“Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most?
That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost?
That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain?
That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?”

—  John Milton

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most? That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessl…" by John Milton?
John Milton photo
John Milton 190
English epic poet 1608–1674

Related quotes

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

...in der ganzen Natur, mit dem Grad der Intelligenz die Fähigkeit zum Schmerze sich steigert, also ebenfalls erst hier ihre höchste Stufe erreicht.
The Wisdom of Life. Chapter II. Personality, or What a Man Is: Footnote 19
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Not yet placed by volume, chapter or section

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley photo

“The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face.”

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–1881) English churchman, Dean of Westminster

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 568.

Henry Carey photo

“Let the singing singers
With vocal voices, most vociferous,
In sweet vociferation out-vociferize
Even sound itself.”

Henry Carey Chrononhotonthologos

Act i. Sc. 1.
Chrononhotonthologos (1734)

Khalil Gibran photo

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Edwin Hubbell Chapin, as quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert
Misattributed

Seneca the Younger photo

“No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 17, p. 64

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“It is a sweet, albeit most painful, feeling
To know we are regretted.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Edwin Hubbell Chapin photo

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 567.

Virginia Woolf photo

“The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly: it is perhaps a sign of their strength.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

"Thoreau"
Books and Portraits (1977)
Context: The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly: it is perhaps a sign of their strength. But that Thoreau lost any of his own force in the process, or took on permanently any colours not natural to himself the readers of his books will certainly deny. The Transcendentalist movement, like most movements of vigour, represented the effort of one or two remarkable people to shake off the old clothes which had become uncomfortable to them and fit themselves more closely to what now appeared to them to be the realities.

Related topics