Quotes About Suffering

For a long time, she wept, not so much for him and not at all for herself, but for the condition of all things and for the way the world could be but is not.

Nothing supernatural has ever harmed me. My wounds and losses have all be at the hands of human beings...

Sometimes the heart makes decisions the mind cannot, and though we know that the heart is deceitful above all things, we know that at rare moments of stress and profound loss it can be purged pure by suffering.

He would pray...for everyone who knew pain, which meant everyone who wore a human face.

We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self interest.

In all our lives, however, there are many days when we die a little, when we are wounded by loss or failure, or by fear, or by seeing the suffering of others for whom we are able to offer only pity, for whom we are powerless to offer aid, who are beyond mercy.

The last twenty years had not been kind to him. He looked beaten by time, shrunken by care- and glad to be gone.

She has suffered so much, and that sorrows me. But she has been strong in the face of unthinkable adversity, and that inspires me.

He said that we of the hidden had our burdens, but those who lived in the open carried far heavier burdens than ours, which was true.

Desperation is energized despair, and despair is the abandonment of hope.

Nothing I could say or do would help her. Life is hard in a world gone wrong.

When she had delight in her heart, her face transcended all her suffering, whereupon the scars and the deformed features and the mottled skin became the remarkable face of a hero and the cherished face of a friend.

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel / The sharp compassion of the healer's art.

Hands of Mercy and tanks of hell.

But even if it did, bad things happen to all of us, and that doesn't mean we can hurt others just because we ourselves have been hurt. Are you with me so far?

In all our lives, however, there are many days when we die a little, when we are wounded by loss or failure, or by fear, or by seeing the suffering of others for whom we are able to offer only pity, for whom we are powerless to offer aid, we are beyond mercy.

I believed that I now knew what a lobster felt as it languished in a tank beside the maître d' station in a restaurant, while hungry patrons, waiting to be seated, tapped the glass and remarked upon its size and succulence.

After you have suffered great losses and know much pain, it is not cowardice to wish to live henceforth with a minimum of suffering. And one form of heroism, about which few if any films will be made, is having the courage to live without bitterness when bitterness is justified, having the strength to persevere even when perseverance seems unlikely to be rewarded, having the resolution to find profound meaning in life when it seems the most meaningless.

I was the worst kind of fool. When I look back on that August night, changed forever by all my wounds and all my suffering, that undamaged Odd Thomas seems like a different human being from me, immeasurably more confident than I am now, still able to hope, but not as wise, and I mourn for him.

His dreams were killing him.

the most identifying trait of humanity is our ability to be inhumane to one another. I

Annamaria had me verzekerd dat ik in werkelijkheid maar één keer zou sterven, en dat die dood er op geen enkele manier toe zou doen. Iedereen kent echter dagen waarin we een beetje doodgaan, wanneer we verdriet of een nederlaag te verwerken hebben, of bang zijn, of anderen zien lijden die we enkel medelijden kunnen bieden, geen hulp, mensen die buiten de grenzen van onze genade vallen.

All junkies are nuts.

Only now does he realize that the worst of all miseries to afflict the human heart is loneliness.