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Quotations about suffering

Elisabeth Kübler-RossThe most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.  Beautiful people do not just happen.

 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Tags:   beauty  compassion  defeat  struggle  suffering  

Jane AustenOne does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

 - Jane Austen

Tags:   suffering  

Banana YpshimotoAs I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.

 - Banana Yoshimoto

Tags:   age  depression  resilience  suffering  

Bertrand RussellThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

 - Bertrand Russell

Tags:   interests  knowledge  love  passions  suffering  

Arthur SchopenhauerWhat a man can do and suffer is unknown to himself till some occasion presents itself which draws out the hidden power. Just as one sees not in the water of an unruffled pond the fury and roar with which it can dash down a steep rock without injury to itself, or how high it is capable of rising; or as little as one can suspect the latent heat in ice-cold water.

 - Arthur Schopenhauer

Tags:   resilience  strength  suffering  

Woody AllenLife is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.

 - Woody Allen

Tags:   life  misery  suffering  

Dean KoontzPain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

 - Dean Koontz

Tags:   empathy  fear  humanity  pain  pity  suffering  

Fyodor DostoevskyPain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

 - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Tags:   greatness  intelligence  pain  suffering  

Fyodor DostoevskyWhat is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

 - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Tags:   hell  love  suffering  

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

 - Khalil Gibran

Tags:   character  strength  suffering  

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.

 - Simone Weil

Tags:   adversity  misfortune  suffering  

Helen KellerCharacter cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

 - Helen Keller

Tags:   ambition  character  suffering  

Thomas PaineSociety in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

 - Thomas Paine

Douglas MacArthurThe Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.This does not mean that you are war mongers.On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

 - Douglas MacArthur

Tags:   country  duty  honor  military  peace  soldiers  suffering  

Dwight EisenhowerI doubt whether any of these people [pacifists],with their academic or dogmatic hatred of war, detest it as much as I do. They probably have not seen bodies rotting on the ground and smelled the stench of decaying human flesh. . . .what separates me from the pacifists is that I hate the Nazis more than I hate war.

 - Dwight Eisenhower

Tags:   hate  nazis  peace  suffering  war  

Mark TwainAnnihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -- a hundred million years -- and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   death  life  suffering  

David GogginsThe Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I'm not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss. That's just nature. Each specific life comes with its own personalized portion of pain. It's coming for you. You can't stop it. And you know it.

 - David Goggins

Tags:   adversity  Buddhism  suffering