, particularly when she is herself the hostess, and can give generously of her stores to others.

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

"The Spectre Cook of Bangletop"

Tags: John Kendrick Bangs


We generally fancy ourselves more miserable than we are, for want of taking a true estimate of things; wherefore we fly into transports without reason, and judge of the happiness or calamity of human life, by false lights.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

The Divine Comedy


Misery loves company.

ENGLISH PROVERB


It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

GEORGE ELIOT

Silas Marner

Tags: George Eliot


A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. WODEHOUSE

The Adventures of Sally

Tags: P. G. Wodehouse


In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.

GRAHAM GREENE

The End of the Affair

Tags: Graham Greene


God, wishing His elect to realize their own misery, often temporarily withdraws His favours: no more is needed to prove to us in a very short time what we really are.

TERESA OF AVILA

The Interior Castle

Tags: Teresa of Avila


Misery is a heaven-sent messenger, whose errand is to keep alive man's sympathy toward his fellows.

PIERRE GUERIN DU ROCHER

attributed, Day's Collacon