Suffering quotes
4.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside suffering — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment"
"Only through suffering do we learn"
"I did not pray for any relief, but I prayed for strength to suffer with courage, humility and love."
"There are three rings involved with marriage. The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering."
"All those who belong to Jesus Christ are fastened with Him to the cross."
"Great suffering brings with it the power of great endurance. When sorrow is deepest all the forces of patience and courage are banded together to do their duty. So while we are cowards before petty troubles, great sorrows make us brave by rousing our truer manhood."
"The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them."
"If we are extremists, then we are not ashamed of it, for the conditions that our people suffer are extreme, and extreme illness can not be cured with moderate medicine"
"'I've got children', 'I've got wealth.' This is the way a fool brings suffering on himself. He does not even own himself, so how can he have children or wealth?"
"It is more important to prevent animal suffering, rather than sit to contemplate the evils of the universe praying in the company of priests."
"He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended."
"It is not a case we are treating; it is a living, palpitating, alas, too often suffering fellow creature."
"You only know that you’re in love when you suffer."
"The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help (the client) acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering."
"Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."
"We must understand then, that even though God doesn't always give us what we want, He always gives us what we need for our salvation."
"Never laugh at those who suffer; suffer sometimes those who laugh."
"Just as a satisfaction of instinct spells happiness for us, so severe suffering is caused us if the external world lets us starve, if it refuses to sate our needs. One may therefore hope to be freed from a part of one's sufferings by influencing the instinctual impulses."
"I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her."
"To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival."
