Quotes about Suffering

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.

Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon

Two parts, then, of the Plot — Reversal of the Situation and Recognition — turn upon surprises. A third part is the Scene of Suffering. The Scene of Suffering is a destructive or painful action, such as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds and the like.

What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.

The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.

You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you? For me, said Sherlock Holmes, there still remains the cocaine-bottle. And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.

What is the New Testament? A handbook for those who are to be sacrificed.

The whole of what we know is a system of compensations. Each suffering is rewarded each sacrifice is made up every debt is paid.

Life is to be enjoyed, not endured