quotations about misery
No misery is unlooked for by men, for we find good fortune lasting only for a day.
DIPHILUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
I hate all pain,
Given or received; we have enough within us
The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,
Not to add to each other's natural burden
Of mortal misery.
LORD BYRON
Sardanapalus
Ah how shameless -- the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share.
HOMER
The Odyssey
We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendor, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.
HERODOTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Perhaps it may be found more easy to forget those tempers we learnt in misery.
EDMUND LAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Castaway
Misery pulls away the brackets of life leaving you to free fall.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
Every misery that I miss is a new mercy.
IZAAK WALTON
The Complete Angler
Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Letters to a Young Poet
The wretched hasten to hear of their own miseries.
SENECA THE YOUNGER
Hercules Oetaeus
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays
All that was really there was still more misery -- oh yes! as much of that as you like.
EMILE ZOLA
Germinal
Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Bartleby, the Scrivener
But O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.
JOHN MILTON
Samson Agonistes
I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness.
HUGH LAURIE
attributed, Inside Inside
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
VICTOR HUGO
Les Misérables
Misery's fine -- as long as you know you can get out of it when you want to.
ARTHUR ADAMOV
Ping Pong
Misery makes sport to mock itself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard II
Life is not an easy matter.... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
LEON TROTSKY
Diary in Exile, 1935
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.
BOETHIUS
The Consolation of Philosophy