Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Misery

While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist

It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one than a little; a great deal may rouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure.
George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician

Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.
Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupaton.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.
William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker

The sage does not hoard. Having bestowed all he has on others, he has yet more; having given all he has to others, he is richer still.
Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage

Misery so little appertains to our nature, and happiness so much so, that we lament over that which has pained us, but leave unnoticed that which has rejoiced us.
Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician

It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.
Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Dramatist

As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them: they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs.
Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher

Misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist

No scene of life but teems with mortal woe.
Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness.
Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, and don’t have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin (1922–85) English Poet, Librarian, Novelist

Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.
John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright

‘Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian

People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person’s habitual misery.
Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer

Twins, even from the birth, are misery and man.
Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet

Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want, in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets.
Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist

Penny wise is often pound foolish.
French Proverb

What people expect to happen is always different from what actually happens. From this comes great disappointment; this is the way the world works.
Buddhist Teaching

The misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have married unhappily; in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total of the unhappiness of a man’s life are easily counted and distinctly remembered.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright

Never was a miser a brave soul.
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman

Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist

We should pass on from crime to crime, heedless and remorseless, if misery did not stand in our way, and our own pains admonish us of our folly.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist

I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes—and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.
Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet

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