Suffering Quotes

• Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

  Helen Keller

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Helen Keller (1957). “The Open Door”, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday

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• I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.

  Marie Antoinette

  Ideas, Forever, Sorrow

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• Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Real, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.2, Routledge

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• I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.

  Elie Wiesel

  Thinking, Opposites, People

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• Life is not a struggle, not a tension. Life has not to be suffering. Life is bliss

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  Struggle, Life Is, Bliss

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986). “Thirty Years Around the World: 1957-1964”, Stichting Drukkerij En Uitgeverij Mvu

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• The universe is a complete unique entity. Everything and everyone is bound together with some invisible strings. Do not break anyone’s heart; do not look down on weaker than you. One’s sorrow at the other side of the world can make the entire world suffer; one’s happiness can make the entire world smile.

  Shams Tabrizi

  Heart, Unique, Sorrow

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• I once heard some idiot on the radio saying that all great art has suffering as its dominant theme, and that the greatest artists are only able to create because they suffer immensely in their own lives. What a bunch of bullshit. Look at Van Gogh's paintings: there's as much joy in them as there is pain. Suffering is only a single color, and by itself it's boring.

  Bart Yates

  Art, Pain, Color

  Bart Yates (2004). “Leave Myself Behind”, p.203, Kensington Publishing Corp.

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• I am grateful to realize that my desires do not entitle me to add to another's suffering.

  Zoe Weil

  Grateful, Desire, Add

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

  Khalil Gibran

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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  If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Life, Inspiring, Sympathy

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1872). “Outre Mer. Driftwood”

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• Job never saw why he suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough.

  Timothy Keller

  Bible, God, Christian

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Bullying, World Suffering

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• Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life.

  Oswald Chambers

  Causes, Human Life, Disillusioned

  Oswald Chambers (2010). “My Utmost for His Highest”, p.442, Discovery House

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• Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Spiritual, Blessed, Adversity

  "Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems".

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• Courage would be impossible in a world without pain.

  Lee Strobel

  Pain, Would Be, World

  Lee Strobel (2000). “The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity”, p.41, Harper Collins

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  The 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 those depths.

  Copyright: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Family Limited Partnership.

  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

  Inspirational, Beauty, Beautiful

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• Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.

  Dan Millman

  Life, Pain, Attitude

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• Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.

  Hermann Hesse

  Hurt, Love You, Aversion

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• The melancholy joys of evils pass'd, For he who much has suffer'd, much will know.

  Homer

  Evil, Joy, Melancholy

  Homer (2015). “The Odyssey”, p.563, Homer

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• Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus - a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.

  Mother Teresa

  Jesus, Children, Pain

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• Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

  Franz Kafka

  Positive, Depression, World Suffering

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales.

  Aesop

  Life, Injury, Scales

  Aesop (1809). “Select Fables of Aesop and Other Fabulists: In Three Books”, p.240

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• We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.

  Teresa of Avila

  Religious, Catholic, Saint

  St. Teresa of Avila (2002). “Complete Works St. Teresa Of Avila”, p.345, A&C Black

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• God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

  Saint Augustine

  Philosophical, Adversity, Son

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