Misfortunes Quotes - Page 5

• I think writers are a lot like lawyers. We feed off the misfortunes of people, even ourselves.

  Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  Thinking, People, Lawyer

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• No degree of prosperity can be sufficient to eliminate all misfortune, and sloth is impervious to opportunity.

  Dean Koontz

  Opportunity, Sloth, Degrees

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Forever Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel”, p.42, Bantam

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• My childhood was surrounded by trouble, illness, and my dad's alcoholism, but as I said, we just didn't have the time to be impressed by all those misfortunes. I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don't-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.

  James Cagney

  Dad, Stress, Ideas

  James Cagney (1976). “Cagney by Cagney”

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• If you are blessed with great fortunes. . . you may love your fate. But your fate never guarantees the security of those great fortunes. As soon as you realize your helplessness at the mercy of your fate, you are again in despair. Thus the hatred of fate can be generated not only by misfortunes, but also by great fortunes. Your hatred of fate is at the same time your hatred of your self. You hate your self for being so helpless under the crushing power of fate.

  T. K. Seung

  Crush, Hate, Blessed

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• I was born with a priceless gift, the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.

  Barry Humphries

  Funny, Laughing, Priceless

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• Love makes life's sweetest pleasures and worst misfortunes.

  Madeleine de Scudery

  Famous Love, Pleasure, Worst

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• Although the sinner does not believe in Hell, he shall nevertheless go there if he has the misfortune to die in mortal sin.

  Anthony Mary Claret

  Believe, Doe, Sin

  St. Anthony Mary Claret “The Autobiography of St. Anthony Mary Claret”, TAN Books

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• There are many self-help books by Ph.D.s, but I hold a different degree: an I.B.T.I.A.-I've Been Through It All. This degree comes not on parchment but gauze, and it entitles me to tell you that there is a way to get through any misfortune.

  Joan Rivers

  Book, Self, Degrees

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• The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, Military, War

  Sun Tzu “Sun Tzu: The Art of War (Illustrated)”, Charles River Editors

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• Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all

  Pope John Paul II

  Determination, Compassion, Dedication

  Pope John Paul II, J. Michael Miller (1998). “The Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortations of John Paul II”, p.425, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing

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• The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Respect, Taken, Healthy

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.38

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• I am bigger than anything that can happen to me. All these things, sorrow, misfortune and suffering, are outside my door. I am in the house and I have the key.

  Charles Fletcher Lummis

  Motivational, Keys, Doors

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• The bird alighteth not on the spread net when it beholds another bird in the snare. Take warning by the misfortunes of others, that others may not take example from you.

  Saadi

  Bird, Example, Warning

  Saadi, Francis Gladwin, Eric Serejski (2016). “Gulistan or Rose Garden”, p.168, Innovations and Information

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• The ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are ..said to have resilience or courage.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Teaching, Learning, Resilience

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Writing, Hands, Play

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• The common excuse for those bringing misfortune on others is that they desire their good.

  Luc de Clapiers

  War, Tyrants, Desire

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• It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.

  Thucydides

  Reality, Men, People

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• I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow. He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book. It's a misfortune that it is usually the other way round.

  Karl Kraus

  Book, Reading, Butterfly

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• It is the misfortune of contemporary leaders, across the whole spectrum of Australian life, that the community's demand for strong leadership is growing in direct proportion to our lack of confidence in ourselves. The end of this century is an unusually difficult time to be a leader in Australia.

  Hugh Mackay

  Leadership, Strong, Australia

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• Love makes the greatest pleasures and most sensitive misfortunes of life.

  Madeleine de Scudery

  Love, Life, Romantic

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• It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it.

  James Madison

  Real, Exercise, Essentials

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.168, Cambridge University Press

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• It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.

  James Madison

  Government, Important, Degrees

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist: On the New Constitution, Written in 1788”, p.285

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• At the time of Holy Communion I sometimes picture my soul under the figure of a little child of three or four years, who at play has got its hair tossed and its clothes soiled. These misfortunes have befallen me in battling with souls. But very soon the Blessed Virgin hastens to my aid: quickly, she takes off my dirty little pinafore, smoothes my hair and adorns it with a pretty ribbon or simply with a little flower... and this suffices to render me pleasing and enables me to sit at the Banquet of Angels without blushing.

  Therese of Lisieux

  Children, Dirty, Flower

  St. Therese of Lisieux (1915). “Thoughts of Saint Thérèse”, p.73, TAN Books

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• In the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, War, May

  Sun Tzu (2016). “The Art of War”, p.41, Xist Publishing

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• Germany had the misfortune of becoming poisoned, first because of plenty, and then because of want.

  Albert Einstein

  Germany, Want, Firsts

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.163, Princeton University Press

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