Quotes About Suffering

I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends. To give one's life for the cause is nothing. But to have one's illusions destroyed - that is really almost more than one can bear.

It was the very essence of his life to be a solitary achievement, accomplished not by hermit-like withdrawal with it's silence and immobility but by a system of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived the means of passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care in the world- invulnerable because elusive.

In life, you see, there is not much choice. You have either to rot or to burn. And there is not one of us, painted or unpainted, that would not rather burn than rot.

This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain...

They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean- except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.

They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,—nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.

We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive - survive the condemnations, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things - they look small enough sometimes too - by which some of us are totally and completely undone.

I suppose at that period I did exist on food in the usual way; but the memory is now that in those days life was sustained on invincible anguish, as a sort of infernal stimulant exciting and consuming at the same time.

We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean—except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.

Slavery is an awful thing, stammered out Kayerts in an unsteady voice. Frightful—the sufferings, grunted Carlier with conviction.

Perfino un profondo dolore può alla fine trovare sfogo nella violenza - ma più generalmente prende la forma dell'apatia.

No hay miedo que pueda hacer frente al hambre, no hay paciencia que pueda hacerlo desaparecer, la repugnancia simplemente no existe donde existe el hambre; y en cuanto a la superstición, y lo que podríamos llamar principios, tiene menos peso que la hojarasca de viento.

Bad world for poor people.

Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tomé mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten.

Todas sus costillas eran visibles y las articulaciones de sus miembros parecían nudos; y cada uno llevaba un collar de hierro, atados entre sí por una cadena que oscilaba en un tintinear rítmico.

The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levity and sufferings of that incorrigible people; the cruel futility of lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain endeavor to attain an enduring solution of the problem.

Conocen ustedes la maldad de la inanición prolongada, su tormento desesperante, sus pensamientos oscuros, su ferocidad sombría y meditabunda

Our fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of alien tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the lawful administration, there has grown up a second administration possessed of infinitely greater powers than the system established by law.

Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together

One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death.

My bones were buried by Octavian. I am Virgilius; and for no crime else Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;

What had she to do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did.

Falamos com indignação ou com entusiasmo; falamos sobre opressão, crueldade, crime, devoção, abnegação, virtude e nada sabemos, além de palavras. Ninguém sabe o que significa sofrimento ou sacrifício – exceto, talvez, as vítimas do misterioso propósito dessas ilusões.

And they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an instant