World Suffering Quotes - Page 2

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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The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.

Thomas Merton

Suffering Pain, People, Trying

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.116, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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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Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

Aristotle

Beauty, Beautiful, Gratitude

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Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.

Tennessee Williams

Funny, Humor, History

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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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People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Nhat Hanh

Moving On, Depression, Letting Go

Joseph Emet, Thich Nhat Hanh (2015). “Mindfulness Meditation: For a Quieter Mind, Self-Awareness and Healthy Living”, p.125, Souvenir Press

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Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Depression, Pain, Arbitrary

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Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals' suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote.

Paul Harvey

Animal, Equality, Government

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Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

Benjamin Disraeli

Education, Wisdom, Learning

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Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

George Orwell

Fun, People, Balance

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.331, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Winston Churchill

Inspirational, Kindness, Cancer

Winston Churchill (2012). “Churchill: The Power of Words”, p.356, Da Capo Press

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Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.

Paulo Coelho

Motivational, Change, Encouraging

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When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

Chinua Achebe

Doors, Thought Provoking, Worry

FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jul 26, 2011

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On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

George W. Bush

America, September 11, Earth

Address to the Nation on the Threat of Iraq, delivered 7 October 2002, Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio

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You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Franz Kafka

Depression, Health, Holding Back

Franz Kafka, Malcolm Pasley (1973). “Shorter works [of] Franz Kafka”, Harvill Secker

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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, Elements

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

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Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Pain, Intelligent, Growth

Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “The Wisdom of Life”, p.30, Cosimo Classics

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It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

W. Somerset Maugham

Inspirational, Life, Character

Moon and Sixpence (1919) ch. 17

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Suffering is one of life's great teachers.

Bryant H. McGill

Teacher, Literature, Suffering

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Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make.

John Ruskin

Funny, Hands, Wish

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If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.

Simone Weil

Thinking, Want Something, Poverty

Simone Weil (1998). “Simone Weil”

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In a world suffering from mental stress, yoga promises calm. In a distracted world, yoga creates focus, creates concentration. In a world of fear, yoga promises strength and courage. A healthy body and a disciplined mind are the foundations of a world free from fear. In crafting a new self through Yoga, we create a new world.

Narendra Modi

Stress, Yoga, Self

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I don't think the world is the way we like to think it is. I don't think it's one solid world, but many, thousands upon thousands of them--as many as there are people--because each person perceives the world in his or her own way; each lives in his or her own world. Sometimes they connect, for a moment, or more rarely, for a lifetime, but mostly we are alone, each living in our own world, suffering our small deaths.

Charles de Lint

Thinking, People, Way

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It's nice to be happy. But the meaning of life is meaning - what's the impact you're having on the world. Suffering to accomplish that is a perfectly fine thing.

Reid Hoffman

Nice, Impact, Meaning Of Life

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