Misery Quotes - Page 27

• It would be hard to find a single instance of a direct assault by positive effort upon poverty, vice, and misery which has not either failed or, if it has not failed directly and entirely, has not entailed other evils greater than the one which it removed.

  William Graham Sumner

  Evil, Effort, Vices

  "Sociology" (1881)

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures with a concern for wife and child to which the moral autonomy of the introverted subject in reality was tantamount.

  Max Horkheimer

  Children, Reality, Men

  "The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have experienced the truth of this prophecy, for England has become the habitation of outsiders and the dominion of foreigners. Today, no Englishman is earl, bishop, or abbott, and newcomers gnaw away at the riches and very innards of England; nor is there any hope for an end of this misery.

  William of Malmesbury

  Riches, Outsiders, England

  "The English and the Normans". Book by Hugh Thomas, p. 56, 2003.

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Light, Giving, Forever

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3994, Manonmani Publishers

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• One thing, however, is sure: unless Christians fulfill their prophetic role, unless they become the advocates and defenders of the truly poor, witness to their misery, then, infallibly, violence will suddenly break out. In one way or another 'their blood cries to heaven,' and violence will seem the only way out. It will be too late to try to calm them and create harmony.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, Blood, Heaven

  41 Copy quote

• I know a lot of ways to happiness! I also know some pretty fast shortcuts to misery.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Way, Rama

  4 Copy quote

• People love misery, they love to feel sorry for themselves, and they definitely don't want to be enlightened. That's the first thing they tell you at boot camp in the higher worlds.

  Frederick Lenz

  Sorry, Buddhism, People

  4 Copy quote

• Nine months of misery.

  Steve Coppell

  Soccer, Football, Months

  7 Copy quote

• I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Division, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.154, Hackett Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marxism was the social creed and the social cry of those classes who knew by their miseries that the creed of the liberal optimists was s snare and a delusion... Liberalism and Marxism share a common illusion of the "children of light." Neither understands property as a form of power which can be used in either its individual or its social form as an instrument of particular interest against the general interest.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Wisdom, Children, Light

  4 Copy quote

• Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed.

  Pope Paul VI

  Wisdom, Strong, Successful

  Catholic Church. Pope (1963-1978 : Paul VI), Pope Paul VI (1980*). “On the development of peoples”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Could there be anything but widespread misery, where a privileged few controlled a nation's wealth, while millions labored for a pittance, and millions more were desperate for want of employment?

  Ronald Reagan

  Wisdom, Employment, Politics

  4 Copy quote

• The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.

  Pierre Bayle

  Law, Heaven, Atheism

  11 Copy quote

• All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity. They can hurt no one.

  Joseph Conrad

  Hurt, Ambition, Intellectual

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Joseph Conrad’s Sea Tales - Premium Collection: An Outcast of the Islands, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, A Smile of Fortune, Typhoon and more: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.1118, e-artnow

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Parsons always seem to be specially horrified about things like sunbathing and naked bodies. They don't mind poverty and misery and cruelty to animals nearly as much.

  Susan Ertz

  Animal, Mind, Atheism

  Susan Ertz (1931). “The Story of Julian”, New York D. Appleton 1931.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• How do you overcome the negative karmas and problems and misery that occur to people who abuse power? You stop abusing power.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Buddhism, People

  4 Copy quote

• The supernatural Christ of the New Testament, the god of orthodox Christianity, is dead. But priestcraft lives and conjures up the ghost of this dead god to frighten and enslave the masses of mankind. The name of Christ has caused more persecutions, wars, and miseries than any other name has caused. The darkest wrongs are still inspired by it. The wails of anguish that went up from Kishenev, Odessa, and Bialystok still vibrate in our ears.

  John Remsburg

  War, Names, Atheism

  7 Copy quote

• Its seems to me - it's likely that heaven's here right now. If you could take life with its pain and misery, where you fail and you sometimes win, and if you package it into a game, people would pay a fortune to have this game. And I don't know that I'd want it to be resolved so peacefully that the game would be all over.

  Gene Roddenberry

  Pain, Winning, Games

  6 Copy quote

• I find that the whole weight of relieving human misery and distress falls on the shoulders of those Heretics and Infidels; and though great part of this distress has been occasioned by those ravening wolves' hopeful converts.

  Anne Royall

  Fall, Hopeful, Atheism

  4 Copy quote

• My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Race, Views

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.50, Lulu Press, Inc

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is when we are in misery that we revere the gods; the prosperous seldom approach the altar.

  Silius Italicus

  Atheism, Approach, Altars

  4 Copy quote

• Through inculcating the notion that sacrifice is a virtue, Christianity has succeeded in convincing many people that misery incurred through sacrifice is a mark of virtue. Pain becomes the inignia of morality - and conversely, pleasure becomes the insignia of immorality. Christianity, therefore, does not say, "Go forth and be miserable." Rather, it says, "Go forth and practice the virtue of self-sacrifice." In practical terms, these commands are identical.

  George H. Smith

  Pain, Sacrifice, Practice

  4 Copy quote

• This was one of the greatest test of his faith he had ever experienced. The thought of deceiving the kind and faithful wife of his youth... was more than he felt able to bear.... his sorrow and misery were increased by the thought of my mother hearing it from some other source, which would no doubt separate them, and he shrank from the thought of such a thing, or of causing her any unhappiness.

  Orson F. Whitney

  Mother, Wife, Faithful

  10 Copy quote

• I hadn't intended to end up there. I meant to be a serious actor with a beard who wore a lot of black and wanted to share his misery with you.

  Stephen Colbert

  Black, Actors, Beard

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. January 25, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What teenagers are ready to laugh at is the misery of other people.

  Jordan Peele

  Teenager, People, Laughing

  "Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele of Key & Peele". Interview With Jesse Thorn, www.avclub.com. March 20, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source