Suffering Quotes | Quote Catalog

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All Quotes tagged Suffering(328)

And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a lie, plus, I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and trying to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness and fucked up suffering in the world, and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically... disappear.

— Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Mysterious Skin

Grief Suffering fucked-up coming of age movies

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Evil is the worship of suffering for the sake of suffering.

— Jordan B. Peterson, Aubrey Marcus Podcast | #155 Truth and Responsibility with Jordan Peterson

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My core goal as an artist is to deconstruct the idea of working, of effort because we are raised to believe that great works of art require suffering.

— Dimo (Fred Armisen), Documentary Now!, Season 3: Waiting for the Artist

goal Art Artist Effort Suffering Work

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But we never really allow space for the stories of Palestinians seeking safety and sanctuary to be uplifted. And to me, it is the dehumanization and the silencing of a particular pain and suffering of people, should not be OK and normal. And you can’t be in the practice of humanizing and uplifting the suffering of one, if you’re not willing to do that for everyone.

— Ilhan Omar, What Did Ilhan Omar Say?

Palestinians Pain Suffering

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I came here to live a life, fully, all of it and I'll take it. I'll take all of it. I'll take the whole thing. Because I don't want to miss it. I don't want to have come all this distance to live a human life and miss the experience. I just wanna show up for the whole ride.

— Elizabeth Gilbert, Oprah's Super Soul Conversations

Life The ride never dies Suffering

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You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be...Blacula!

— Dracula (Charles Macaulay), Blacula

Curse Suffering dracula

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Dee Dee Blanchard: My mama used to say, 'Sometimes the only way out of the fire is through it.'

Mel: What's that mean?

Dee Dee Blanchard: I used to think it meant you have to be brave, but then I realized she meant you have to suffer. You'll learn more from it.

— Dee Dee Blanchard (Patricia Arquette), The Act, Season 1: Stay Inside

Immolation Bravery Suffering Learning

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We need to strengthen our foundation of joy and happiness before focusing on our suffering.

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Nhat Hanh—Twitter

Joy Happiness Suffering

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If you are suffering during meditation, your practice is not correct. Practice should be enjoyable and pleasant. It should be full of joy.

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Nhat Hanh—Twitter

Suffering meditation Joy

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Sometimes “Proof” is just another word for letting people suffer.

— Malcolm Gladwell, Revisionist History Season 3 Episode 2

Proof Suffering Football Podcast Quote

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The guy Dad sold your car to
comes back to get his money,

leaves the car. With filthy rags
we rub it down until it doesn’t shine

and wipe your blood into
the seams of the seat.

Each snowflake stirs before
lifting into the sky as I

learn you won’t be dead.
The unsuffering ends

when the mess of your head
pulls together around

a bullet in your mouth.
You spit it into Dad’s gun

before arriving in the driveway
while the evening brightens

and we pour bag after bag
of leaves on the lawn,

waiting for them to leap

— Matt Rasmussen, Reverse Suicide

Poetry The Slowdown snowflake Suffering Bullet

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Sensual pleasure is our biological reward for taking care of ourselves.

— Linda Bacon, Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight

Pleasure eating Sex Struggle Suffering Working Out

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Pain, suffering, death I feel. Something terrible has happened. Young Skywalker is in pain. Terrible pain.

— Yoda (voice) (Frank Oz), Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Pain Suffering Death

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We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

— C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), Star Wars

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There are moments that the words don’t reach. There is suffering too terrible to name.

— Renée Elise Goldsberry, It's Quiet Uptown

Pain Suffering Depression When Words Fail Sad Song Lyrics Sad

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Your sins are terrible. It is just that you suffer. Your life could be redeemed, but I know you don't believe that. You will not change.

— Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone), The Godfather: Part III

sins Suffering Redemption Change

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Dionne: Dude, what’s wrong. You suffering from buyers remorse or something?

Cher: God, no! Nothing like that.

— Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone), Clueless

buyers Remorse Suffering

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This is the rule I always give myself: that nothing new can come from a situation that involves being free or that doesn’t involve suffering.

— Rei Kawakubo, ‘The rules are in my head.’

New Freedom Suffering

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Duchess Cecily: You should understand. He was barely eleven years old when his father died at the She-Devil's hand. Have you any idea?

Jacquetta: Indeed we do. I lost my own husband and my son in a similarly brutal and senseless manner.

Duchess Cecily: Are we to measure our pain against each other? Are we to compete of who's suffered more?

— Duchess Cecily (Caroline Goodall), The White Queen, Season 1: The Bad Queen

Pain Suffering Loss Death Hatred resentment Brutality

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Oh, you think the black man has a monopoly on suffering? You have no clue what black women go through, probably ‘cause you can’t get close to one, ‘cause you’re fucking whack. We deal with the same shit society heaps on you, then turn around and deal with the shit you heap on us.

— Joelle Brooks (Ashley Blaine Featherson), Dear White People, Volume 2: Chapter V

Suffering racism Pain Women Womanhood Intersectionality

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Look at you. You're in so much pain. Why are you putting yourself through all this?

— Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), Better Call Saul, Season 3: Lantern

Pain Suffering Torturing Yourself

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Shit happens.

— Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), The Walking Dead, Season 3: Sick

Shit Happens Suffering Pessimistic

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It wasn't always easy, but suffering is something I've had to accept.

— Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore

Life Suffering struggles life sufferings Life Struggles

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Life is not a walk across an open field.

— Siggy Haraldson (Jessalyn Gilsig), Vikings, Season 2: Eye for an Eye

Life Hardship Suffering

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Just a quick glance and I knew all was lost.
I saw in real life...now a on going mind view, the black and white, were now my new boss.
I saw my life as I know quickly fade away.
I saw my love ones, in mind and thoughts that I would never be able to touch, hold, communicate closely with and kiss with care will now be at bay.
I saw the Black Side of me, was now caught and others would not suffer from my lots,
But then it dawn on me, it was not as I thought.
Yes the other in me will cause no suffering.
The living remained, the Mother, Brother, Sisters, Children, Close Friends and wife will suffer.
Ands the real me of blood, flesh and mind will suffer.
The Suspect

— Dennis Rader, BTK Suspect May Be Writing Poetry

Serial Killers BTK dark side Suffering

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That is how I see mankind in its suffering; that is how I see the suffering people of Europe, bleeding to death on deserted battlefields after conflicts which to a great extent were not their own.

— Fridtjof Nansen, via www.nobelprize.org

Mankind Suffering Europe bleeding World War I

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We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Suffering accomplishment

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To grow we all need to suffer.

— Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), Westworld, Season 2: Akane No Mai

Suffering Through Pain We Grow Meaning of the Pain Why We Must Suffer

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The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire on the vital questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home. Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up.

— Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective

Bible Patriarchy Marriage Maternity Misogyny Bondate Suffering

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You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried—children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not heard the song they sing when a woman dies? 'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' I have no more to say to you.

— Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Suffering Banishment

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When your Excellency Considers my Sufferings, and the Cruel Situation I am in, your Own Humanity and feelings as a Soldier, will render every thing I can say farther on the Subject unnecessary.

— Benedict Arnold, Founders Online: To George Washington from Major General Benedict Arnold, c.18 …

Suffering Cruelty humanity

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Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

— Alan Watts, Become What You Are

Suffering Life Is A Comedy

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Men, it's been a long war, it's been a tough war. You've fought bravely, proudly for your country. You're a special group. You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You've shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You've seen death and suffered together. I'm proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.

— Joseph Liebgott (Ross McCall), Band of Brothers, Season 1: Points

War Soldiers Bravery Death Suffering Peace

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We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.

— Willie Nelson, Willie Quotes - Club Luck

Unhappiness Suffering Self-Sabotage

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Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

— Yoda (Frank Oz), Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Fear dark side Anger Hate Suffering

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Pain is inexhaustible.

— Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell), True Detective, Season 2: Other Lives

Pain Suffering Limits of Pain

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There will be pain. There will be suffering. We will be confronted with the most horrific aspects of humanity. We will confront the inhuman. Evil itself. But we will triumph. It is not a war we will lose.

— Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), House of Cards, Season 4: Chapter 52

Pain Suffering Triumph Evil War

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Thank you, God, who as someone just told me, never said it would be easy, but did promise me that it would work.

— Anne Lamott, via www.facebook.com

God Christianity Suffering Thank You God

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Optimism for me isn't a passive expectation that things will get better; it's a conviction that we can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope and we don't look away.

— Melinda Gates, Text of the 2014 Commencement address by Bill and Melinda Gates

Optimism passive Expectation get better Conviction better Suffering Bad Hope Mindset Courage positive

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The very efficiency of mass society makes people feel unnecessary, and therein lies a profound threat to our dignity.

— Sebastian Junger, The Anthropology of Manhood | National Review

Conflict Suffering Happiness

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If He doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason. Just random, horrible, evil. I get it, OK. I can roll with that. But if He is out there, what's wrong with Him? Where the hell is He while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does He live with Himself? You know, why doesn't He help?

— Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles), Supernatural, Season 4: Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester

God Evil Suffering Divine Indifference

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Something happens at around 92 miles an hour—thunder-headers drown out all sound, engine vibrations travels at a heart's rate, field of vision funnels into the immediate and suddenly you're not on the road, you're in it. A part of it. Traffic, scenery, cops—just cardboard cutouts blowing over as you pass. Sometimes I forget the rush of that. That's why I love these long runs. All your problems, all the noise, gone. Nothing else to worry about except what's right in front of you. Maybe that's the lesson for me today, to hold on to these simple moments. Appreciate them a little more—there's not many of them left. I don't ever want that for you. Finding things that make you happy shouldn't be so hard. I know you'll face pain, suffering, hard choices, but you can't let the weight of it choke the joy out of your life. No matter what, you have to find the things that love you. Run to them. There's an old saying, 'That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger' I don't believe that. I think the things that try to kill you make you angry and sad. Strength comes from the good things - your family, your friends, the satisfaction of hard work. Those are the things that'll keep you whole. Those are the things to hold on to when you're broken.

— Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), Sons of Anarchy, Season 5: Sovereign

Pain Suffering Motorcycles Bikers Freedom Speeding

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You can throw all your dreams down the well. Although everyday the pain grows you ride unicorns on rainbows if you throw all your dreams down the well. When your life's come apart at the seams and you've given up all your dreams, here is just the means to make those dreams come true.
No more suffering, no more sighin', no more pain and no more cryin'.

— Spongebob Squarepants (Tom Kenny), SpongeBob SquarePants, Season 4: Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI - The Motion Picture

Songs Dreams Rainbows Suffering

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The harder the hit, the more it'll sting. That's usually the case. So we prescribe meds, ice, compression, elevation. Things you do to stop the immediate pain. But you can only dull the pain for so long, and when the drugs start to wear off, it really hurts.

— Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Grey's Anatomy, Season 13: Falling Slowly

doctors Holding Off Pain Suffering Drugs

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The answer to ‘I have no idea how I am going to get through this’ is: you allow yourself to sob, to heave, to feel as if your heart has a boulder crashing through it.”

The answer to ‘I have no idea how I am going to get through this’ is: you allow yourself to sob, to heave, to feel as if your heart has a boulder crashing through it.”

— Geneen Roth, Women Food And God: An Unexpected Path To Almost Everything

The way forward Pain Suffering Mental Health Recovery

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The great thing about being Sisyphus is that you have your work cut out for you.

— Geneen Roth, Women Food And God: An Unexpected Path To Almost Everything

Suffering Pain The way forward eating disorders humor

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When the suffering is fully allowed, it dissolves.

When the suffering is fully allowed, it dissolves.

— Geneen Roth, Women Food And God: An Unexpected Path To Almost Everything

Suffering Pain The way forward eating disorders Quote of the Moment

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Suffering is unnecessary and not at all required by the benevolent forces of life. If you currently have the exact opposite of what you desire, change your mind.

— Iyanla Vanzant, via twitter.com

Suffering benevolent forces Life Change Mind

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Some folks are afraid to heal because it is easier to be attached to the suffering, then to let go and be open to the possibility of a full heart.

— Joel L. Daniels, via twitter.com

Suffering struggles life sufferings Life

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Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.

— Thurgood Marshall, via thurgoodmarshall.com

Suffering Struggle Sacrifice Celebration Constitution

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It’s the perfect time to return to the basics of your spiritual practice. Meditate more seriously, pray with greater sincerity, and know that you are being guided. This, too, shall pass.

— Jordan Bach, via twitter.com

trying times struggles Suffering strengthen your spirituality meditate Pray spiritual communication Spiritual Growth spiritual healing

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The word “suffer” comes from a Latin word meaning to bear, to carry, or to endure. When we suffer our fate rather than avoiding it, we become actors in our own drama. Suffering becomes part of our personal story, that with which we must wrestle. In the words of Rilke, it is a “harsh hand that kneads us,” changing us and leaving us “proud and strengthened,” even in defeat. When, on the other hand, we externalize and medicalize our pain, we run the risk of becoming its hapless victim.

— Lisa Marchiano, Collision with Reality: What Depth Psychology Can Tell us About Victimhood Culture - Quillette

Anxiety Victimhood Internal locus of control Suffering

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David, I'm going to hell! The worst place in the world! With devils and those caves and the ragged clothing! And the heat! My god, the heat! I mean, what do you think about all that?

— Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Seinfeld, Season 9: The Burning

Hell Torture Devils Suffering Hades

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Stop making depression an aesthetic.

Attaching a "cool factor" to psychological trauma & pain is dangerous because it perpetuates the issue & diminishes the experiences of those who are suffering. Let's have discussions about mental health issues without glorifying them.

— Ebonee Davis, Stop Making Depression An Aesthetic

Depression depression is not a choice Suffering Be Kind

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Can’t do comparative suffering. If you’re hungry, and your friend says, 'you know, people are starving in Africa,' 'so what, nigga? I still want lunch.'

— Dave Chappelle, The Age of Spin: Dave Chappelle Live at the Hollywood Palladium

Suffering Comparing Your Pain To Others

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Neither yet can you be able to prove, that we either by word or writing have affirmed, that the principal end of any man’s creation was perpetual pain.

— John Knox, Against an Anabaptist: In defense of predestination

Man Creation End Pain Suffering

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Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.

Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.

— Sebastian Junger, Tribe

Suffering The Digital Age Community

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How do you become an adult in a society that doesn't ask for sacrifice?

— Sebastian Junger, Tribe

Adulthood Adulting Suffering The Digital Age

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You life has made you beautiful. Your suffering has made you fine.

— Stephen Sondheim, Assasins

Life beauty Suffering Endurance

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Unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

— Paulo Coelho, via twitter.com

Suffering unexpected suffering life sufferings Life

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We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

— Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Suffering Love Love and Suffering you're stronger than you think

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Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness. Suffering and amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to depict their conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in the picture. But perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who possess it, appear angelic.

— Mary Shelley, The Last Man

Happiness Suffering Angels

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Humor is a wonderful way to deal with our suffering because if we can laugh at our troubles, we can feel better. Thich Nhat Hanh is a special man who has helped millions with their suffering with incredible technique. But he doesn't know real suffering, because he has not dated as much as I have.

— Garry Shandling, Garry Shandling to be ordained a monk in Buddhist funeral

humor Thich Nhat Nanh Suffering

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It’s not that he consumes me but that I consume myself, much like the ouroboros.

I prepare for future suffering. I suffer today. I suffer so that the future suffering will feel like an old shoe. I’m a fish in a net, still living.

— Jade Quinn, How To Eat Yourself

Suffering Crazy In Love Break Up

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She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.

— Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Love Sacrifice Helping someone Suffering

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Maybe one day you’ll come back. Maybe you never will and that’ll suck, but you can’t keep doing this. The blame and the self-loathing and the bull[crap]. I can’t watch that. It makes me hate you for hating yourself. I don’t want to lose you. But I’d rather lose you if it means you’ll be happy. I think if you come back with me today, you’ll never be okay. And I’ll never be okay if you aren’t. I need to know that there’s a way for people like us to end up okay. I need to know that there even is such a thing as okay, maybe even good, and it’s out there and we just haven’t found it yet. There’s got to be a happier ending than this, here. There’s got to be a better story. Because we deserve one. You deserve one. Even if it doesn’t end with you coming back to me.

— Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

Love Unconditional Love Happiness Sacrifice Suffering

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In grief, words are poor consolation - silence & agonizing tears are all that is left the sufferer.

— Mary Todd Lincoln, Letter to her sister, Elizabeth Todd Edwards

Grief Silence Suffering Pain Words Tears

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It is when our hearts are stirred that we become most aware of what they contain.

— Andy Stanley, It Came from Within!: The Shocking Truth of What Lurks in the Heart

heart Suffering Soul Truth

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The person who grieves, suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

— Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Grieving Passion Pain Suffering enduring

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You’re twenty-one or twenty-nine and your heart’s been broken somewhere between four and twenty times—fetal-position-on-the-bathroom-floor broken, real-country-music broken—and you don’t know how you can ever be expected to go on like this for fifty more years and change.

— Jade Sylvan, via Tumblr

Heartbreak Suffering

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You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour...

— John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Pain Suffering Longing Distance

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I was so sentimental about you I’d break any one’s heart for you. My, I was a damned fool. I broke my own heart, too. It’s broken and gone. Everything I believe in and everything I cared about I left for you because you were so wonderful and you loved me so much that love was all that mattered. Love was the greatest thing, wasn’t it?

— Ernest Hemingway, To Have and Have Not

Love Sentimental Suffering Sacrifices

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Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.

— Kate Jacobs, Comfort Food

Suffering Pain strength hurt

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I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.

— Henry Rollins, Henry Rollins - 70 quotes

Pain Sadness Suffering

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Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

— Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot

Torment Suffering End Time

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Torment yourself as little as possible, then you’ll torment me less.

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena (The Schocken Kafka Library)

Advice Tormenting Pain Suffering

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Living is like licking honey off a thorn.

— Louis Adamic, Licking Honey Off A Thorn: Reflections on Living Wisely in a World of Pain and Joy

Pain Suffering Living Life

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Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Prison Soul Suffering

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When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people- not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul, as evidenced by the innumerable strident words of abuse, hatred, contempt, mistrust, and scorn that forever grate upon our ears as the manswarm passes us in the streets -- we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness.

— Thomas Wolfe, The Anatomy of Loneliness

Moments Unhappiness Abuse Hatred contempt Mistrust Suffering Loneliness

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What am I doing here in this endless winter?

— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

endless winter Grief Suffering Sadness

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The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.

— Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel

Darkness Grief Suffering Agony Life living in darkness

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You must suffer me to go my own dark way.

— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Suffering Burden punishment Seclusion

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In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

Self-Destruct Suffering

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Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.

— Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

Heartbreak Problems Pain Suffering

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She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered 'different.' She did not suffer too much

— Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Loneliness Lonely Person Suffering

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You can never be sure if what tortures you is the pain of being without someone you love or the embarrassment of being rejected.

— Stephen Fry, Making History

Suffering Love Humiliation Shame Rejected

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Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.

— Ram Dass, One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life

Suffering persevering enduring Experience Living Life

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Our emotional suffering is caused by our desire for things to be other than they are. The more we resist the fact of what is happening right now, the more we suffer.

— Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

emotions Suffering Desire Acceptance Resistance Denial of truth

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He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him

— Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling

Suffering Sorrow trouble enduring Happiness Pleasure Joy

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Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

— Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge

Happiness Life Suffering

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The deeper the wound, the more private the pain.

— Isabel Allende, Paula

Pain Suffering Misery Problems

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We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

— Marcel Poust, In Search of Lost Time

Suffering Experience Healing

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It’s not the pain I’m afraid of; I know about the pain. What I’m afraid of is the end of this small, sweet dream.

— Stephen King, Rose Madder

Pain Suffering Misery

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Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes.

— Ben Okri, Dangerous Love

Bad Things Good Things Surprises Miracles Suffering Grief enduring Acceptance Life Truth Time

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Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.

— Anna Funder, All That I Am: A Novel

Imagination Empathy Suffering sympathy Helping Others

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If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

— Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Contentment Getting What You Want Desire Suffering Change Freedom

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It’s not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. [He] was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?

— John Green, Looking for Alaska Special 10th Anniversary Edition

Life Death Suffering endure

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Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.

— Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life

Love disease Suffering Happiness

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