Misery Quotes - Page 33

• Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.

  Virginia Woolf

  Book, Writing, Joy

  Virginia Woolf, Joanne Trautmann Banks (1975). “The Letters of Virginia Woolf: 1923-1928”, Harcourt on Demand

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• Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
  That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
  Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
  Turning all love's delight to misery,
  Through fear of losing his felicity.

  Edmund Spenser

  Jealousy, Heart, Monsters

  Edmund Spenser, John Aikin (1810). “Hymns. Visions. Elegiac poems”, p.14

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• A crown! what is it?
  It is to bear the miseries of a people!
  To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
  And sink beneath a load of splendid care!

  Hannah More

  Kings, People, Bears

  Hannah More (1840). “Miscellaneous Works: Tragedies. Miscellaneous poems. Hymns and ballads. Sacred Dramas. Coelebs. Practical piety. Moriana”, p.351

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• extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery.

  Dodie Smith

  Extremes, Invites

  Dodie Smith (2017). “I Capture the Castle: Young Adult Edition”, p.266, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Death must no longer be either the penalty for prosperity or the consolation of misery. God did not destine it to be either the punishment or the compensation for life.

  George Sand

  Punishment, Prosperity, Penalties

  George Sand (1800). “The Haunted Pool: (La Mare Au Diable).”, p.13

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• I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.

  Amy Tan

  Girl, Daughter, Mother

  "Fictional character: An-Mei". "The Joy Luck Club", www.imdb.com. 1993.

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• People who have escaped from poverty are like old soldiers. In later years they recount the little, amusing incidents that happened infrequently, and conveniently forget the long, unrelieved stretches of misery and boredom.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Years, Long, People

  Elsa Maxwell (1954). “R.S.V.P.: Elsa Maxwell's Own Story”

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• Imagination seems to be a glory and a misery, a blessing and a curse. Adam, to his sorrow, lacked it. Eve, to her sorrow, possessed it. Had both been blessed - or cursed - with it, there would have been much keener competition for the apple.

  Stella Benson

  Blessed, Blessing, Apples

  Stella Benson (1916). “I Pose”

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• The compulsion to find a lover and husband in a single person has doomed more women to misery than any other illusion.

  Carolyn Heilbrun

  Marriage, Husband, Lovers

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• Even in misery we love to be foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknowledged as more bitter than that of others.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Cups, Bitter, Self-importance

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• Misery is a guest that we are glad to part with, however certain of her speedy return.

  Fanny Burney

  Guests, Return, Unhappiness

  Frances Burney, Fanny Burney (2015). “Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)”, p.3775, Delphi Classics

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• the principal sources of human misery may fairly be said to lie in the over-possession, under-possession, and the unwise use of economic goods.

  Georgia Harkness

  Lying, Use, May

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• All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Prove, Monarchs

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• There is no misery quite so wearing as the misery of a false position. It seems to slay the body and the soul.

  Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

  Soul, Body, Position

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• Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.

  Owen Feltham

  Kind, Virtue, Fame

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• real misery delights not in reproaches and complaints. It is like charity and love - silent, long suffering and mild.

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Real, Long, Suffering

  Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). “Glenarvon (1816).”, Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint

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• Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs.

  Hannah More

  Spring, Half, Trifles

  Hannah More (1853). “Tragedies, poems”, p.338

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• The greater part of human misery is caused by indolence.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Indolence, Humans, Greater

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• In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Death, Country, Taken

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2017). “Notes from China”, p.3, Random House

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• The spendthrift robs his heirs the miser robs himself.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Heirs, Spendthrift, Misers

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• Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered by materialism.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Materialism

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Lectures from Colombo to Almora”, p.209, editionNEXT.com

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• If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest. If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty. When the will to power is in charge, the higher the ideals, the lower the results. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice. Thus the Master is content to serve as an example and not to impose her will. She is pointed, but doesn't pierce. Straightforward, but supple. Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

  Laozi

  Country, Eye, People

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• Wine and women bring misery.

  Martial

  Wine, Women And Wine

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• In Tibet there is no marriage, and there is no jealousy, yet we know that marriage is a much higher state. The Tibetans have not known the wonderful enjoyment, the blessing of chastity, the happiness of having a chaste, virtuous wife, or a chaste, virtuous husband. These people cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the intense jealousy of the chaste wife or husband, or the misery caused by unfaithfulness on either side, with all the heart-burnings and sorrows which believers in chastity experience. On one side, the latter gain happiness, but on the other, they suffer misery too.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Marriage, Husband, Heart

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.630, Manonmani Publishers

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• Why do we protect children from life? It's no wonder that we become afraid to live. We're not told what life really is. We're not told that life is joy and wonder and magic and even rapture, if you can get involved enough. We're not told that life is also pain, misery, despair, unhappiness, and tears. I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss any of it. I want to embrace life, and I want to find out what it's all about. I wouldn't want to go through life without knowing what it is to cry.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Life, Children, Pain

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