Quotes on Misery

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.

Good care is taken that each state shall have its prisons . . . and other asylums; but not one building is erected nor one law enforced that would teach the people how not to contribute to these over-crowded receptacles of human misery . . . . All of our politicians are ready to deal with the effects, but not one of them is brave enough to penetrate the substratum of society and deal with the cause.

That's one of the peculiar things about bad moods - we often fool ourselves and create misery by telling ourselves things that simply are not true.

Free grace will fix those whom free will shook down into a gulf of misery.

The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.

When enough Americans realize how rotten are the fruits of our policy of 'benign neglect,' how costly our prejudice is both in dollars and in human misery, the demand for change will be made-not for the sake of minority people, but for the sake of all of us.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.

The mother is everything - she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly

Fate finds for every man; his share of misery.

Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence equally attentive to every misery.

Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness.

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

She raised her eyes to his. They had both come from misery, she thought, and survived it. They had been drawn together through violence and tragedy, and had overcome it. They walked different paths and had found a mutual route. Some things last, she thought. Some ordinary things. Like love.

Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there’s no reason to add to everyone’s misery by looking miserable yourself.

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

I did not realize that when money becomes a core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as good unless it produces measurable results. That public services will no longer be important. That an alternative life to getting and spending will become very difficult as cheap housing disappears. That when communities are destroyed only misery and intolerance are left.

In some ways I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.

Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you'll come to remember your spirit. When you're able to transcend an aversion to silence, you'll also transcend many other miseries. And it is in this silence that the remembrance of God will be activated.

Misery is what happiness rests upon. Happiness is what misery lurks beneath.