Quotes About Suffering

Life is a dark chain of events.

I suffer: someone or other must be guilty - Every sick sheep thinks the same.

I must first go down deeper than ever I descended—deeper into pain than ever I descended, down into its blackest flood. Thus my destiny wants it….Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height

I fear that the animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason – as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.

If, however, thou hast a suffering friend, then be a resting-place for his suffering; like a hard bed, however, a camp-bed: thus wilt thou serve him best. And if a friend doeth thee wrong, then say: I forgive thee what thou hast done unto me; that thou hast done it unto THYSELF, however--how could I forgive that! Thus speaketh all great love: it surpasseth even forgiveness and pity. One should hold fast one's heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one's head run away!

Love's cruel notion. - Every great love brings with it the cruel idea of killing the object of that love, so that he may be removed once and for all from the wicked game of change: for love dreads change more than it does destruction.

Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? The case of the philosopher.

But I suffer and have suffered with them: prisoners are they unto me, and stigmatised ones. He whom they call Saviour put them in fetters:— In fetters of false values and fatuous words! Oh, that some one would save them from their Saviour!

Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful? Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their pity! Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: Even God hath his hell: it is his love for man. And lately, did I hear him say these words: God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died.

What makes one heroic?— Going out to meet at the same time one's highest suffering and one's highest hope.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Freedoers are at disadvantage compared with freethinkers because people suffer more obviously from the consequences of deeds than from those of thoughts.

There is nowadays, throughout almost the whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain, and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing, which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks to deck itself out as something superior—there is a regular cult of suffering.

If someone rejoices while burning at the stake it is not because he has triumphed over his pain, but rather over not feeling any pain when he expected to.

Así me dijo el demonio una vez: «También Dios tiene su infierno: es su amor a los hombres.»

his wisdom meanwhile increased, and caused him pain by its abundance.

if you therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for pain, well, you must also depress and minimise his capacity for enjoyment.

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin! And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain. Therefore do I wash the hand that hath helped the sufferer; therefore do I wipe also my soul. For in seeing the sufferer suffering – thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride.

I want to teach them what is understood by so few today, least of all by those preachers of pity: to share not suffering but joy.

A martyr's disciples suffer more than the martyr.

For in seeing the sufferer suffering—thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride. Great obligations do not make grateful, but revengeful;

Broken things are precious. We eat broken bread because we share in the depth of our Lord and His broken life. Broken flowers give perfume. Broken incense is used in adoration. A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on their way to Rome. Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.

Love is a vicarious principle. A mother suffers for and with her sick child, as a patriot suffers for his country. No wonder that the Son of Man visited this dark, sinful, wretched earth by becoming Man - Christ's unity with the sinful was due to His love! Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.

Learning comes from books; penetration of a mystery from suffering.