Misery Quotes

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  I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

  Martha Washington

  Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness

  129 Copy quote

• How we are born to invent our own miseries!

  Sophia Lee

  Born

  4 Copy quote

• Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

  Joanne Harris

  Pain, Anticipation

  Joanne Harris (2001). “Five Quarters of the Orange”

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• Secrecy is for the happy,--misery, hopeless misery, needs no veil; under a thousand suns it dares act openly.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Needs, Veils, Sun

  7 Copy quote

• Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupid, Ignorance, Science

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse

  Cormac McCarthy

  Humans, Absolutes

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Suttree”, p.448, Pan Macmillan

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• Why was I born, if just to live in misery

  Noah

  Emo, Born, Ifs

  12 Copy quote

• Problems are inevitable. Misery is a choice.

  Ann Landers

  Choices, Problem, Inevitable

  21 Copy quote

• Kids; 10 seconds of joy, 30 years of misery

  Tom Arnold

  Kids, Years, Joy

  7 Copy quote

• Misery motivates, not utopia.

  Karl Marx

  Fear, Atheism, Utopia

  31 Copy quote

• When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Forgiveness, Peace, Honesty

  Eleanor Roosevelt (2007). “The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: The human rights years, 1945-1948”, Charles Scribner's Sons

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• Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up.

  Blaise Pascal

  Sight, Instinct, Throat

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pascal's Pensees”, p.111, Simon and Schuster

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• Fate finds for every man; his share of misery.

  Euripides

  Sadness, Fate, Men

  Euripides (2013). “Euripides V: Bacchae, Iphigenia in Aulis, The Cyclops, Rhesus”, p.155, University of Chicago Press

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• Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.

  Franz Liszt

  Trying, Companion

  11 Copy quote

• History is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man.

  Washington Irving

  Men, History, Calendars

  1809 A History of NewYork, bk.4, ch.1.

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• Take away the miseries and you take away some folks' reason for living.

  Toni Cade Bambara

  Life, Personality, Reason

  Toni Cade Bambara (2011). “The Salt Eaters”, p.16, Vintage

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• My misery is reaching epidemic proportions.

  Libba Bray

  Epidemics, Reaching, Proportion

  Libba Bray (2010). “A Great and Terrible Beauty”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

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• Under miserable conditions of life, any vision of the possibility of better things makes the present misery more intolerable, and spurs those who suffer to the most energetic struggles to improve their lot, and if these struggles only immediately result in sharper misery, the outcome is sheer desperation.

  Emma Goldman

  Struggle, Suffering, Vision

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.46, 谷月社

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• It is equally important to investigate wellness as it is to study misery.

  Sonja Lyubomirsky

  Important, Wellness, Study

  12 Copy quote

• All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspirational, Peace, Hipster

  84 Copy quote

• Ay! idleness! the rich folks never fail
  To find some reason why the poor deserve
  Their miseries.

  Robert Southey

  Poverty, Reason Why, Failing

  Robert Southey (1854). “Ballads, metrical tales and other poems”, p.141

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• They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?

  Princess Diana

  Sadness, Poverty, Compromise

  40 Copy quote

• wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness

  Cassandra Clare

  Madness, Clockwork Prince, Tessa Gray

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “Clockwork Prince”, p.244, Simon and Schuster

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• If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.

  Mercedes Lackey

  Love, Regret, Sadness

  Mercedes Lackey (2004). “Exile's Valor”, p.106, Penguin

  42 Copy quote

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• Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

  Honore de Balzac

  Lying, Worry, Anticipation

  14 Copy quote