quotations about misery
In misery it is great comfort to have a companion.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues
What misery to live in this world! We are like men whose enemies are at the door, who must not lay aside their arms, even while sleeping or eating, and are always in dread lest the foe should enter the fortress by some breach in the walls. O my Lord and my all! How canst thou wish us to prize such a wretched existence?
TERESA OF AVILA
The Interior Castle
So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Bartleby, the Scrivener
It is better not to exist than to live in misery.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, Peleus
Twins even from their birth are misery and men.
HOMER
The Odyssey
And now I'm right back where I started. Sober and miserable.
ALYSON NOEL
Evermore
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.
P. G. WODEHOUSE
The Adventures of Sally
We generally fancy ourselves more miserable than we are, for want of taking a true estimate of things; wherefore we fly into transports without reason, and judge of the happiness or calamity of human life, by false lights.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Tempest
Those who have suffered, who have known poverty or oppression, are generally the most prone to kindness. Perhaps it is well to endure some misery if only to learn this lesson.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
Misery loves company, particularly when she is herself the hostess, and can give generously of her stores to others.
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
"The Spectre Cook of Bangletop"
There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.
DANTE ALIGHIERI
The Divine Comedy
It is a comfort to the miserable to have companions in their sad state. This may seem to be a kind of malicious satisfaction, that one man derives from the Misfortunes of another, but the philosophy of this reflection stands upon another foundation; for our comfort does not arise from others being miserable, but from this inference upon the balance, that we suffer only the lot of human nature, and as we are happy or miserable compared with others, so others are miserable or happy compared with us.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
There are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Suttree
Misery loves company.
ENGLISH PROVERB
It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
God, wishing His elect to realize their own misery, often temporarily withdraws His favours: no more is needed to prove to us in a very short time what we really are.
TERESA OF AVILA
The Interior Castle
In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
Misery is a heaven-sent messenger, whose errand is to keep alive man's sympathy toward his fellows.
PIERRE GUERIN DU ROCHER
attributed, Day's Collacon