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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"Thus the will to power strives towards oppositions, towards displeasure. There is a will to suffering at the foundation of all organic life (contrary to "happiness" as "goal")."
"In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species."
"What really makes one indignant about suffering isn't the thing itself but the senselessness of it."
"What is hell?...The suffering that comes from the consciousness that one is no longer able to love."
"I want to suffer so that I may love."
"Therefore, in my incontrovertible capacity as plaintiff and defendant judge and accused, I condemn this nature, which has so brazenly and unceremoniously inflicted this suffering... since I am unable to destroy Nature, I am destroying myself, solely out of weariness of having to endure a tyranny in which there is no guilty party."
"I wanted to discuss the suffering of humanity in general, but perhaps we'd better confine ourselves to the sufferings of children."
"If God is what people say there can be no one in the universe so unhappy as He; for He sees unceasingly myriads of His creatures suffering unspeakable miseries--and besides this foresees how they are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might as well say, "As unhappy as God.""
"Whoever the Lord has adopted ought to prepare themselves for hard, toilsome and unquiet living."
"There is really no reason to suffer. The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer. If you look at your life you will find many excuses to suffer, but a good reason to suffer you will not find. The same is true for happiness. The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering."
"She knows how to suffer and at the same time how to laugh."
"You can and you must expect suffering."
"Today somebody is suffering, today somebody is in the street, today somebody is hungry. ... We have only today to make Jesus known, loved, served, fed, clothed, sheltered. Do not wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will not have them if we do not feed them today."
"You can't do God's work without suffering."
"Suffering, if it is accepted together, borne together, is joy."
"Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness."
"The truth of the matter is that all we have to do is live long enough and we will suffer."
"When one takes action for others, one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward; a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled."
"The three types of misery are the misery of suffering, the misery of change, and pervasive misery."
"It is my fundamental belief that all human beings share the same basic aspirations: that we all want hapiness and that we all share suffering. Asians, just like Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the world, share a desire to live life to its fullest, to better ourselves and the lives of our loved ones."
