Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist, Philosopher, Poet
"The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders."
Torment quotes
Torment
48 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
William Shakespeare
Playwright, Poet
"It is silliness to live when to live is torment."
Emily Bronte
Poet, Novelist
"Thoughts are tyrants that return again and again to torment us."
Claude Bernard
Physiologist
"Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery."
Saul Bellow
Novelist
"A plan relieves you of the torment of choice."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside torment — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Torment quotes (page 1 of 3)
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"Torment yourself as little as possible, then you'll torment me less."
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"Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself."
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"What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death."
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"Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you've endured From evils that never arrived."
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"He was a silent fury who no torment could tame."
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"The vague torment of ... ambition."
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"Ah, me, if this is love, then how it torments."
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"What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived"
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"Greatness is its own torment."
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"The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment."
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"Even more than this, however, the sick - like lepers - were often reviled because people believed that they had brought their torments upon themselves."
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"The fact that knowledge endlessly recedes as the investigator is about to grasp it is what constitutes at the same time his torment and happiness."
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"If fortune torments me, hope contents me."
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"We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so."
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"Children: a torment and nothing more."
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"What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!"
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