Quotes about suffering (3556 quotes, page 35)

" Morals, Reason and Animals: Steve Sapontzis Interviewed by Claudette Vaughan https://web.archive.org/web/20100114161007/http:/www.abolitionist-online.com/08_steve_sapontzis.shtml", Abolitionist Online (2009)

Loss , Pain , Food , Animals

“Baldner contends that is "arrogant" and "paternalistic" morally to condemn something as definitive of the natural order as predation. However, it is in the nature of morality to devise ideals of a better world and to work toward realizing them. This entails judging this world to be less than ideal and working to change it. One could restrict moral evaluations to the products of human activity, but that would be arbitrary: what makes suffering (prima facie) morally bad is not that it is the result of human activity but that it is suffering. Our commitment to making the world a morally better place impels us to make moral evaluations of the natural order. There need be nothing either arrogant or paternalistic in making and acting on such evaluations, provided we recognize the very limited nature of our understanding and our power to make improvements.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

Steve Sapontzis, " Dicussion: Environmental Ethics and the Locus of Value https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2060&context=bts", Between the Species (Winter 1990), p. 9

Understanding , Bad luck , Nature , World

“On the other hand, refusing to accept and affirm, avoidable suffering, unfair distributions of goods, uninhibited aggression, and so forth, are refusals which have long been and continue to be part of everyday morality. As such, they are a well-established part of life as it is. Animal liberation extends such concerns, which have traditionally been focused on the human world and on human life, to include equal consideration for animals. In this way, animal liberation is simply carrying on the business of everyday moral practice. Therefore, it does not loathe or deny life as it is. Rather, unlike Callicott's proposed retreat to the wilderness, animal liberation is participating in life and, hopefully, in its continuing moral evolution.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

Steve Sapontzis, " Article Review of Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244&context=ethicsandanimals", Ethics and Animals, Vol. 5, Iss. 4 (1984), p. 120

Business , Animals , World , Way

“Where we can prevent predation without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, we are obligated to do so by the principle that we are obligated to alleviate avoidable animal suffering. Where we cannot prevent or cannot do so without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, that principle does not obligate us to attempt to prevent predation.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

Steve Sapontzis, " Predation https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1220&context=ethicsandanimals", Ethics and Animals, Vol. 5, Iss. 2, Art. 4 (1984), p. 36

Animals

“We need only look at the much lower level of anti-Americanism in Vietnam to realize that suffering incurred in wars does not necessarily dictate decades of animosity and fear between peoples. It’s what propaganda does with history — for contemporary political ends — that counts.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

"On the Recent Spate of 'Why North Korea Hates America' Articles" http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2017/05/27/1419/ (27 May 2017), Sthele Press
2010s

History , War , People , Fear

“For unbelief was easier than belief, much less demanding and subtly flattering because the agnostic felt himself to be intellectually superior to the believer. And then unbelief haunted by faith, as she knew by experience, produced a rather pleasant nostalgia, while belief haunted by doubt involved real suffering.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

The Scent of Water (1963), Chapter 13.2

Nostalgia , Faith

“October passed, and there was no change inside the cubicle; except that the woman only became paler and more lifeless. Until finally the time came when she became transparent; she underwent that transformation, that transguration of countenance that sometimes comes to sufferers when the last of their strength ebbs away.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Time , Change

“The labourers are still more unfortunate in being descended from bondsmen and serfs. Personal slavery or villanage formerly existed in Britain, and all the living labourers still suffer from the bondage of their ancestors.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital (1825), p. 22

Personality

“Nothing Ireland—north, south, east, and west—has suffered so much in its history as the broken pledges of British statesmen.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935) Irish politician, barrister and judge

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1918/apr/16/clause-2-power-by-order-in-council-to#column_320 in the House of Commons (16 April 1918). The Irish Nationalist MP John Dillon interrupted: "We are agreed at last on one thing."

History

“No amount of happiness enjoyed by some organisms can notionally justify the indescribable horrors of Auschwitz. [...] Nor can the fun and games outweigh the sporadic frightfulness of pain and despair that occurs every second of every day. For there's nothing inherently wrong with non-sentience or [...] non-existence; whereas there is something frightfully and self-intimatingly wrong with suffering.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

2.7 Why Be Negative? https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon2.htm#negative*Negative-utilitarianism is only one particular denomination of a broad church to which the reader may well in any case not subscribe. Fortunately, the program can be defended on grounds that utilitarians of all stripes can agree on. So a defence will be mounted against critics of the theory and application of a utilitarian ethic in general. For in practice the most potent and effective means of curing unpleasantness is to ensure that a defining aspect of future states of mind is their permeation with the molecular chemistry of ecstasy: both genetically precoded and pharmacologically fine-tuned. Orthodox utilitarians will doubtless find the cornucopian abundance of bliss this strategy delivers is itself an extra source of moral value. Future generations of native ecstatics are unlikely to disagree.

2.7 Why Be Negative? https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon2.htm#negative
The Hedonistic Imperative https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/514875 (1995)

Despair , Pain , Game , Happiness

“You are always on the right side when you are with those who suffer persecution and injustice.”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Source: Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947), p. 293

“Human exploitation of animals is horrific and needs to be stamped out, but we should consider taking action against another considerable source of pain and suffering for wild animals — nature itself.”

Jacy Reese (1992) American social scientist

[Wild animals endure illness, injury, and starvation. We should help., December 14, 2015, Vox, https://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/9873012/wild-animals-suffering]

Animals , Pain , Nature

“Many years from now, our descendants will look back on the use of animals for food—particularly the intense animal suffering in factory farms—as a moral atrocity.”

Jacy Reese (1992) American social scientist

[Why It's Time to End Factory Farming, October 20, 2018, Quillette, https://quillette.com/2018/10/20/why-its-time-to-end-factory-farming/]

Animals , Food

“Prayers will be offered up for the success of our work in temples and in churches also; for it will bring relief from an old burden, which all have suffered.
But we must first bring enlightenment to men's minds. The idea must make its way into the most distant, miserable holes where our people dwell. They will awaken from gloomy brooding, for into their lives will come a new significance. Every man need think only of himself, and the movement will assume vast proportions.
And what glory awaits those who fight unselfishly for the cause!
Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again.
Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it.
We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.
The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.
And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer

VI : Conclusion
Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] (1896)

Home , Success , Wealth , Spring

“See they suffer death,
But in their deaths remember they are men,
Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act III, scene v
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Law , Death , Making love , Men

“Marxist socialism also had dark nooks and crannies where Jews were regarded as money-mad capitalists or as an ‘obsolete’ people who refused to join the onward march of secular progress towards a moneyless society. Anarchists also suffered from this contagion,…”

Michael Burleigh (1955) American historian and writer

Source: The Third Reich: A New History (2000), p. 94

Money , Madness , People

“Our prime task now is to look after the environment. This will become the responsibility of every individual, politician, guru, saint and scientist. Our energies will be spent in making it healthy again. When that happens there will be less suffering, disease and poverty.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Share International Magazine

Making love , Disease

“The expression of negative emotions gives rise to endless pain and suffering.”

Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) British philosopher

Adago, John. East Meets West (p. 150)

Pain

“…I like to think that I'm just part of the struggle because we all sort of exist in this thing, trying to figure out what it means to be human day-to-day and what it means to have, like, suffered and made other people suffer.”

Reginald Betts (1980) American writer

On whether he is an exception when compared to formerly incarcerated individuals in “'Felon' Author Says, 'Everybody Has To Tell Their Kids Something'” https://www.npr.org/2019/11/03/775605155/felon-author-says-everybody-has-to-tell-their-kids-something in NPR (2019 Nov 3)

Thinking , People , Parting

“Renunciation is not about pushing something away, it is about letting go. It's facing the fact that certain things cause us pain, and they cause other people pain. Renunciation is a commitment to let go of things that create suffering. It is the intention to stop hurting ourselves and others.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

Against the Stream (2007)

Hurt , Pain , People

“Without hope of reward
Provide help to others.
Bear suffering alone,
And share your pleasures with beggars.”

Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher

§ 272
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)

Pleasure , Help , Hope

“If you don't modernize, leave. You're poor? Son of a whore! Suffer through hardship and hunger. I don't care.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

Original: (tl) To jeepney transport groups: "Pag hindi niyo na-modernize yan, umalis kayo. Mahirap kayo? Putang ina, sige! Mag... magtiis kayo sa hirap at gutom. Wala akong pakialam."

President Duterte attends federalism summit in Camarines Sur https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS/videos/10155630659415168/(October 17, 2017)

Whore , Hunger

“The functional regions of the brain which subserve physical agony, the "pain centres", and the mainly limbic substrates of emotion, appear in phylogenetic terms to be remarkably constant in the vertebrate line. The neural pathways involving serotonin, the periaquaductal grey matter, bradykinin, dynorphin, ATP receptors, the major opioid families, substance P etc all existed long before hominids walked the earth. Not merely is the biochemistry of suffering disturbingly similar where not effectively type-identical across a wide spectrum of vertebrate (and even some invertebrate) species. It is at least possible that members of any species whose members have more pain cells exhibiting greater synaptic density than humans sometimes suffer more atrociously than we do, whatever their notional "intelligence."”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

1.9 The Taste of Depravity https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon1.htm#taste
The Hedonistic Imperative https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/514875 (1995)

Family , Pain , Intelligence , Appearance

“Much more seriously, in those traditional eco-systems that we chose to retain, millions of non-human animals will continue periodically to starve, die horribly of thirst and disease, or even get eaten alive. This is commonly viewed as "natural" and hence basically OK. It would indeed be comforting to think that in some sense this ongoing animal holocaust doesn't matter too much. We often find it convenient to act as though the capacity to suffer were somehow inseparably bound up with linguistic ability or ratiocinative prowess. Yet there is absolutely no evidence that this is the case, and a great deal that it isn't.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

1.9 The Taste of Depravity https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon1.htm#taste
The Hedonistic Imperative https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/514875 (1995)

Nature , Animals , Thinking , Sense

“… the second time I ever saw you I learned what I had read in books but I had never actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the sum of love is what you have to pay for it and any time you get it cheap you have cheated yourself.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Harry Wilbourne to Charlotte Rittenmeyer, in (Ch. 3) "Wild Palms"; p. 48
The Wild Palms [If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem] (1939)

Time , Reading , Cheating , Learning

“Current relations between Russia and the US struggle through the worst times. Historians, politicians, political scientists cannot recall any other time, when our relations were in such a miserable state. Other countries, international peace and security suffer because of this...”

Anatoly Antonov (1955) Russian diplomat and statesman, Russian Ambassador to the United States (since 2017)

Speech at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterrey (13 October 2018)

Peace , Time , Country , Relation ships

“People who have sinned against such a holly place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date in this Kali age in accordance with the verse: Hasadbhih kriyate karma rudadbhir-anubhuyate”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

People do [evil] deeds smilingly but suffer the consequences crying
Tipu expressing grief against the raid on Sringeri temple and maatha by a contingent of the Marathas, called the Pindaris.
Source: Quoted in Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department 1916 pages 10–11 and 73–6 and History of Tipu Sultan by Mohibbul Hasan, p. 358

Distant , People , Age

“The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Happiness , Learning , Self-confidence

“I don’t think most Americans realize that the way we raise animals is such a betrayal of the heritage of our grandparents. I don’t think they realize that … these big companies like Smithfield and Cargill and others have our American farmers now living like sharecroppers in constant debt, forced to follow their rules. I’ve watched the suffering in North Carolina of minority communities who live around Cafos and can no longer breathe their air … and I’ve seen workers in the meatpacking plants and how dangerous those plants are. Everybody is losing in this system – except for the massive corporations that have taken over the American food system.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

'A savagely broken food system': Cory Booker wants radical reform ... now https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/a-savagely-broken-food-system-cory-booker-wants-radical-reform-now. The Guardian, September, 15 2020
2020

Betrayal , Food , Communication , Animals

“However, efilism's claim that all life, human and non-human, should be ceased is a hubris I am not convinced humans have a right to exert. While the cessation of suffering humans cause is already manipulated in a way that could come under an efilist rubric, these 'management' tools usually come in the form of culling populations of nonhumans to redress an imagined environmental balance most usually caused by humans in the first place. Domestic efilism such a neutering rescue animals is necessary, especially when rescuing can involve the speciesism of feeding one slaughtered animal to sustain another, and neutering humans is the logical way to prevent the perpetuation of this practice as well”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Embracing Death, p. 153
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

Imagination , Animals , Way , Life

“The continuation of diachrony in perceptions of life and death spreads across a form of antinatalism essentially co-opted from a kind of Western fetishism of Buddhism, namely efilism. Coming etymologically from the reverse of 'life', efilism claims it is better never to have been. Efilist philosophers such as David Benatar hinge their arguments on basic binaries of pleasure and pain which roughly correlate to good and bad and extend to a vindication of life and death. Efilism has a vague correspondence with utilitarianism but emphasizes the suffering of life over utilitarianism's greater good. Both are absolute in their perception of the capacity to evaluate which is which, making both dependent on economic measure of value as an either/or, and to an extent both on (anthropocentric) determinism. Efilism's redeeming feature is that it promotes antinatalism, and often veganism, in its aspirations to a reduction in suffering, and this attitude promises potentials for opening the world through the cessation of the human.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Embracing Death, pp. 152-153
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

Pain , Dependency , Making love , Bad luck

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Romans

Epistle to the Romans

God , Pain , Time , Waiting

“The mothers of all ages are those who have suffered because others suffered; for each of them, self is less sensitive than the sense of her child. Self is not locked up in the maternal heart, there to be cherished, as it is by the egoist, or to be crushed and silenced, as it is by the Saint. In the mother, self is not lost, but loses all its evil by the passionate personal love that distributes it among sons and daughters. Perfect self-less love would perhaps be distributed through the multitude, but a mother is not perfect: nature has so much use for her—separate, family use—that she cannot let her go free from irrational, indispensable partialities and limitings, even injustices, all serving the turn of the race.”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Source: Mary, the Mother of Jesus: An Essay (1912), Ch. IV. "The Mother", p. 40

Family , Personality , Silence , Daughters

“I've been sad, I've been lost
I've been down and out and lonely
I've been suffering at a job
In a world that tries to own me
But when I wake up every morning
There's an image of a better place
'Cause the harder that we grind
Then the sweeter is the glory”

Aloe Blacc (1979) American soul singer, rapper and musician

Source: Song My Way

World , Sadness

“In every disadvantage that a woman suffers at the hands of a man, there is inevitably, in what concerns the man, an element of cowardice. When I say "inevitably," I mean that this is what the woman sees in it.”

Henry James book Confidence

Source: Confidence (1879), Ch. XIX.

“The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it, who are a prey to questioning, and who can accept no given because they were born in consternation.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Question

“Maybe suffering has no more justification than life.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Life

“Sensitivity to the death and suffering of boys and men is in competition with our survival instinct.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 36

Death , Boy , Men

“Inasmuch as the essence of community is affectivity, the community is not limited to humans alone. It includes everything that is defined in itself by the primal suffering of life and thus by the possibility of suffering. This pathos-with is the brosdest form of every conceivable community.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Source: Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 133-134
Source: Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)

Life , Communication

“I see that I've said something you don't like,
Something uncouth and bold and terrifying,
And yet, I'll tell you this:
It won't be till each one of us is willing,
Not you, not me, but every one of us,
To hang upon a cross for every man
Who suffers, starves and dies,
Fight his sore battles as they were our own,
And help him from the darkness and the mire,
That there will be no crosses and no tyrants,
No Herods and no slaves.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Dismas, the thief
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Fight , Help

“I am not tired.
I am expectant as a runner is
Before a race, a child before a feast day,
A woman at the gates of life and death,
Expectant for us all, for all of us
Who live and suffer on this little earth
With such small brotherhood. Something begins.
Something is full of change and sparkling stars.
Something is loosed that changes all the world.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Innkeeper's wife
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Star , World , Life , Death

“A third belief about males has both descriptive and normative forms. It is the belief that males are, or at least should be, tough. They are thought to be able to endure pain and other hardships better than women. Whether or not they do take pain and other hardships “like a man,” it is certainly thought that they should. When it is said that they should take pain and hardships “like a man,” the word “man” clearly means more than “adult male human,” but rather one who stoically, unflinchingly bears whatever pain or suffering he experiences, including that which is inflicted on him precisely because he is a “man.””

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

This is true even when he is not a man, but rather a boy. Boys are taught early that they must act like men. Crying, they are told, is what girls do. They are discouraged from expressing hurt, sadness, fear, disappointment, insecurity, embarrassment and other such emotions. It is because males are thought to be and are expected to be tough that they may be treated more harshly. Thus, corporal punishment and various other forms of harshness may be inflicted on them but often not on females, who are purportedly more sensitive.
Source: The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), Chapter 3, part 1: Beliefs about Males

Pain , Women

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. ... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained...That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8

Country , Thinking , Exercises

“I grieve that so much of the resources of this country must be spent on what is essentially an unprofitable expenditure ... but, after all, safety, safety from a foreign foe comes first, before every other earthly blessing, and we must take care, in our responsibility to the many interests that depend upon us, in our responsibility to the generations that are to succeed to us, that no neglect of ours shall suffer that safety to be compromised.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Brighton (19 November 1895), quoted in The Times (20 November 1895), p. 7

Dependency , Country

“Today, one of the problems of Iran, in fact, its worst problem, is the dispersal of Iranians. People who share a common land and live within the territory of one country should not be divided into rival sects. Today's Iran is in this misery, and if this continues, God knows what a hard hand the Iranians will suffer.”

Ahmad Kasravi (1890–1946) Iranian academic

Source: Peyman, 1 February 1934

God , Country , People , Problem

“Sadly, almost with terror, I often looked at the threadlike path which I saw, lower down, winding in the valleys and disappearing between the mountains. The day would come when it would lead me back to the sorrowful world that existed beyond the distant hill ranges, and so thinking, an indescribable suffering lay hold of me.”

Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer

Magic And Mystery In Tibet

Mountain , Distant , Thinking , World

“Etymologically, patient means sufferer. It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades. That illness can be not an epic of suffering but the occasion of some kind of self-transcendence is affirmed by sentimental literature and, more convincingly, by case histories offered by doctor-writers. Some illnesses seem more apt than others for this kind of meditation.”

Susan Sontag book AIDS and Its Metaphors

Source: AIDS and Its Metaphors, (1989), ch. 4, p. 125, Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0-312-42013-7 ; later published in combination with Illness As Metaphor. This combined edition is the one referenced here.

History , Self-confidence , Literature , Fear

“The disciples... asked the Master why it had been written that Elijah should appear first, and received a remarkable reply. St. Matthew records the incident thus: And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Matt. 17:10–13
Reincarnation & Christianity (1967)

Appearance

“Do you remember how old Ford was always writing how Conrad suffered so when he wrote? How it was un metier de chien etc. Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all. Suffer like a bastard when don't write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterwards. But never feel as good as while writing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to Malcolm Cowley (14 November 1945); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Feeling

“I'm a short-term nostalgic; things were great ten minutes ago. If only I could go back there. At my time of life I suffer from déjà vu and amnesia at the same time; I can't remember what happens next.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - In the O-Zone Zone (16 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Life , Time

“The last year has really brought home that it is truly a matter of life and death. The tangible, human stakes, the real-life consequences when we are led by fools, and when we are led by people who are more concerned with their own enrichment than they are with the financial well-being of the families that pay their salary. We can get direct financial relief to people fast, and I know that this incoming administration wants to do it. But if we don’t win these Senate races, they’re gonna block help for the people because they’re not going to want to relieve suffering. If the Republicans hold the Senate, they’re gonna block it... Every vote will count, every vote will matter, and we saw in November how every vote mattered. And the second is, there will be a big difference in your daily life depending on the outcome here.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Quoted in Jon Ossoff Talks With Rasheeda About What Dems Can Achieve If They Win Georgia Runoffs, By Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone (magazine), (4 January 2020)

Family , Home , Dependency , Help

“Too much you've view'd, too poignantly you've felt,
Too long on human sufferings we've dwelt;
These woful visions shift, but scenes appear,
Which tho' less painful, cause the conscious tear.”

Isaac Gompertz (1774–1856)

"Time", Part IV, pp. 199–200
Time, or Light and Shade (1815)

Pain , Appearance , Tear

“But, so far as we can see, so long as the present laws and constitution of nature continue there must still remain a vast amount of really inevitable suffering for mankind, without reckoning beastkind, birdkind, fishkind, insectkind, reptilekind, plant- kind, and leaving quite out of discussion stonekind.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part V, p. 83
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Law , Nature

“Ay, soon upon the stage of life,
Sweet, happy children, you will rise,
To mingle in its care and strife,
Or early find the peaceful skies.
Then be it yours, while you pursue
The golden moments, quick to haste
Some noble work of love to do,
Nor suffer one bright hour to waste.”

Daniel Clement Colesworthy (1810–1893) American writer

School is out (1876); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Peace , Happiness , Children , Love

“Our country is suffering from the lack of food. We don't have rice for the military. Our country is in a state of anarchy because of the dysfunctional food rationing system. The administration department is responsible for this mess, as well as the Party officials. The Party's Central Committee members have failed their duty in generating a revolutionary spirit, diminishing the Party's effectiveness. We must solve the food problem according to socialist principles, and we must not rely on individuals. If we let the people solve the problem on their own, only merchants and markets will prosper. Then, selfishness will rule our society and destroy our system of true equality.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Reported speech at Kim Il Sung University in December 1996, as quoted in Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il (2012) by John H. Cha and K. J. Sohn. Domestic collections of Kim's works do not confirm the speech or the wording, but an April 1996 speech to the Central Committee began with similar observations, and a "state of anarchy" arising from privatization in former socialist countries was a theme in earlier works.
1990s

Selfishness , Country , Food , People

“Perhaps, for the first time ever there is now a real chance to put an end to despotism and to dismantle the totalitarian order, whatever shape it may take. I trust that after all the unthinkable tragedies and tremendous losses that it has suffered, mankind will reject this legacy. It will not allow the 21st century to bring new suffering and deprivations to our children and grandchildren.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Address https://apnews.com/article/e5458697cf06bbb518a9ffafffd650e5 to the U.N. Security Council (31 January 1992)
1990s

Loss , Chance , Time , Children

“I feel like saying over and over and over, what I have said many times before, that we do not know the world of living, longing, suffering, enjoying life in the midst of which we have evolved. The inhabitants of our own fields and dooryards are strangers to us. We are so little, and proud, and selfish, we never think it worth while to stop and look into their faces and get acquainted with them. It never occurs to us what a great favour it would be to them if we would actually get over into their places occasionally and realise what tragedies are constantly being enacted in their lives as a result of our insensate natures. We treat them with no consideration or respect because we have no understanding of them; and we do not understand them because we do not care anything at all about the matter. We are too busy tossing bouquets at ourselves to have much time or thought left for anybody else. We have grown up in the belief that all those who have a different shape from what we have were intended, not for life and happiness and immortality, as we were, but for death and wretchedness and chymification, and we are too dull-minded and selfish to make any change now.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 37

Selfishness , Time , Understanding , Making love

“I knew it long ago: I’m a compulsive teacher, but I can’t teach. The godawful state of today’s education system isn’t what’s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot “suffer fools gladly.””

Larry Niven book N-Space

The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 26-27)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Education , Fools , Teachers

“Yet another of these useless, pestilential little creatures! All his life the author has suffered from his susceptibility to this kind of female. The commentator has suffered all his life too from the same weakness. Other people derive pleasure from encountering such characters in their reading, but I, because of the harm they have done me in real life, derive only pain. The susceptible author is extremely grateful for the comment!”

Zhiyanzhai

Comment on a scene involving Baoyu with the maid Number Four in chapter 21, as reported and quoted by John Minford in Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, ed. Kerry Brown, Vol. III (Berkshire Publishing Group, 2017), p. 1109

Pain , Reading , People , Pleasure

“In fact, the spiritual detriment we unconsciously suffer, in every province of our affairs, from this our prostrate respect to power of speech is incalculable.”

Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

“It is God’s will, as to mine understanding, that we have Three Manners of Beholding His blessed Passion. The First is: the hard Pain that He suffered”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

with contrition and compassion. And that shewed our Lord in this time, and gave me strength and grace to see it.
The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 21

God , Pain , Understanding , Passion

“The goal towards which the advance will probably be made at an accelerated pace, is that in the direction of which the legislation of the last quarter of a century has been tending—the intervention, in other words, of the State on behalf of the weak against the strong, in the interests of labour against capital, of want and suffering against luxury and wealth.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

‘The Revolution of 1884’, The Fortnightly Review, No. CCXVII, New Series (1 January 1885), quoted in T. H. S. Escott (ed.), The Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXXVII, New Series (1 January – 1 June 1885), p. 9
1880s

Strong , Wealth

“Governments are not at liberty to act solely from motives of generous sympathy for the sufferings of an oppressed people, they are bound by the severer rules of general principles, to respect rights which are inherent in other nations.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Viscount Granville on the Portuguese Civil War (10 August 1831), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 166
1830s

Motivation , People

“We live in difficult times, marked by suffering and disease. We are still in the midst of a pandemic. Good Friday seems to continue, but we know that it will not be greater than the day of the resurrection. The cross, the suffering and the disease surrounding us must be lived in Christ, so that they become precious signs of grace and blessing.”

Lucian Mureșan (1931) Catholic cardinal

Romania: Card. Muresan (Greek Catholics), “may the Easter celebration be a new spring of hope embracing the whole of humanity” https://www.agensir.it/quotidiano/2021/4/29/romania-card-muresan-greek-catholics-may-the-easter-celebration-be-a-new-spring-of-hope-embracing-the-whole-of-humanity/ (29 April 2021)

Christ , Time , Disease

“I do thank our Savior that I was allowed to suffer for Him, and that I may also die for Him.”

Franz Jägerstätter (1907–1943) martyr, conscientious objector

Franz to Franzisk https://www.dioezese-linz.at/dl/NopsJKJkkMkNJqx4KoJK/Shining_Example_9_trial_pdf (9 August 1943)

“I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)

Peace , Country , Intelligence , People

“My dream when I was a child was to be a medical doctor so that I could help people suffering from diseases.”

Chiaki Mukai (1952) astronaut, medical doctor

Help , People , Dreams , Disease

“It was at this time that the suggestion of studying medicine was first presented to me, by a lady friend. This friend finally died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once said to me,'You are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.'”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

But I at once repudiated the suggestion as an impossible one, saying that I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book.
... My favourite studies were history and metaphysics, and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust.
pp. 27–28 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

Pain , Study , Time , Disease

“What I am able to say concerning the direction and aim of our terms, I have already said repeatedly. To put an end to the war with a durable peace that will compensate us for all the wrongs we have suffered and will safeguard the existence and future of a strong Germany—that is our aim.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) German chancellor during World War I

Speech to the Reichstag (27 February 1917), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany from Defeat to Conquest, 1913–1933 (1945), p. 91

Peace , War , Future , Strong

“Suffering for another is one of the most painful ways to love!”

Valter Bitencourt Júnior (1994) Brazilian poet and writer

Pain , Way , Love , Making love

“I am bound by my oath to abide by the law, and I cannot suffer anybody to derogate from it.”

Giles Rooke (1743–1808) British judge (1743-1808)

Redhead alias Yorke's Case (1795), 25 How. St. Tr. 1083.

Law

“Immigrant parents don’t want their children to suffer or have to live harder than they did.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

As quoted in "Jenny Han Has Been Here All Along" in Elle (24 February 2020) https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a30913764/jenny-han-interview-to-all-the-boys-sequel/

Children , Parent

“Suffering is admittedly one of the central problems of human existence; but this is because we have a suspicion that it is all for nothing.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

If we had a certainty about meaning, the suffering would be bearable. With no certainty of meaning, even comfort begins to feel futile.
Source: Frankenstein's Castle (1980), p. 89

Problem

“But when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, the brightest crown will be given to the sufferers.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Works of the Rev. John Wesley, Letter XI, 1789. (J&J Harper, 1827), p. 375.
1780s

“I thank God for giving me the grace to suffer; I need it so much!”

André Bessette (1845–1937) Canadian Catholic brother and saint

Saint André Bessette: Montreal’s Miracle Worker https://catholicism.org/br-andre.html

God

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: "We give thanks to thee for thy great glory."”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Four Loves

Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection — if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.
The Four Loves (1960)

God , Love

“For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Our fate

Time

“We give voice to our trivial cares, but suffer enormities in silence”

Seneca the Younger Phaedra

Phaedra, line 607 https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/sen.phaedra.shtml
Tragedies
Original: (la) Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent.

Silence

“When we multitask and split up our mind into a million directions, we are actually creating our own suffering, because these habits strengthen strong emotional reactivity and discursive thought.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind (2008)

Strong

“But the Buddhist teachings are not only about removing the symptoms of suffering, they’re about actually removing the cause, or the root, of suffering.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind (2008)

“But I understand I have no right to give up, because people who are in jail didn't give up. They now are suffering for us. Only these people, the families of those repressed in Belarus, have given me the energy to go on.”

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (1982) Belarusian politician and educator

"Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says 'harsh' sanctions needed" in DW https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-opposition-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-says-harsh-sanctions-needed/a-57869000 (12 June 2021)

Family , Understanding , People

“No purpose is served by making private suffering into a public event.”

Charles Sheffield book Summertide

Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 23 (p. 254)

“The fight that we are doing right now for equal pay does not mean that we will achieve it in the short term. We are not going to get the equal pay right away, but it may be done by the time my daughter plays soccer and she will not suffer what we suffered.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"Alex Morgan says she is fighting for equal pay for her daughter" https://en.as.com/en/2021/05/10/soccer/1620674328_417702.html (May 10, 2021)

Daughters , Time , Fight

“I believe as firmly as I believe any other historical truth—that no nation ever suffered so much from another nation as the Irish have suffered from the English—or for so long a time.”

William Smith O'Brien (1803–1864) Irish nationalist politician (1803-1864)

14 January letter to John Martin: 14, Correspondence between John Martin and William Smith O'Brien relative to a French invasion, 1861 https://books.google.com/books?id=uioenbWx30MC&pg=PA14,

Time , Truth

“Every injustice that we suffer at the hands of men is at the same time a trial that comes to us from God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2019, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, World Wisdom, 139, 978-1-93659765-9]
Spiritual life, Trials

God , Time , Men

“We Christians believe in a sensitive God: He hears the groaning of the oppressed and listens to the widow’s plea; He suffers with and for humanity, we want to believe that consecrated life, with its many charisms, is the very expression of this sensitivity.”

João Braz de Aviz (1947) Catholic cardinal

Consecrated women and men are ‘witnesses to the beauty of God’ https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2021-03/cardinal-de-aviz-25-anniversary-vita-consecrata-exhortation.html (25 March 2021)

God , Life

“The greatest compassion is the prevention of human suffering through patience, intelligence, courage and kindness.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Courage , Intelligence , Patience

“We Croatians are suffering from an overdose of history during the past century. Of course we still have some nationalism. But the feelings are slowly cooling down.”

Zoran Milanović (1966) Croatian politician

Source: "'Germany Is a Role Model for Us'" in Speigel International https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-croatian-prime-minister-milanovic-germany-is-a-role-model-a-856179.html (17 September 2012)

History , Past , Feeling

“Death is hard on your trail in this wilderness–
the end of you and all that you amass.
Suffering at the beginning, regret at the end,
and in the end your attachment trample you.”

Sarmad Kashani (1590–1661) Persian mystic, poet and saint

Source: Sarmad, Martyr to Love Divine, p. 240 (2005)

Death

“My mistake. My inexcusable mistake, as a con man never stops being a con man; he can’t. But I suffered from a will to believe, a defect of character that I thought I had rooted out. I was mistaken.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 3 (p. 22)

“Because of the nature of my work and because I was suffering from a grave ailment, my doctors advised me to take part in cultural activities to improve the balance of my sense of hearing and sense of sight. Thus, I came into contact with some literature and art.”

Jiang Qing (1914–1991) Chinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong

Source: Speech at the Reception for the Representatives of the Beijing Workers Propaganda Team and the People's Liberation Army Propaganda Team (14 September 1968)

Literature , Nature , Art , Sense

Quotes about suffering page 35

Quotes about suffering
page 35