Quotes About Suffering

When I think of the Crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.

At a certain moment, the pain is lessened by projecting it into the universe, but the universe is impaired; the pain is more intense when it comes home again, but something in me does not suffer and remains in contact with a universe which is not impaired. - Simone Weil

God is not present, even if we invoke him, where the afflicted are merely regarded as an occasion for doing good. They may even be loved on this account, but then they are in their natural role, the role of matter and of things. We have to bring to them in their inert, anonymous condition a personal love....In true love it is not we who love the afflicted in God; it is God in us who loves them.

S'identifier à l'univers même. Tout ce qui est moindre que l'univers est soumis à la souffrance. J'ai beau mourir, l'univers continu. Cela ne me console pas si je suis autre que l'univers. Mais si l'univers est à mon âme comme un autre corps, ma mort cesse d'avoir pour moi plus d'importance que celle d'un inconnu. De même les souffrances.

The wish to see others suffer exactly what we are suffering. It is because of this that, except in periods of social instability, the spite of those in misfortune is directed against their fellows. That is a factor making for social stability.

Such is the power of might. Its power to transform an into a thing double and it cuts both ways; it petrifies differently but equally the souls of those who suffer it, and of those who wield it.

Such is the power of might. Its power to transform man into a thing is double and it cuts both ways; it petrifies differently but equally the souls of those who suffer it, and of those who wield it.

Always do what will cost you the most.

Suffering: superiority of man over God. The Incarnation was necessary so that this superiority should not be scandalous.

A gyilkosság bosszú azért, hogy halandók vagyunk.

Physical labour is a daily death

Affliction compels us to recognize as real what we do not think possible.

Love on the part of someone who is happy is the wish to share the suffering of the beloved who is unhappy. Love on the part of someone who is unhappy is to be filled with joy by the mere knowledge that his beloved is happy without sharing in this happiness or even wishing to do so.

A man whose whole family died under torture, and who had himself been tortured for a long time in a concentration camp. Or a 16th century Indian, the sole survivor after the total extermination of his people. Such men if they had previously believed in God would either believe it no more, or else they would conceive of it quite differently than before.

Arriba se está en mala posición para darse cuenta de las cosas, y abajo para actuar. Creo que ahí radica de manera general una de las causas esenciales de las desgracias humanas. Es por eso que he querido ir yo misma abajo de todo, y por lo que quizá volveré. Simone Weil. Carta a Victor Bernard

Through my suffering I only felt the presence of a love analogous to that which one reads in the smile of a beloved face.

Yet no suffering befalls whoever relinquishes justice and truth, whereas the party system has painful penalties to chastise insubordination. These

Once we have understood we are nothing, the object of all our efforts is to become nothing. It is for this that we suffer with resignation, it is for this that we act, it is for this that we pray.

L'esclave est celui à qui il n'est proposé aucun bien comme but de ses fatigues, sinon la simple existence. Il doit alors ou être détaché ou tombé au niveau végétatif

There is only waiting, attention, silence, immobility, constant through suffering and joy... We cannot take a single step towards heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenwards for a long time, God comes and takes us up. He raises us easily. As Aeschylus says: There is no effort in what is divine. There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult for us than all of our efforts.

The death agony is the supreme dark night which is necessary even for the perfect if they are to attain to absolute purity, and for that reason it is better that it should be bitter.

The fullness of love for neighbor is simply the capacity to ask the question, 'What is your agony?' It is to know (recognize) that the afflicted exist, not as a unit in a collection, nor as an example of a social category labeled 'the afflicted,' but in all their humanity, exactly like us, who have been stamped and marked by an inimitable mark, by their affliction.

Il faut éliminer le malheur autant qu'on le peut de la vie sociale, car le malheur ne sert qu'à la grâce et la société n'est pas une société d'élus. Il y aura toujours assez de malheur pour les élus.

Throughout history men have struggled, suffered and died to free the oppressed. Their efforts, when they did not remain sterile, have never led to anything except the replacing of one oppressive régime by another.