Misfortunes Quotes - Page 35

• What passes out of one's mouth passes into a hundred ears. It is a great misfortune not to have sense enough to speak well.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Ears, Mouths, Speak

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• Misfortune is a fact of nature acceptable to women, especially when it falls on other women.

  John Steinbeck

  Fall, Facts, Acceptable

  John Steinbeck (1961). “The Winter of our Discontent”

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• What molting time is to birds, so adversity or misfortune is ... for us humans.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Adversity, Bird, Humans

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• In other countries poverty is a misfortune - with us it is a crime.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Country, Poverty, Crime

  England and the English (1833)

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• Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.

  Honore de Balzac

  Mind, Great Minds, Virtue

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• It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Students, Observation, Equal

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.173, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is-downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!

  Jeffrey R. Holland

  Mistake, Giving, Envy

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• Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty Often have a share in their misfortunes.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Share, Fortune, Good Fortune

  Bertolt Brecht (1975). “Grove Press modern drama: six plays”, Grove Press

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• What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to understand what a misfortune it is.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Worst

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• The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Eye, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.303, University of Chicago Press

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• The misfortunes of mankind are of varied plumage.

  Aeschylus

  Mankind

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• Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion.

  Henry Fielding

  Mind, Virtue, Contemplation

  Henry Fielding, Thomas Roscoe (1853). “The Works of Henry Fielding, Complete in One Volume”, p.645

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• Many things would be changed for Americans if they would only admit that there is ill-luck in this world and that misfortune is not a priori a crime.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Luck, United States, Would Be

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “America Day by Day”

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• The arrogance of some Christians would close heaven to them if, to their misfortune, it existed.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Christian, Heaven, Arrogance

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• It is no great misfortune to oblige ungrateful people, but an unsupportable one to be forced to be under an obligation to a scoundrel.

  Philip James Bailey

  Ungrateful People, Scoundrels, Obligation

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• If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both.

  George Sand

  Stupid, People, Mind

  George Sand (2009). “Letters of George Sand”, p.114, Cosimo, Inc.

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• What a misfortune it would be, religiously speaking and educationally speaking, if we could only work happily with those who saw things as we do.

  Janet Erskine Stuart

  Would Be, Saws, Ifs

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• Americans were people who wanted to leave every place better than they found it, to leave every man more of a man than they found him. ... Americans could open doors to almost all that was admirable - it was their misfortune, not their fault, that movies and victrolas and advertisements squeezed in when they opened the door.

  Stella Benson

  Men, Doors, People

  Stella Benson (1924). “Pipers and a Dancer”

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• Servile doubt argues an impotence of mind, that says we fear because we dare not meet misfortunes.

  Aaron Hill

  Doubt, Mind, Arguing

  Aaron Hill (1760). “The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill, Esq”, p.21

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• It is often a comfort in misfortune to know our own fate.
  [Lat., Saepe calamitas solatium est nosse sortem suam.]

  Quintus Curtius Rufus

  Fate, Comfort, Knows

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• ... the English think of an opinion as something which a decent person, if he has the misfortune to have one, does all he can to hide.

  Margaret Halsey

  Thinking, Doe, Opinion

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• Who has not experienced how, on near acquaintance, plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a noble nature or will be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being amiable and beloved in the highest degree.

  Fredrika Bremer

  Beauty, Heart, People

  Fredrika Bremer (1844). “New Sketches of Every-day Life: A Diary. Together with Strife and Peace”, p.94

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• Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

  George Stillman Hillard

  Dignity, Redeeming

  George Stillman Hillard (1854). “Six Months in Italy”, p.223

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• Money never remains just coins and pieces of paper. Money can be translated into the beauty of living, a support in misfortune, an education, or future security.

  Sylvia Porter

  Motivation, Support, Coins

  Sylvia Porter (1976). “Money”

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• Most People are wretched more by the Fears of what may come, than what they endure at present. ... a manifest Contradiction to good Sense; for who, with the right use of that, wou'd lose the Enjoyment of a present Comfort, to lament a Misfortune only in Supposition; which ten to one never comes to pass.

  Eliza Haywood

  Fear, People, Live In The Moment

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