quotations about suffering
It's the self that suffers, and there's a place where the self--ceases. I don't know how to say it. But I believe that the reality--the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don't in comfort and happiness--that the reality of pain is not pain. If you can get through it. If you can endure it all the way.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
As one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less to hurt.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating or applying. Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take measure of the body.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Life is suffering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Life is suffering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Cold and shuddering
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Cruel and pummeling
Tee-hee, ha-ha
Smile on little buddha, smile on
Little buddha, smile on
It's only illusion then it's gone
TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
"Little Buddha"
Birth, death, and suffering all bring us to the very edge of what our minds can understand.
RAM DASS
One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
There would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men -- and God knows why they are so fashioned -- did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Complete success alienates a man from his fellows, but suffering makes kinsmen of us all.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.
LATIN PROVERB
Let a man live but two or three years without Affliction, and he is almost good for nothing.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Suffering must be the inevitable tariff exacted from spirit for residing in human form.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
The taste of life disappears.
The flavour of all the years.
Breath is flying away.
Life is ending today.
No more suffering.
WAR AGAINST SLEEP
"Suffering"
Suffering is dysfunctional, except as a bodily warning against danger. Psychologically and socially it's merely destructive.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
As long as one suffers one lives.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
Some people seem to be born to suffer.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
Easter
When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, he allows it to spill all over the people around him. When you suffer, you make people around you suffer. That's very natural. This is why we have to learn how to handle our suffering, so we won't spread it everywhere.
THICH NHAT HANH
Anger
War, pain and suffering is a form of cleansing that will shock people awake.
ISMAIL ROYER
"Fourteen years ago, he was a convicted jihadist. Now he's fighting radical Islam steps from the White House.", Washington Post, July 7, 2017
One must cast off old agonies as a snake casts off its skin--only to grow a new set and accept all of their limitations.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Quiet American
Brothers, I see a meaning in this pain and suffering; I see God therein. The hour is sent to us for trial. Let us meet the test.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Jeremiah: a drama in nine scenes
Most people don't mind suffering in silence as long as everyone else knows about it.
CROFT M. PENTZ
The Complete Book of Zingers