Quotes About Suffering

How much farther does anguish penetrate in psychology than psychology itself!

His jealousy, like an octopus which throws out a first, then a second, and finally a third tentacle, fastened itself irremovably first to that moment, five o'clock in the afternoon, then to another, then to another again. But Swann was incapable of inventing his sufferings. They were only the memory, the perpetuation of a suffering that had come to him from without.

For in order to really suffer at the hands of a woman one must have believed in her completely.

The suppression of suffering? Can I really have believed it, have believed that death merely strikes out what exists, and leaves everything else in its place, that it removes the pain from the heart of him for whom the other's existence has ceased to be anything but a source of pain, that it removes the pain and puts nothing in its place? The suppression of pain!

I had indeed suffered successively through Gilberte, through Mme de Guermantes, through Albertine. Successively also I had forgotten them and only my love, dedicated at different times to different beings, had lasted.

Imagination, thought, may be admirable mechanisms but they can also be inert. Suffering alone sets them going.

With the wisdom of people not in love who believe a man of sense should be unhappy only over a person who is worth it; which is rather like being surprised that anyone should condescend to suffer from cholera because of so small a creature as the comma bacillus.

Ce n'est pas que notre cœur ne doive éprouver lui aussi, quand la séparation sera consommée, les effets analgésiques de l'habitude ; mais jusque-là il continuera de souffrir.

I do find it absurd that a man of his intelligence should suffer over a person of that sort, who isn't even interesting--because they say she's an idiot," she added with the wisdom of people not in love who believe a man of sense should be unhappy only over a person who is worth it; which is rather like being surprised that anyone should condescend to suffer from cholera because of so small a creature as the comma bacillus.

Wir werden von einem Leiden nur geheilt, indem wir es bis zum Letzten auskosten.

More than anything else the viscount's sad, sweet gaze made the boy feel like crying. Alexis knew that those eyes had always been sad and, even in the happiest moments, they seemed to implore a consolation for sufferings that he did not appear to experience. But at this moment Alexis believed that his uncle's sadness, courageously banished from his conversation, had taken refuge in his eyes, which, along with his sunken cheeks, were the only sincere things about his entire person.

I came to recognise that, apart from her [Françoise's] own kinsfolk, the sufferings of humanity inspired in her a pity which increased in direct ratio to the distance separating the sufferers from herself.

But the chain of circumstances linked up, imprisoning her, the victim of an illness that has no remedy because it has no reason.

Jean's desires, like those of all men in love, were concentrated on the impossible.

Muitas vezes, é unicamente por falta de espírito criador que não se vai muito longe no sofrimento. E a mais terrível realidade nos concede, ao mesmo tempo que o sofrimento, a alegria de uma bela descoberta, porque só faz doar uma forma clara e nova ao que ruminávamos há muito sem desconfiar.

É muita vez apenas por falta de espírito criador que não se vai bastante longe no sofrimento. E a realidade mais terrível dá, ao mesmo tempo que o sofrimento, a alegria de uma bela descoberta, porque não faz senão dar uma forma nova e clara ao que ruminávamos desde muito sem o saber.

Una certa somiglianza esiste, pur evolvendosi, fra le donne che via via amiamo, e dipende dalla fissità del nostro temperamento il quale, assumendosi l'incarico di sceglierle, elimina tutte quelle che non siano per noi, ad un tempo, opposte e complementari, vale a dire atte a soddisfare i nostri sensi e a far soffrire il nostro cuore.

Her memory was a burning pillow which she kept turning and turning.

Her initial need to confide in someone arose from the first disappointments of her sensuality, emerging as naturally as the first satisfactions of love normally emerge. She had not as yet known love. A short time later she suffered from it, which is the only manner in which we get to know it.

Please accept this fan with indulgence. If one of the ghosts that have alighted here after flitting through my memory made you weep long ago, while it was still partaking of life, then recognize that ghost without bitterness and remember that it is a mere shadow and that it will never make you suffer again. I could quite innocently capture these ghosts on the frail paper to which your hand will lend wings, for those ghosts are too unreal and too flimsy to cause any harm. . . .

the harm that Albertine had done me was a last bond between her and myself which outlived memory even, for with the conservation of energy which belongs to everything that is physical, suffering has no need of the lessons of memory.

I must choose to cease from suffering or to cease from loving.

The sad work of a true artist speaks to us in that tone of people who have suffered, who force anyone who has suffered to drop everything and listen.

Eu amava verdadeiramente a sra. de Guermantes. A maior felicidade que poderia pedir a Deus seria que fizesse tombar sobre ela todas as calamidades e que, arruinada, desconsiderada, despojada de todos os privilégios que dela me separavam, não tendo mais casa onde morar, nem pessoas que consentissem em saudá-la, viesse pedir-me asilo. Imaginava-a fazendo tal coisa.