Anguish Quotes

• Yoga is a way to freedom. By its constant practice, we can free ourselves from fear, anguish and loneliness.

  Indra Devi

  Freedom, Fear, Loneliness

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• To understand is nothing, but to be understood-that is the problem and the source of anguish. The soul throbs and would have the other know-but can not and feels isolated. Then come gestures, words, awkward explanations and material symbols for imponderable outbursts of feeling-and the soul despairs.

  Andre Gide

  Philosophical, Soul, Awkward

  9 Copy quote

• What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Music, Beautiful, Heart

  39 Copy quote

• What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.

  Alice Miller

  Pain, Recovery, Addiction

  Alice Miller (2008). “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth”, p.126, Basic Books

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• There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer --committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

  George Eliot

  Peace, Morning, Pain

  "Felix Holt, the Radical". Book by George Eliot. Introductory chapter, 1866.

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• What makes loneliness an anguish
  Is not that I have no one to share my burden,
  But this:
  I have only my own burden to bear.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Bears

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1964.

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• the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Hope, Joy, Tides

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2016). “Collected Works (Complete and Illustrated Editions: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Queer Little Folks, The Chimney-Corner, ...)”, p.358, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Life, Motivational

  112 Copy quote

• we do not die of anguish, we live on. We continue to suffer. We drink the cup drop by drop.

  George Sand

  Suffering, Cups, Drink

  George Sand (1977). “The Intimate Journal of George Sand”, Chicago Review Press

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• We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.

  J. K. Rowling

  Life, Encouraging, Battle

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• Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, whose anguish is basic and permanent, no good comes from crying. Nothing changes for them. They usually know this, but still can’t help crying.

  Nathanael West

  Feel Better, Tears, Benefits

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.103, New Directions Publishing

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• If people knew what Matisse, supposedly the painter of happiness, had gone through, the anguish and tragedy he had to overcome to manage to capture that light which has never left him, if people knew all that, they would also realize that this happiness, this light, this dispassionate wisdom which seems to be mine, are sometimes well-deserved, given the severity of my trials.

  Henri Matisse

  Happiness, Light, People

  Henri Matisse, Jack D. Flam (1995). “Matisse on Art”, p.11, Univ of California Press

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• Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Suicide, Health, Mind

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.240

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• Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

  Thomas Moore

  Life, Sympathy, Healing

  Thomas Moore (1840). “The Works: Accurately Printed from the Last Original Editions with Critical Notes and a Sketch of His Life”, p.194

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• The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

  Virginia Woolf

  Happiness, Beauty, Laughter

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.573, Wordsworth Editions

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• The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it.

  William Styron

  Pain, Unimaginable, Visible

  William Styron (1990). “Darkness visible: a memoir of madness”, Random House Incorporated

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• One pain is lessened by another's anguish.

  William Shakespeare

  Pain

  William Shakespeare, Janie B. Yates-Glandorf (2003). “Romeo and Juliet”, p.46, Perfection Learning

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• Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

  Thomas Moore

  Sympathy, Death, Spiritual

  Thomas Moore (1861). “Poetical works”, p.304

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• Death is what men want when the anguish of living is more than they can bear.

  Euripides

  Men, Life And Death, Want

  Euripides (2013). “Euripides II: Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliant Women, Electra”, p.122, University of Chicago Press

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• In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

  Simone Weil

  Grief, Struggle, Serenity

  26 Copy quote

• Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Inspiring, Dream, Teacher

  "Sunbeams: A Book of Quotations". Book by Sy Safransky, 1990.

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• Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

  Balthus

  Art, Painting, Pleasure

  25 Copy quote

• There are only three sins - causing pain, causing fear, and causing anguish. The rest is window dressing.

  Roger Caras

  Inspirational, Pain, Fear

  12 Copy quote

• I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Grief, Men, Air

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1871). “Poetical Works”, p.80

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• As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.

  Edith Stein

  Love, Christian, Mean

  52 Copy quote