Quotes About Suffering

Não, não vou fingir que o divórcio não é uma coisa cruel. É um sofrimento indescritível, um desespero que dá cabo de nós, uma raiva diabólica, para além daquela nuvem constante de mágoa na cabeça que, pouco a pouco, se vai transformando numa espécie de luto, como se, de facto, estivéssemos a chorar por um morto

Els escriptors som éssers ferits. Per això creiem amb una altra realitat.

The walking wounded, opening their veins and bleeding in public.

Mr. Bones knew that Willy wasn't long for this world. The cough had been inside him for over six months, and by now there wasn't a chance in hell that he would ever get rid of it.

Beasts of burden, we shouldered bundles of what pieces of the past we were allowed to keep as we joined the river of fear, a current of shuffling feet, sobs, and whimpers that crept past dark mouths of archways and windows of Terezin.

I seriously doubt that some slave ship ancestor, in those idle moments between being raped and beaten, was standing knee-deep in their own feces rationalizing that, in the end, the generations of murder, unbearable pain and suffering, mental anguish, and rampant disease will all be worth it because someday my great-great-great-great-grandson will have Wi-Fi, no matter how slow and intermittent the signal is.

It's not that empathy itself automatically leads to kindness. Rather, empathy has to connect to kindness that already exists. Empathy makes good people better, then, because kind people don't like suffering, and empathy makes this suffering salient. If you made a sadist more empathic, it would just lead to a happier sadist,

If you suffer for something that gives delight, soon the suffering itself can give joy.

pain can relieve anxiety by distracting you from your consciousness.

Empathy makes good people better, then, because kind people don't like suffering, and empathy makes this suffering salient. If you made a sadist more empathic, it would just lead to a happier sadist, and if I were indifferent to the baby's suffering, her crying would be nothing more than an annoyance.

Pain can be better than meditation, because while meditation requires the constant choice to engage with the monkey mind, to gently push away those distracting thoughts, pain does the trick for you.

If your suffering makes me suffer, if I feel what you feel, that's empathy in the sense that I'm interested in here. But if I understand that you are in pain without feeling it myself, this is what psychologists describe as social cognition, social intelligence, mind reading, theory of mind, or mentalizing. It's also sometimes described as a form of empathy—"cognitive empathy" as opposed to "emotional empathy," which is most of my focus.

Zadie Smith: "It hurts just as much as it is worth.

chosen suffering can generate and enhance pleasure, and that it is an essential part of meaningful activities and a meaningful life. And it's often the right thing to do. I'll repeat the quote from Zadie Smith: "It hurts just as much as it is worth." Sometimes pain is a proper acknowledgment of value.

The willful suffering we see in religion—fasting, sacrifice, even self-mutilation—might well reflect a more general feature of what we see as virtuous. It isn't good if it doesn't hurt, so when we do good, we are willing—in fact, eager—to experience pain. This is why savvy charities sponsor walkathons and marathons, not group massages and beach parties.

Making children suffer temporarily for their own good is made possible by love, intelligence, and compassion, but yet again, it can be impeded by empathy.

One study found that nursing students who were especially prone to empathy spent less time providing care to patients and more time seeking out help from other hospital personnel, presumably because of how aversive they found it to deal with people who were suffering.

This perverse moral mathematics is part of the reason why governments and individuals care more about a little girl stuck in a well than about events that will affect millions or billions. It is why outrage at the suffering of a few individuals can lead to actions, such as going to war, that have terrible consequences for many more.

If you absorb the suffering of others, then you're less able to help them in the long run because achieving long-term goals often requires inflicting short-term pain.

Perhaps more important, religion provides our species' longest and deepest struggle to make sense of suffering, including suffering that is unchosen.

Man, the bravest animal and most prone to suffer, does not deny suffering as such: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. —Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

If our concern is driven by thoughts of the suffering of specific individuals, then it sets up a perverse situation in which the suffering of one can matter more than the suffering of a thousand.

So what's the difference between people who are high in communion (positive) and those who are high in unmitigated communion (negative)? Both sorts of people care about others. But communion corresponds to what we can call concern and compassion, while unmitigated communion ends up relating more to empathy or, more precisely, empathic distress—suffering at the suffering of others.

There is also a practical difference. When people were asked to empathize with those who were suffering, they found it unpleasant. Compassion training, in contrast, led to better feelings on the part of the meditator and kinder behavior toward others.