Distressing Quotes

• What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

  Sigmund Freud

  Missing You, Wisdom, Children

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• It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.

  Naguib Mahfouz

  Heart, Mind, Affliction

  FaceBook post by Naguib Mahfouz from Mar 05, 2014

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• There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

  William Gaddis

  Reading, Standing Alone, Audience

  William Gaddis (2002). “The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings”, p.89, Penguin

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• It is distressing to me that we live in an age in which we still must fight to protect our civil rights as Americans, in which a hate crime perpetrated against someone based their sexual orientation can go unpunished, and in which discrimination is being written into our laws.

  John Conyers

  Hate, Fighting, Rights

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• The long and distressing controversy over capital punishment is very unfair to anyone meditating murder.

  Geoffrey Fisher

  Punishment, Long, Murder

  1957 In the Sunday Times, 24 Feb.

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• That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are.

  Elliott Carter

  Writing, Style, Pieces

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• The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.

  Aldous Huxley

  Next, Literature, Prophet

  1956 'Brave New World Revisited', in Esquire.

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• For there is a price ticket on everything that puts a whizz into life, and adventure follows the rule. It's distressing, but there you are.

  Leslie Charteris

  Travel, Adventure, Tickets

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• Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Happiness, Stress

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• No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Government, Decision, Faces

  The Guns of August ch. 9 (1962)

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• And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?

  Bill Bryson

  Food, Thinking, Knitting Needles

  Bill Bryson (2010). “Notes From A Small Island: Journey Through Britain”, p.145, Random House

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• The missionary is no longer a man, a conscience. He is a corpse, in the hands of a confraternity, without family, without love, without any of the sentiments that are dear to us. Emasculated, in a sense, by his vow of chastity, he offers us the distressing spectacle of a man deformed and impotent or engaged in a stupid and useless struggle with the sacred needs of the flesh, a struggle which, seven times out of ten, leads him to sodomy, the gallows, or prison.

  Paul Gauguin

  Stupid, Struggle, Men

  Paul Gauguin (1985). “The Intimate Journals of Paul Gauguin”, p.93, Routledge

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• I think the smartest thing for people to do to manage very distressing emotions is to take a medication if it helps, but don't do only that. You also need to train your mind.

  Daniel Goleman

  Thinking, People, Mind

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• Turn it off," Ryodan says without even looking at me. "You're distressing Dani. No one distresses Dani but me.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Distress, Turns, Ryodan

  Karen Marie Moning (2012). “Iced: Fever Series”, p.244, Delacorte Press

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• Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers. You develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

  Paolo Giordano

  Destiny, Numbers, Space

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• Ok," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realize that this is a difficult and distressing time for you.

  Douglas Adams

  Needs, Firsts, Realizing

  Douglas Adams (2014). “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.50, Simon and Schuster

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• There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged.
 Such moments are most desirable, 
for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. 
This is detachment -- 
when the old is over and the new has not yet come. 
If you are afraid, the state may be distressing, 
but there is really nothing to be afraid of. 
Remember the instruction: 
Whatever you come across -- go beyond.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Mean, Soul, Sailing

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• Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.

  Mother Teresa

  Jesus, Heart, Mean

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• The more distressing the memory, the more persistent it's presence.

  Sara Gruen

  Memories, Persistent

  Sara Gruen (2016). “The Sara Gruen Collection: Water for Elephants - At the Water's Edge - Ape House”, p.142, Hachette UK

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• At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

  Rose Macaulay

  Life, Stress, House

  Rose Macaulay (1926). “A Casual Commentary”

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• Humor (is) the process that allows one to brush reality aside when it gets too distressing.

  Andre Breton

  Reality, Process, Brushes

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• Most fourth graders can't say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.

  Susan Orlean

  Google, Historical, Important

  "Google It" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. June 16, 2011.

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• When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.

  Daniel Goleman

  Wisdom, Passion, Mean

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• The newest victims of the nation's foreclosure crisis are pets, which is extremely distressing to me.

  Margaret Cho

  Pet, Victim, Crisis

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• An awful lot of England is slowly eroding, in ways that I find really distressing, and an awful lot of it is the hedgerows... We're reaching the point where a lot of the English countryside looks just like Iowa - just kind of open space.

  Bill Bryson

  Iowa, Space, Looks

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