"When one individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict suffering."
Read quote
3 likes
Suffering quotes
Suffering
4.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Suffering
Browse quotes that often appear alongside suffering — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Suffering quotes (page 63 of 215)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"It's easy to just see what you want to see in your own comfort bubble, but to really get out there and experience the suffering of animals is an awakening. I had to become proactive and take a stand."
Read quote
3 likes
"Ultimately, imperialism made even the British working classes suffer. This is a point which the British working classes found quite difficult to swallow, but they did, actually."
Read quote
3 likes
"There is no denying that we are suffering from a collective neurosis and the novel which does not face this is not a novel of our time."
Read quote
3 likes
"Since desire always goes towards that which is our direct opposite, it forces us to love that which will make us suffer."
Read quote
3 likes
"The itch is a mean, unconfessable, ridiculous malady; one can pity someone who is suffering ; someone who wants to scratch himself makes one laugh."
Read quote
3 likes
"I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared."
Read quote
3 likes
"I suffer for birds and fireflies but not frogs, she said, and threw him across the room. Kaboom! Like a genie out of a samovar, a handsome prince arose in the corner of the bedroom."
Read quote
3 likes
"I don't suffer of anything that I've lost."
Read quote
3 likes
"All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering."
Read quote
3 likes
"All our wanting comes from needs, thus we continiously suffer. The intellect teaches free will, free from suffering."
Read quote
3 likes
"A lot of the roads, bridges, railways, and such are built through the use of forced labor, and that is causing the people great suffering. What we put into this in the form of human suffering is not worth what comes out of it."
Read quote
3 likes
"Fires of suffering and strife are raging around the world."
Read quote
3 likes
"If suffering were an unavoidable part of our existence, we should try to alleviate it as far as possible in practical, earthly ways."
Read quote
3 likes
"What I have experienced is nothing compared to what political prisoners in prisons suffer."
Read quote
3 likes
"I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life."
Read quote
3 likes
"Chris: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer."
Read quote
3 likes
"Thinking about the suffering of those you hold dear can reduce you to tears; in fact, you could spend the whole day crying."
Read quote
3 likes
"We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering."
Read quote
3 likes
"Women and girls are bearing the brunt of extremists that revel in treating them barbarically. This is inextricably linked to our overall failure to prevent and end conflicts worldwide, which is causing human suffering on an unprecedented level."
Read quote
3 likes