Misfortunes Quotes - Page 30

• [Prudence] replaces [strength] by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Men, Saving, He Man

  Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort (2003). “Chamfort: Reflections on Life, Love & Society : Together with Anecdotes and Little Philosophical Dialogues”

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• Every war is a national misfortune.

  Helmuth James Graf von Moltke

  War

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• France cannot be destroyed. She is an old country who, despite her misfortunes, has, and always will have, thanks to her past, a tremendous prestige in the world, whatever the fate inflicted upon her.

  Pierre Laval

  Country, Fate, Past

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• A man is the sum of his misfortunes.

  William Faulkner

  Men

  William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.104, Modern Library

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• Some suffer from real misfortunes. Sadly, others only imagine that they do.

  Boyd K. Packer

  Real, Suffering, Imagine

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• So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master - so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil - so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Beautiful, Heart, Law

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (2008). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.13, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• If we cannot meet our everyday surroundings with equanimity and pleasure and grow each day in some useful direction, then... life is on the road toward misfortune, misery and destruction.

  Luther Burbank

  Everyday, Each Day, Misery

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• Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality.

  Eric Hoffer

  Laughter, Animal, Quality

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• After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Mistake, Men, Feet

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• The War has been waged with success, although there have been in some instances errors and misfortunes. But the heart of the nation is sounder and its hopes brighter.

  Gideon Welles

  War, Heart, Errors

  Gideon Welles (2014). “Diary of Gideon Welles: Volumes I & II (Expanded)”, p.472, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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• The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, . . . when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man . . . . It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Arrogance, Phrases

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.297, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• True heroism consists in rising superior to misfortune.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Heroism, Rising, True Hero

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• He who hopes to avoid all failure and misfortune is trying to live in a fairyland; the wise man realistically accepts failures as a part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of 'nothing attempted, nothing gained' and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.

  Wilferd Peterson

  Motivational, Wise, Philosophy

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• If all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stack in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division.

  Socrates

  Fall, Thinking, Order

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• We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful. Ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle. We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning. 'Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,' St. Paul wrote in Second Corinthians, 'for when I am weak, then I am strong.'

  Andrew Solomon

  Motivational, Strong, Pain

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• The rights a man arrogates to himself are related to the duties he imposes on himself, to the tasks to which he feels equal. The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Rights, Majority

  "The Will to Power". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, edited by Peter Gast and Elisabeth Nietzsche, Sec. 872 (Notebook W I 1. Spring 1884, KGW VII, 2.97-8, KSA 11.101-2), 1888.

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• Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects.

  Franz Kafka

  Grateful, Facts, Should

  Franz Kafka, Nahum Norbert Glatzer (1974). “I am a memory come alive: autobiographical writings”, Schocken

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• It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital--her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Sex, Women, Heart

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• Man is extraordinarily clever in preventing himself from being happy; it would seem that the less able he is to endure misfortune the more apt he is to attach himself to it.

  Andre Gide

  Clever, Men, Able

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• What a misfortune it isto be bornawoman!? Why seek for knowledge, which can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show usthenew limits, the Gothic structure, theimpenetrable barriers of our prison.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Light, Darkness, Rays

  1806 Leonora, letter 1.

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• Happiness or misfortune are prescribed by law of Heaven, but their source comes from ourselves.

  Nguyen Du

  Future, Law, Heaven

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• No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.

  Susie Orbach

  Trying, May, Likes

  "The Chetham music school trial shows therapy is crucial for sex abuse victims" by Susie Orbach, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2013.

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• Misery is evil; quarreling, a misfortune. There is only one possibility of avoiding both: a clear division of society. [Otherwise] the strong tyrannize the weak, the intelligent frighten the stupid, the inferior resist the superior, and the young mock the old.

  Xunzi

  Strong, Stupid, Intelligent

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• Misfortune wandering the same track lights now upon one and now upon another.

  Aeschylus

  Adversity, Light, Track

  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (1958). “The Complete Greek Tragedies: Aeschylus”

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• Do not go looking for problems to feed your soul. Just let life be your teacher. It will nourish you with its inevitable difficulties. How will you know whether you are letting life teach you and nourish you? If your physical senses become more sensitive to the beauty you see, the words of love you hear, and the life you feel touching your body and soul, then you know you have discovered the great value of misfortune.

  Bernie Siegel

  Teacher, Love You, Soul

  Bernie Siegel (2013). “Prescriptions For Living: Inspirational Lessons for a Joyful, Loving Life”, p.142, Random House

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