Misery Quotes:

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

topic: Gains, Misery, Labor

Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.

- Addison Mizner

source: Oliver Herford, Ethel Watts Mumford Grant, Addison Mizner (1903). “The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom ...”

topic: Doe, Misery, Company, Reciprocate

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.

- Aeschylus

topic: Silence, Speech, Misery, Purifying, Rite

In the past, we spoke of poverty, misery only in the south. Now there is a lot of misery, a lot of bad that creates victims in the north as well. This has become manifest: the global system was not made to serve the good of all, but to serve multinational companies.

- Ahmed Ben Bella

source: "For Ahmed Ben Bella, the liberation of the people in the South is still unachieved". Interview with Silvia Cattori, www.voltairenet.org. May 9, 2006.

topic: Past, Poverty, Misery, Multinationals

The misery which follows pleasure is the pleasure which follows misery. The pleasure and misery of mankind revolve like a wheel.

- Akkineni Nagarjuna

topic: Wheels, Misery, Pleasure

We [writers] must know that we can never escape the common misery and that our only justification, if indeed there is a justification, is to speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so.

- Albert Camus

topic: Common, Misery, Speak

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Looks, Misery, Compensation, Looking For Happiness, Instability

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life.

- Alexander Smith

topic: Happiness, Time, Misery, Misery And Pain

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

- Andre Gide

topic: Sadness, Self Pity, Misery, Sadness Of Life

Problems are inevitable. Misery is a choice.

- Ann Landers

topic: Choices, Misery, Problem

Those who have courage and faith shall never perish in misery

- Anne Frank

topic: Courage, Misery, Have Courage

Put yourself out of your misery.

- Annie Dillard

topic: Misery

And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.

- Annie Proulx

source: Annie Proulx (2008). “The Shipping News: A Novel”, p.337, Simon and Schuster

topic: Pain, May, Misery

I like to be myself. Misery loves company

- Anthony Corallo

topic: Misery, Mobster, Company

You are mine. I recognize you. We twist our souls around each other's miseries. It is that which makes us family.

- Anthony Marra

source: Anthony Marra (2013). “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena”, p.307, Random House

topic: Soul, Twists, Misery

Cries of despair, misery, sobbing grief are a kind of wealth.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

topic: Grief, Despair, Misery, Weeping, Sobbing

All human happiness and misery take the form of action.

- Aristotle

topic: Action, Misery, Form

Misery's fine - as long as you know you can get out of it when you want to.

- Arthur Adamov

source: Arthur Adamov (1962). “Two Plays: Professor Taranne, Translated by Peter Meyer, and Ping Pong, Translated by Derek Prouse”

topic: Long, Want, Misery

I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

- Arthur Golden

source: Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.106, Random House

topic: Sad, Trying, Misery, Miserable People

We can never flee the misery that is within us.

- Arthur Golden

topic: Misery

I cannot live on an island of prosperity when I'm surrounded by a sea of misery.

- Ayrton Senna

topic: Islands, Sea, Misery

Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional

- Barbara Johnson

topic: Pain, Misery, Inevitable, Optional

Right now, they feel they have lost their voice, and their miseries have increased since my departure.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Voice, Departure, Misery

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Gratitude, Priorities, Misery

For misery don't blame God. He gives the food but we cook it.

- Bernard Malamud

source: Bernard Malamud (2014). “The Fixer”, p.173, Atlantic Books Ltd

topic: Giving, Misery, Blame

There is no greater misery than false joys.

- Bernard of Clairvaux

topic: Joy, Misery

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Hope, Misery, Born

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

- Blaise Pascal

source: "The Mind on Fire: Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent".

topic: Misery, Distraction

The only thing which consoles for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us imperceptibly ruin ourselves.

- Blaise Pascal

topic: Sadness, Ruins, Misery, Diversion, Reflecting Upon

The cup of Ireland's misery has been overflowing for centuries and is not yet half full.

- Boyle Roche

topic: Half, Cups, Misery

You don't necessarily have to be in misery to be talented.

- Brooke Shields

topic: Misery

I, like most of my friends, couldn't believe I bought a mountain called Misery Mountain, because it was so appropriate.

- Caleb Carr

topic: Believe, Mountain, Misery

Cormac interrupted. 'Maybe I oughta shoot you both, put you both out of your misery.

- Carrie Vaughn

source: Carrie Vaughn (2010). “Kitty Takes a Holiday”, p.46, Hachette UK

topic: Misery

One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.

- Cesare Pavese

topic: Love, Doe, Misery

There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.

- Cesare Pavese

topic: Life, Alive, Misery

The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.

- Charles Horton Cooley

topic: Appreciation, Causes, Misery, Thoughtfulness, Alleviate

Sorrow is never more sorrowful than when it jests at its own misery.

- Christian Nestell Bovee

topic: Sorrow, Misery, Sorrowful

If misery spelled revolt, we should have had nothing but revolt from the beginning of time. On the contrary, it is quite rare.

- Christina Stead

topic: Revolution, Misery, Should

It's been a misery for me, living with Christine Keeler.

- Christine Keeler

source: "The lady's not a tramp" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. February 17, 2001.

topic: Misery, Christine

Pain is inevitable. Misery is a choice.

- Christopher Reeve

topic: Pain, Choices, Misery

The power is detested, and miserable the life, of him who wishes to be feared rather than to be loved.

- Cornelius Nepos

topic: Sadness, Wish, Misery, Leadership By Famous Leaders

I wanted a heaven. And I grew up striving for that world-- an eternal world- that would wash away my temporary misery.

- Craig Thompson

topic: Heaven, World, Misery

When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

- Cyril Connolly

topic: Animal, Thinking, Misery, Clear Thinking

Tragedy ought really to be a great kick at misery.

- D. H. Lawrence

topic: Tragedy, Misery, Kicks

I find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.

- Danny Boyle

topic: People, Way, Misery

The accumulation of capital and misery go hand in hand, concentrated in space.

- David Harvey

source: "The Limits To Capital". Book by David Harvey, 1982.

topic: Hands, Space, Misery

There is magic in misery. Just ask any runner.

- Dean Karnazes

source: Dean Karnazes (2006). “Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner”, p.148, Penguin

topic: Running, Magic, Misery, Inspirational Running, Ultra Marathon

Loving the ideal more than the reality is the cause of all the misery the human species creates for itself.

- Dean Koontz

topic: Reality, Causes, Misery

Happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken away from us at any time.

- Deepak Chopra

topic: Spiritual, Taken, Misery

extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery.

- Dodie Smith

topic: Misery, Extremes

The bliss of the Creator forever permeates all of creation, and it is only in the forgetting that misery exists.

- Doreen Virtue

topic: Forever, Misery, Forget

Intemperance is the epitome of every crime, the cause of every kind of misery.

- Douglas William Jerrold

topic: Causes, Misery, Kind, Intemperance, Epitome

Had Calhoun been advised by me, he would have been the Candidate in opposition to General Jackson, and elected and the country saved the misery that followed.

- Duff Green

topic: Country, Misery

Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

- Duke of Wellington

topic: Battle, Next, Misery

Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

- Edward Dahlberg

topic: Men, Giving, Misery, Misers

If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.

- Edward Gibbon

topic: Humanity, Sorrow, Misery

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

- Edward Gibbon

topic: Sympathy, Suffering, Misery

That's why I've come to you, to seek release from a curse of misery and horror against which I'm powerless to fight alone.

- Edward T. Lowe, Jr.

topic: Fighting, Misery, Horror

Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.

- Edwidge Danticat

source: "The Farming of Bones". Book by Edwidge Danticat, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 1998.

topic: Black, Thumbprints, Misery

There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.

- Edwin Hubbel Chapin

topic: Thinking, Deceit, Misery

If God himself wills such misery on people whom I love, then I say I will deal with him

- Eldridge Cleaver

topic: People, Misery, Deals

What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?

- Elif Safak

topic: World, Roaming, Misery

Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

- Elizabeth Gilbert

topic: People, Way, Misery, Clearing Out

So far I haven't really been prominent enough to get critical attention focused on me. So, of course, I fully expect bad reviews, but I will be wracked with misery as a result.

- Emily Mortimer

topic: Attention, Misery, Enough

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness.

- Eric Hoffer

topic: Soul, Doe, Misery, Misers

As I railed on and on, I became increasingly energied and excited by my own misery and misanthropy until I reached a kind of ***** of negativity.'... The Brits don't merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.

- Eric Weiner

topic: Negativity, Misery, Kind, Misanthropy

Misery is the end of those with unbridled mouths.

- Euripides

topic: Communication, Mouths, Misery

Globalization creates economic policies where the transnationals lord over us, and the result is misery and unemployment.

- Evo Morales

topic: Unemployment, Misery, Economic

I have always considered that choosing a companion for life was a very important affair and that my happyness or misery in this life depended on the choice…

- Ezra Cornell

topic: Choices, Important, Misery

Were cricket and football abolished, it would bring upon the masses nothing but misery, depression, sloth, indiscipline and disorder.

- F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

topic: Football, Sloth, Misery

There is no sin so profound, no despondency so low, no misery so abject, but the love of Christ is deeper.

- F.B. Meyer

topic: Profound, Misery, Sin, Despondency

Misery is a guest that we are glad to part with, however certain of her speedy return.

- Fanny Burney

source: Frances Burney, Fanny Burney (2015). “Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)”, p.3775, Delphi Classics

topic: Guests, Return, Misery

Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you've made is worth the misery of having to review it.

- Federico Fellini

topic: Hype, Awkward, Misery

Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

- Fiona Shaw

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Acting, Misery

The world is full of religion, and full of misery and crime.

- Frances Wright

source: Frances Wright (1850). “A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum”, p.202

topic: World, Misery, Crime

So much of what we are currently seeing as far as human suffering and misery comes from diseases that should have been preventable but were not.

- Francis Collins

topic: Suffering, Disease, Misery, Human Suffering

Maybe men are separated from each other only by the degree of their misery

- Francis Picabia

topic: Men, Degrees, Misery, Misers

Life's miseries fall disproportionately on children.

- Frank Sulloway

topic: Children, Fall, Misery

Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.

- Franz Liszt

topic: Trying, Misery, Companion

The world is not fair. If you persist in presuming it is, you will create a lot of unnecessary misery for yourself.

- Fred Green

topic: World, Misery, Unnecessary, Presuming

Misery travels free through the whole world!

- Friedrich Schiller

topic: World, Misery, Whole World

Life is so fast these days, and we're exposed to so much information. Television makes us a witness to such misery.

- Gates McFadden

topic: Television, Information, Misery

The worst of misery Is when a nature framed for noblest things Condemns itself in youth to petty joys, And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life Gasping from out the shallows.

- George Eliot

topic: Air, Joy, Misery

The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.

- George Eliot

topic: Happiness, Misery, Worst

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

- George Orwell

topic: Animal, Slavery, Misery

Well look, no one takes pleasure from people making money out of the misery of others, but that is a function of capitalist markets.

- George Osborne

source: " Osborne has the potential to leave Labour floundering" by Jonathan Freedland, www.theguardian.com. September 26, 2008.

topic: People, Looks, Misery

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.

- Gordon Parks

topic: Hate, Cameras, Misery

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.

- Gordon Parks

topic: Cameras, Misery, Shows

I think a lot of songwriters would agree that it's often easier to find inspiration in misery.

- Grant-Lee Phillips

topic: Inspiration, Thinking, Misery

Bored with the same type of misery over and over and over again.

- Greg Behrendt

topic: Dating, Bored, Misery

ObamaCare is creating nothing but misery for everybody.

- Greg Gutfeld

topic: Obamacare, Creating, Misery

To live without experiencing some shame and blushes of admiration would surely be a wretched life.

- Gregor Mendel

topic: Sadness, Misery, Admiration

While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.

- Groucho Marx

topic: Money, Misery, Form, Money And Happiness, Money Cant Buy Happiness

Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

topic: Love, Decision, Misery, Misery And Pain

Complaints bring misery; compliments brings strength.

- Harbhajan Singh Yogi

topic: Complaining, Misery, Compliment, Stop Complaining

It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.

- Horace Walpole

topic: Ink, Dots, Misery, Misers, Duchess

I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness.

- Hugh Laurie

topic: Games, Way, Misery

People in Russia adapt to misery by a deep, deep humor.

- Ian Frazier

source: "Dispatch From Siberia: The Ian Frazier Interview". Interview with David Coggins, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 2, 2010.

topic: Russia, People, Misery

Misery is the only thing in the world that has no end or edge.

- Irving Stone

topic: World, Misery, Ends, Worth Fighting For, Things Worth Fighting For

Let me tell you that every misery I miss is a new blessing.

- Izaak Walton

topic: Blessing, Missing, Misery

That preaching is sadly defective which dwells exclusively on the mercies of God and the joys of heaven, yet never sets forth the terrors of the Lord and the miseries of hell.

- J. C. Ryle

topic: Joy, Heaven, Misery, Defective

Of all aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment.

- Jane Addams

topic: Heartbreaking, Unemployment, Misery, Hull House

I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries.

- Jane Birkin

topic: Taken, World, Misery, Chuckles

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people.

- Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

topic: Numbers, People, Misery

We ought never to scoff at the wretched, for who can be sure of continued happiness?

- Jean de La Fontaine

topic: Misery

Thank the Gods! My misery exceeds all my hopes!

- Jean Racine

topic: Misery

Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalization. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.

- Jeanette Winterson

topic: People, Misery, Miserable, Generalisation

We walk by faith. We don't stay still, drowning in our misery.

- Jentezen Franklin

source: Jentezen Franklin (2011). “Fasting”, p.125, Charisma Media

topic: Fasting, Misery, Drowning, Walk By Faith

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove.

- Jeremy Bentham

topic: Able, Misery, Diminish

In my family, misery didn't just love company, it wanted hostages.

- Jerry Stahl

topic: Misery, My Family, Company

I'm holding a teardrop for a friend Until his heartache and misery end.

- Jesse Tyler Ferguson

topic: Broken Heart, Heartache, Misery, Teardrop

...Choice in every form is conflict. Contradiction is inevitable in choice; this contradiction, inner and outer breeds confusion and misery.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

topic: Confusion, Choices, Misery

You almost had to live through it to really know the gut ripping misery of the depression during the early thirties which led to labor's bloodiest and most violent days.

- Jimmy Hoffa

source: "Hoffa The Real Story" by Jimmy Hoffa, (p. 27), 1975.

topic: Misery, Violent, Guts

The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.

- Joan Robinson

topic: Misery, Capitalist

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

- Joanne Harris

source: Joanne Harris (2001). “Five Quarters of the Orange”

topic: Pain, Anticipation, Misery

Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

- Joe Abercrombie

source: Joe Abercrombie (2009). “Last Argument Of Kings: The First Law: Book Three”, p.436, Hachette UK

topic: Disappointment, Misery, Life Is

Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.

- Johann Kaspar Lavater

topic: Misery, Folly, Consequence

Behind the mask of indifference is bottomless misery and behind apparent callousness, despair.

- John Bowlby

source: John Bowlby (1946). “Forty-four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home-life : [With Bibl.].”

topic: Despair, Misery, Indifference, Callousness

There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making.

- John Currin

source: "Lifting the Veil". www.newyorker.com. January 28, 2008.

topic: Art, Saying Yes, Misery

We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.

- John Dryden

topic: Wicked, Wickedness, Misery

Misery loves company, particularly when she is herself the hostess, and can give generously of her stores to others.

- John Kendrick Bangs

source: John Kendrick Bangs (2015). “The Water Ghost and Others: Bangs Classic Collection”, p.11, 谷月社

topic: Giving, Misery, Stores

What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?

- John le Carre

topic: Misery, These Days, Journalist

...in the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery...

- John le Carre

topic: Hands, Design, Misery

In misery it is great comfort to have a companion.

- John Lyly

topic: Comfort, Misery, Companion

But O yet more miserable! Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.

- John Milton

topic: Moving, Misery, Miserable

Misery loves company.

- John Ray

topic: Love, Misery, Company

One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.

- John Ruskin

topic: Change, Long, Misery

I always thought it better to allow myself to doubt before I decided, than to expose myself to the misery, after I had decided, of doubting whether I had decided rightly and justly.

- John Scott

source: "The Public and Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon: With Selections from His Correspondence". Book by Horace Twiss, 1844.

topic: Doubt, Misery

If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.

- John W. Gardner

topic: Promise, Our Society, Misery, Sumptuous, Affluent

We are caught in the contradiction of finding life a rather perplexing puzzle which causes us a lot of misery, and at the same time being dimly aware of the boundless, limitless nature of life. So we begin looking for an answer to the puzzle.

- Joko Beck

topic: Answers, Causes, Misery

There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.

- Jon Krakauer

topic: War, Misery, Glamorous

As far as the physical miseries go, I am sure I will cope. I lived at Eton in the 1950s and I know all about life in uncomfortable quarters.

- Jonathan Aitken

source: "A Right Honorable Briton? Hardly, It Turns Out" by Warren Hoge, www.nytimes.com. February 04, 1999.

topic: Eton, Misery, Quarters

All pleasures contain an element of sadness.

- Jonathan Eybeschutz

topic: Sadness, Elements, Misery

Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries.

- Joseph Addison

topic: Marriage, Misery, Scene, Rest Easy

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

- Joseph Heller

topic: Misery, Without Hope

frustration, complication and misery are available in abundance, but so is God's grace.

- Joyce Meyer

topic: Frustration, Grace, Misery

You can either keep walking in misery or make the decision to begin taking steps out of it.

- Joyce Meyer

topic: Decision, Steps, Misery

I am talking about misery and all of its implications.

- Juan Rulfo

topic: Talking, Misery, Implications

Either give me your hand, or end it now, and put us both out of our misery

- Judith McNaught

topic: Hands, Giving, Misery

Self worth is everything. Without it life is a misery.

- Julie Walters

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Self Worth, Self, Misery

The misery in war-torn Afghanistan is reminiscent of images from the Thirty Years' War

- Jurgen Habermas

topic: War, Years, Misery

There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery

- Karl Marx

source: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1980). “Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Marx and Engels Collected Works 1858-60”, Intl Pub

topic: Rotten, Misery, Wealth, Social Systems

As anyone who has ever fallen foul of an airport, a conventional hospital or a bad restaurant knows, misery is made up of little things ...

- Katharine Whitehorn

topic: Airports, Littles, Misery

Economic and social misery increases in direct proportion to the size and power of the central government of a nation or state.

- Kirkpatrick Sale

source: Kirkpatrick Sale (2017). “Human Scale Revisited: A New Look at the Classic Case for a Decentralist Future”, p.64, Chelsea Green Publishing

topic: Government, Size, Misery, Central Government

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.

- Kofi Annan

topic: Reading, Bridges, Misery, Complement, Modern Education

Long life is a burden, when it's spent in misery.

- Laini Taylor

topic: Long, Misery, Life Is

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

- Langston Hughes

topic: Home, Radio, Misery, Slums

Misery is complexity. Happiness is simplicity.

- Lester Levenson

topic: Simplicity, Spirituality, Misery, Gloom

I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes - and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.

- Lord Byron

topic: Shoes, Charity, Misery, Misers, Peas

My life has run from misery to happiness.

- Loretta Lynn

topic: Running, Misery

Despair exaggerates not only our misery but also our weakness.

- Luc de Clapiers

topic: Despair, Weakness, Misery

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

topic: Everyday, Each Day, Misery

See the job, do the job, stay out of the misery.

- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

topic: Jobs, Misery

The comfort derived from the misery of others is slight.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

topic: Comfort, Misery

Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.

- Margaret Drabble

source: 1963 A Summer Birdcage, ch.7.

topic: Wisdom, Simple, Misery, Simple Pleasures

Even in misery we love to be foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknowledged as more bitter than that of others.

- Margaret Oliphant

topic: Cups, Misery, Bitter

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

- Markus Zusak

source: Markus Zusak (2013). “The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition”, p.84, RH Childrens Books

topic: Misery

Misery is a communicable disease.

- Martha Graham

topic: Attitude, Disease, Misery, Communicable Diseases

Wine and women bring misery.

- Martial

topic: Wine, Misery, Women And Wine

What misery to be afraid of death. What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven.

- Mary Oliver

topic: Believe, Misery, Afraid Of Death

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

topic: Misery, Made, Make Me Happy, Frankenstein Novel

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.

- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

topic: Agony, Feelings, Misery, Respite

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of the earth is multiform.

- Matt LeBlanc

topic: Earth, Misery, Manifold, Wretchedness

I find the earth to be a place of misery in which I am surrounded by the conformity that kills society.

- Matt LeBlanc

topic: Earth, Misery, Conformity

The value of ourselves is but the value of our melancholy and our disquiet.

- Maurice Maeterlinck

source: Maurice Maeterlinck (2015). “The Treasure of the Humble: Works of Maeterlinck”, p.36, 谷月社

topic: Sadness, Misery, Melancholy

Happiness comes from moving toward something. When you run away, ofttimes you bring your misery with you.

- Michael J. Sullivan

topic: Running, Moving, Misery

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

- Nancy Mitford

topic: Writing, Misery, Pleasure

Why was I born, if just to live in misery

- Noah

topic: Misery, Born

You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.

- Norman Borlaug

source: "Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (Eat This!)". TV Series, April 4, 2003.

topic: Peaceful, World, Misery

Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social status was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries.

- Orson Scott Card

topic: Agony, Bears, Misery, Social Status

When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.

- Oscar Romero

topic: Giving, Church, Misery, Social Structure

Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.

- Owen Feltham

topic: Misery, Kind, Fame

What else is there for the rich to do, If not to relieve the poor of their misery?

- Pancho Villa

topic: Misery, Rich, Poor

Misery alternates with euphoria.

- Patricia Gaffney

source: Patricia Gaffney (2009). “The Saving Graces: A Novel”, p.104, Harper Collins

topic: Misery, Euphoria

I never realized that life could be as difficult for a beautiful woman as it is for a plain one,” he said. “Life can be difficult for everyone,” she replied. “Misery makes no distinction between prince and pauper.

- Patricia Grasso

topic: Beautiful, Misery, Said, Said Life

Our epoch has been called the century of work. It is in fact the century of pain, misery and corruption.

- Paul Lafargue

source: Paul Lafargue (2016). “The Right to be Lazy and Other Studies”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

topic: Pain, Facts, Misery

There is no misery quite so wearing as the misery of a false position. It seems to slay the body and the soul.

- Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

topic: Soul, Body, Misery

Love! dearest, sweetest power! how much are we indebted to thee! How much superior are even thy miseries to the pleasures which arise from other sources!

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

topic: Love, Misery, Pleasure

It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

topic: Vegan, Misery, Vegetarian

Where there is clarity, there is no choice. And where there is choice, there is misery. But then, why should I speak, since I know nothing?

- Peter Tork

topic: Choices, Misery, Clarity

When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.

- Piper Kerman

topic: People, Misery, Helping

That's a miserable and cursed word, to say I had, when what I have is nothing.

- Plautus

topic: Sadness, Misery, Miserable

Success can also cause misery. The trick is not to be surprised when you discover it doesn't bring you all the happiness and answers you thought it would.

- Prince

topic: Answers, Causes, Misery

They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?

- Princess Diana

topic: Sadness, Poverty, Misery, Moody, Riches And Poors

Frugality is misery in disguise.

- Publilius Syrus

topic: Misery, Disguise, Frugality, Thrift

religion is to misogyny as disease is to misery - not the sole cause, but a significant contributor

- PZ Myers

source: PZ Myers (2013). “The Happy Atheist”, p.88, Vintage

topic: Causes, Disease, Misery

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

- Quintilian

topic: Ideas, Misery, Form, Prosperous, Right Ideas

Misery loves company, but happy is a better friend.

- Ray Torres

topic: Misery, Company

Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.

- Richard Baxter

topic: Soul, Misery, Gods Will, Intemperance

The depths of our misery can never fall below the depths of mercy.

- Richard Sibbes

topic: Fall, Depth, Misery

I regard morality and ideology as the chief cause of human misery.

- Robert Anton Wilson

topic: Causes, Misery, Morality

All present life is but an interjection, An'Oh!'or 'Ah!'of joy or misery, Or a 'Ha! ha!'or 'Bah!'a yawn or 'Pooh!' Of which perhaps the latter is most true.

- Robert Byron

topic: Joy, Misery, Life Is, Present Life

Keep busy at something: a busy person never has time to be unhappy.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

topic: Sadness, Unhappy, Misery, Keep Busy, Busy Person

At least we should learn to understand our fellow beings, for we are powerless to stop their misery, their ignominy, their suffering, their weakness, and their death.

- Robert Walser

source: Robert Walser (2012). “Berlin Stories”, p.119, New York Review of Books

topic: Suffering, Weakness, Misery, Ignominy

I used to have a phrase: Liberalism is spreading misery equally. And now the ruling class throughout Washington seems to have adopted this.

- Rush Limbaugh

topic: Class, Phrases, Misery

Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.

- Russell Baker

source: Russell Baker (1992). “Poor Russell's almanac”

topic: Love, Misery, Company

Palestinian Arabs [are] people who breed and bleed and advertise their misery.

- Ruth Wisse

topic: Israel, People, Misery

The only conversion involved in Vipassana is from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation.

- S. N. Goenka

topic: Vipassana, Misery, Bondage

Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.

- Saint Augustine

topic: Wish, Misery, Habit

(The difficulty over the question of eternal torments lies in) how it is irreconcilable with the Goodness of God, to put any Persons at all upon a necessity of making such an Option, wherein if they choose amiss, the Misery they incur must be irrevocable.

- Samuel Clarke

topic: Lying, Misery, Hell, Irrevocable