Misfortunes Quotes - Page 31

• Your fortune is misfortune if it is not Love.

  Silent lotus

  Life, Fortune, Ifs

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• To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Character, Men

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• Finding temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope: Temporary causes limit helplessness in time, and specific causes limit helplessness to the original situation.

  Martin Seligman

  Hope, Art, Limits

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.89, Vintage

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• I have suffered more from my bad dancing than from all the misfortunes and miseries of my life put together.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Dancing, Together, Misery

  Walter Savage Landor, Marguerite Blessington (Countess of), John Francis Mariani (1973). “The letters of Walter Savage Landor to Marguerite, Countess of Blessington”

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• Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.

  Julian Baggini

  Religious, Believe, Suffering

  "The Thought Police Brief Answers to Big Questions: Hoddle Has Gone, but the Question of Evil Remains". www.independent.co.uk. February 07, 1999.

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• I was a lawyer for 10 years, and several of my clients had the misfortune, through no fault of my own, of going to prison. I visited them occasionally.

  John Grisham

  Years, Faults, Clients

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• Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.

  Samuel Smiles

  Blessing, Riches, Action

  Samuel Smiles (1866). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Charakter, Conduct and Perseverance”, p.311

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• We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money.

  Livy

  Loss, Appeals, Circumstances

  "History of Rome". Book by Livy. Book XXX, section 44,

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• Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair.

  Martin Seligman

  Practice, Despair, Causes

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.86, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

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• I ask the political economists and the moralists if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralisation, degradation, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man.

  Almeida Garrett

  Ignorance, Men, Order

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• I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

  Bruce Lee

  Memories, Lying, Past

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• My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Study, Human Nature, Pleasure

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1856). “The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu”, p.346

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• I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people's standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.

  Sophia Loren

  Life, Blessed, Destiny

  "Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story". Book by A. E. Hotchner, 1979.

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• The provision of health care facilities must be accepted as a social responsibility. It is not that an individual who has the misfortune to be inflicted with some particular disease is solely responsible for searching the facilities to cure his illness. This is a social responsibility which is accepted by governments all over the world. This is part and parcel of the organization of individuals into societies. It is a measure of the degree of civilization.

  Toh Chin Chye

  Responsibility, Government, Civilization

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• The greatest misfortune that can come to a human being is to lose his inner peace. No outer force can rob him of it. It is his own thoughts, his own actions, that rob him of it.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Peace, Action, Force

  Sri Chinmoy (2003). “Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy”, p.208, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

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• The memory of man is as old as misfortune

  Lawrence Durrell

  Memories, Men

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.344, Faber & Faber

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• Be not glad at the misfortune of another, though he may be your enemy.

  George Washington

  Enemy, May, Glad

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• It seems the misfortune of one can plow a deeper furrow in the heart than the misfortune of millions.

  Kirby Larson

  Heart, Deeper, Seems

  Kirby Larson (2007). “Hattie Big Sky”, p.255, Yearling

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• [Every disappointment or misfortune can become a blessing in disguise, for which we should be grateful. But only if the hidden blessing is anticipated, expected and searched for will it be found and recognised as such and the most made of it. For example...] Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger.

  Saint Basil

  Disappointment, Rain, Fall

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• In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled! [People who get upset and worried at the first sign of misfortune are only making their situation worse and thereby doubling their troubles. Stay calm and happy. Cool and joyful heads are more likely to survive and prevail.]

  Daniel Defoe

  People, Upset, Stay Calm

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• It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, 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. [as they realise their problems could be worse!]

  Joseph Addison

  Gratitude, Fall, Thinking

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1855). “The Spectator”, p.255

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• We should learn, by reflecting on the misfortunes which have attended others, that there is nothing singular in those which befall ourselves. [They have, are and will be experienced by others as well as worse.]

  William Melmoth

  Gratitude, Should, Wells

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• In the lottery of life there are more prizes drawn than blanks, and to one misfortune there are fifty advantages. Despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.

  Thomas De Witt Talmage

  Gratitude, Men, Indulge In

  Thomas De Witt Talmage (1892). “Brilliants”

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• ...Hope endures and overcomes misfortune and evil.

  Martin Luther

  Evil, Overcoming, Anticipation

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.146

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• Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Gratitude, Cheer, Powerful

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