Quotes About Suffering

It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory.

theory of natural selection itself seems calculated to foster selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight. If scientific theories could vote, evolution would surely vote Republican.

La idea de la tortura es tan antigua como la maldad de la humanidad, que es la única especie con la imaginación suficiente para suponer el daño que se puede ocasionar cuando se le inflige a otro. No podemos culpar a la religión de este impulso, pero podemos condenarla por institucionalizar y refinar la práctica.

Is he willing to prevent evil but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

In fact, surveying the natural order, John Stuart Mill was far nearer the mark when he wrote: If a tenth of the pains taken in finding signs of an all-powerful benevolent god had been employed in collecting evidence to blacken the creator's character, what scope would not have been found in the animal kingdom? It is divided into devourers and devoured, most creatures being lavishly fitted with instruments to torment their prey.

the God of birds and trees would have to be also the God of birth defects and cancer.

It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory.

Most of the time, thank goodness, we suffer quite stupidly and unreflectingly, like the animals.

Evil and sin weave their way into every aspect of God's creation and every dimension of human personhood and life on earth.

It is well known that great art, great music and great literature can emerge out of great pain. This does not lessen the reality of the suffering of the artist, composer or writer, but it points to something creative and redemptive in the human person, made in the image of God, which can bring forth a thing of beauty in the midst of surrounding ugliness, brutality and evil. Nowhere is this more true than in the book of Lamentations.

It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery

FAUSTUS: Where are you damn'd? MEPHISTOPHILIS: In hell. FAUSTUS: How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell? MEPHISTOPHILIS: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:

Accursed be he that first invented war.

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.

KING EDWARD: But what is he whom rule and empery Have not in life or death made miserable?

Don't drive drunk. Ever. Don't shag anyone you don't like, or who doesn't like you. Get a look at how people live in a place where you don't. Suffering is over-rated, don't pursue it. Ask for help when you need it, don't when you don't, and learn to recognize the difference. Don't confuse movement and progress. Be kind. Be forgiving. Pay attention.

We know there's going to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again.

Sweetheart, wake up; you've destroyed the house and I need you to suffer for it.

Theophilus Crowe's mobile phone played eight bars of Tangled Up in Blue in an irritating electronic voice that sounded like a choir of suffering houseflies, or Jiminy Cricket huffing helium, or, well, you know, Bob Dylan.

Jesus was a good guy, he didn't need this shit.

Minty now held his arms out to his sides, angry Jesus style, suffer all the bitch-ass motherf*ckers need an ass-whoopin' unto me, for I shall rain wrath down upon them -- that look.

Pain travels pretty well.

You love your wars for the coffers, but for the warrior and the widow, the orphan and the owned, you've not two dry fucks to give.

Do not be afraid Everyone before you has died You cannot stay Any more than a baby can stay forever in the womb Leave behind all you know All you love Leave behind pain and suffering This is what Death is. —The Book of Living and Dying (The Tibetan Book of the Dead)