Suffering quotes
4.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside suffering — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering."
"Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?"
"May I hold myself in compassion. May I meet the suffering and ignorance of others with compassion."
"What really raises one's indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering"
"Pause and remember - Making the wrong assumptions causes pain and suffering for everyone."
"The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering."
"Suffering increases your inner strength. Also, the wishing for suffering makes the suffering disappear."
"As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity."
"Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide."
"I've come to accept that the life of a frontrunner is a hard one, that he will suffer more injuries than most men and that many of these injuries will not be accidental."
"Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly."
"Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it."
"You will know that wretched men are the cause of their own suffering, who neither see nor hear the good that is near them, and few are the ones who know how to secure release from their troubles."
"I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith."
"I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good."
"All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy."
"The way to truly help someone is for me to not get immersed in their suffering."
"I am the man, I suffered, I was there."
"A true repentance shuns the evil itself, more than the external suffering or the shame."
"Life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty."
