Quotes about suffering

"Wisdom comes alone through suffering."

Aeschylus on suffering
7 fans of this quote   

"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."

Aristotle on suffering
14 fans of this quote   

"I've suffered from all of the hang-ups known, and none is as bad as the telephone."

Armour, Richard on suffering   

"You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, you exceed the normal level, and it is for this that men refuse to forgive you, you poison their peace of mind, you undermine their stability. You have irrepressible pains whose essence is to be inadaptable to any known state, indescribable in words. You have repeated and shifting pains, incurable pains, pains beyond imagining, pains which are neither of the body nor of the soul, but which partake of both. And I share your suffering, and I ask you: who dares to ration our relief? We are not going to kill ourselves just yet. In the meantime, leave us the hell alone."

Artaud, Antonin on suffering   

"Suffering is part of the divine idea."

Beecher, Henry Ward on suffering   

"It is good for me that I was afflicted that I may learn Thy statutes. [Psalms 119:71]"

Bible on suffering   

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord."

Bible on suffering
3 fans of this quote   

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer"

Blackstone, Sir William on suffering   

"It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least."

Bradley, Francis H. on suffering   

"In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day."

Camus, Albert on suffering   

"For suffering and enduring there is no remedy, but striving and doing."

Carlyle, Thomas on suffering
4 fans of this quote   

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor."

Carrel, Alexis on suffering
5 fans of this quote   

"You do not have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone."

Ciardi, John on suffering   

"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing."

Claudius on suffering   

"Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime -- I'm referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It's extremely painful. I agree that it's hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It's no more worthy of respect than old age or illness."

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle on suffering   

"We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared."

Dahlberg, Edward on suffering   

"I like a look of Agony, because I know it's true -- men do not sham Convulsion, nor simulate, a Throe --"

Dickinson, Emily on suffering   

"It is the lot of man to suffer."

Disraeli, Benjamin on suffering   

"Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it."

Donne, John on suffering   

"The salvation of the world is in man's suffering."

Faulkner, William on suffering
4 fans of this quote   

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."

Flack, Roberta on suffering
8 fans of this quote   

"We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful than any other."

Freud, Sigmund on suffering
5 fans of this quote   

"Great artists suffer for the people."

Gaye, Marvin on suffering   

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

Gibran, Kahlil on suffering
24 fans of this quote   

"A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering."

Gurdjieff, George on suffering   

"The worst part a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing."

Herodotus on suffering   

"Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap."

Hesse, Hermann on suffering   

"If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive."

Hubbard, Elbert on suffering
5 fans of this quote   

"You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

Kafka, Franz on suffering
5 fans of this quote   

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."

Keller, Helen on suffering
8 fans of this quote   

"There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning."

KuBler-Ross, Elisabeth on suffering   

"Rather suffer than die is man's motto."

La Fontaine, Jean De on suffering   

"Oh, fear not in a world like this, and thou shalt know erelong, know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on suffering   

"It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one's own suffering."

Lynd, Robert on suffering   

"Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. That is the mystery."

Mansfield, Katherine on suffering   

"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."

Maugham, W. Somerset on suffering   

"How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh."

Mencken, H. L. on suffering
3 fans of this quote   

"Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth."

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De on suffering   

"Without out suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty, but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed. And we must share it, for only by being one with them can we redeem them by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God."

Mother Teresa on suffering   

"One must really have suffered oneself to help others."

Mother Teresa on suffering
12 fans of this quote