Misery Quotes - Page 36

• My soul refuses to be satisfied so long as it is a helpless witness of a single wrong or a single misery.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Long, Soul, Force

  Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, V. Geetha (2004). “Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace”, p.110, Tara Publishing

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• It is weakness, says the Vedanta, which is the cause of all misery in this world. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We die because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death nor sorrow. We are miserable through delusion. Give up the delusion and the whole thing vanishes.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Strength, Giving Up, Lying

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• We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But tasks are called superhuman when men take a long time to complete them, that is all.

  Albert Camus

  Meaningful, Hope, Men

  Albert Camus (1967). “Lyrical and critical”, Hamish Hamilton Ltd

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• Istanbul is certainly in the process of transforming itself into an attractive cultural, tourist and financial center. But there are also millions of sad stories in this giant sea of immigration, poverty, misery and contradictions. So much anger, frustration and fury.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Frustration, Istanbul, Sea

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don't feel good all the time. There's a lot of down, a lot of misery.

  Barry Hannah

  Drinking, Feel Good, Stuff

  Interview with Wells Tower, believermag.com. October 1, 2010.

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• Four years ago on this very day I tried to take my own life. And I said, "Zach, do it in front of your co-workers and end the misery." I don't know how many of you ever tried to jump off of a Pizza Hut, but you'll just get a sprained ankle out of the deal. Then you'll have to go back inside, and serve crazy bread.

  Zach Galifianakis

  Funny, Crazy, Humor

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• Every time you have a crisis in a country you have an extreme wing coming up and proposing solutions. The way to fight them is by doing lots of work teaching people that every time these fascist systems gained power they ended up with big tragedies - lots of blood, lots of police, and lots of misery.

  Costa-Gavras

  Country, Teaching, Fighting

  Source: progressive.org

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• I think to write fiction, this is just how I see it, you have to have a powerful need/desire to connect. I can't. Wanting to and not being able to has lead to a lot of misery in my life.

  Henry Rollins

  Powerful, Writing, Thinking

  Source: paulsemel.com

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• I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Artist, Parent, Honor

  "True Myth: A Conversation With Sufjan Stevens". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. February 16, 2015.

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• The way that the stories go in the Snicket books is just the way stories naturally go to me. They're full of misery, and yet the misery ends up being slightly hilarious. And in terms of the warnings on the back of the books, that really started as an honest assessment of their marketability.

  Daniel Handler

  Book, Assessment, Stories

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 16, 2005.

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• Advance like a hero. Do not be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say-I have reached the state of fearlessness!...and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: 'Thou art That', 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached'

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Art, Hero

  Swami Vivekananda (1953). “Complete Works”

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• Go and preach to all, 'Arise, awake, sleep no more: within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. Believe this, and that power will be manifested.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Believe, Sleep

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3026, Manonmani Publishers

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• God is true. The universe is a dream. Blessed am I that I know this moment that I have been and shall be free all eternity; ... that I know that I am worshiping only myself; that no nature, no delusion, had any hold on me. Vanish nature from me, vanish these gods; vanish worship; ... vanish superstitions, for I know myself. I am the Infinite. All these - Mrs. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, responsibility, happiness, misery - have vanished. I am the Infinite. How can there be death for me, or birth? Whom shall I fear? I am the One. Shall I be afraid of myself? Who is to be afraid of whom?

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Dream, Blessed

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• Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep?

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Sleep, Burning

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Meditation and Its Methods”, p.60, editionNEXT.com

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• Dependence is misery. Independence is happiness.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Independence, Dependence

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2402, Manonmani Publishers

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• It is not only poverty that torments the Negro; it is the fact of poverty amid plenty. It is a misery generated by the gulf between the affluence he sees in the mass media and the deprivation he experiences in his everyday life.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Media, Everyday, Poverty

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• Nothing less than the fate of the planet is at stake... No place on the planet can remain an island of affluence in a sea of misery.

  Maurice Strong

  Fate, Islands, Sea

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• As we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat down to steaks. I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the first bite. And spit it out.

  Alice Walker

  Justice, One Day, Firsts

  Alice Walker (1996). “Alice Walker Banned”

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• The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Real, Justice, Diversity

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• Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart

  John Adams

  Grief, Heart, Sadness

  John Adams (2016). “John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826”, p.768, Library of America

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• If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

  Daniel Webster

  Land, Darkness, Degradation

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• Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. So that a single act of mine may spread and spread in widening circles, through a nation or humanity. Through my vice I intensify the taint of vice throughout the universe. Through my misery I make multitudes sad. On the other hand, every development of my virtue makes me an ampler blessing to my race. Every new truth that I gain makes me a brighter light to humanity.

  William Ellery Channing

  Blessing, Light, Race

  William Ellery Channing (1888). “The Works of William E. Channing”

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• That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer.

  Adam Smith

  Hurt, Fall, Empathy

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Essays on Philosophical Subjects: the Great Master”, p.7, VM eBooks

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• Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.

  William Morris

  Simple, Simplicity, Foundation

  William Morris, Norman Kelvin (1999). “William Morris on Art and Socialism”, p.77, Courier Corporation

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• By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended: his satisfaction and his merit; the one pays our debt, and so satisfies; the other procures our title, and so merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery; the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Two, Redemption, Debt

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