Quotes About Suffering

all that you call your past exists only as memory… all that you call future exits only as imagination… these are the only two things that you are suffering right now: your memory and your imagination. Nothing more. Both memory and imagination exist only in your mind. They are aspects of your psychological reality; they have nothing to do with the existential reality.

It is like a two-edged sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise be certain death.

But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come. [...] each day I live as if I am already dead.

Many animals experience pain, anxiety and suffering, physically and psychologically, when they are held in captivity or subjected to starvation, social isolation, physical restraint, or painful situations from which they cannot escape. Even if it is not the same experience of pain, anxiety, or suffering undergone by humans- or even other animals, including members of the same species- an individual's pain, suffering, and anxiety matter.

We generally accept that it's natural for carnivorous wild animals to kill other animals in order to live. But people don't often think (or even know) about the extraordinary and unnatural suffering that humans inflict on the animals that we freely harvest for food, with the help of modern high technology and the animal food sciences.

Las preocupaciones por el bienestar se concentran habitualmente en prevenir o aliviar el sufrimiento y en asegurarse de que los animales están bien alimentados y cuidados, sin cuestionarse las condiciones subyacentes de cautividad o encierro que constituyen la naturaleza real de sus vidas.

C'est drôlement dangereux de s'attacher à quelqu'un. C'est incroyable ce que ça peut faire mal. Rien que la peur de perdre l'autre est douloureuse.

It's funny how we always search for reasons not to love—fear of suffering, fear of abandonment—but the love of life, oh, how much you can take for granted until you realize that, one day, you're going to lose all of it.

El infierno está vacío y todos los demonios están aquí. William Shakespeare, La tempestad

Desnudas de su corteza contempla las causas: los significados de las acciones, qué es el sufrimiento, qué es el placer, qué es la muerte, qué es la fama, quién es el culpable de tu propia falta de tiempo, cómo nadie es impedido por otro, que todo es suposición[482].

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

All men suffer, but not all men pity themselves.

El sufrimiento, o bien es un mal para el cuerpo (por tanto, que éste lo proclame), o lo es para el alma, a la que es posible preservar su propia serenidad y calma, y no suponer que es un mal. Cualquier juicio, impulso, apetito y rechazo están dentro y ahí no penetra ningún mal.

La muerte y la vida, la buena fama y la mala, el sufrimiento y el placer, la riqueza y la pobreza, todas esas cosas ocurren indistintamente a los hombres tanto a los buenos como a los malos porque no son ni hermosas ni vergonzosas. No son ni buenas ni malas[192]

Hipócrates[207], tras sanar muchas enfermedades, enfermó él y murió. Los

I was there when we opened the gates. Some of these poor wretches running out were so emaciated they actually died from the excitement of being liberated. I saw it happen several times. These people in the camps – they were like walking skeletons. You could see all their bones. The gates opened and the people ran out yelling, I'm free! I'm free! And some of them died right there. I was horrified to see what the SS had done to these people. - Roy Gates

The focus of a politics of compassion is the alleviation of suffering caused by social structures.

Given all of life's ambiguities and the reality of impermanence and suffering, our existence is remarkable, wondrous. It evokes awe and amazement. We need to pay attention. Really pay attention. Lest we become blind to the awe and wonder that fills our days.

Jesus was deeply affected and concerned about the sufferings and inequities of his day. So much so that he dedicated his entire life to the welfare of others.

Jim Crace's Quarantine [1997] and Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son [1997].

We forget our pleasures, we remember our sufferings

All the same, she cries on the front porch, and I wish I could go over there and hold her. I wish I could rescue her and hold her in my arms. How do people live like this? How do they survive? And maybe that's why I'm here. What if they can't anymore?

An old homeless man confronts me quietly with his beard, his missing teeth, and his poverty.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.