To make sacrifices in big things is easy, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom capable of.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful than any other.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.
—Thucydides (c.455?c.400 BCE) Greek Historian
It is good for me that I was afflicted that I may learn Thy statutes.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
If suffer we must, let’s suffer on the heights.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.
—Richard Burton (1925–84) Welsh Actor
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
We need to suffer that we may learn to pity.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–38) English Poet, Novelist
The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.
—Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949) Armenian Spiritual Leader, Occultist
One must really have suffered oneself to help others.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things…it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Playwright
You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
—John Ciardi (1916–86) American Poet, Teacher, Etymologist, Translator
I would like to explain the meaning of compassion, which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop genuine concern for his or her problem. This is genuine compassion. Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion. This is not compassion; it is attachment. Even in marriage, those marriages that last only a short time do so because of attachment—although it is generally present—but because there is also compassion. Marriages that last only a short time do so because of a lack of compassion; there is only emotional attachment based on projection and expectation. When the only bond between close friends is attachment, then even a minor issue may cause one’s projections to change. As soon as our projections change, the attachment disappears—because that attachment was based solely on projection and expectation. It is possible to have compassion without attachment—and similarly, to have anger without hatred. Therefore we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment, and between anger and hatred. Such clarity is useful in our daily life and in our efforts towards world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happiness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
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 gates of Heaven.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
It is the lot of man to suffer.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader, Teacher, Author, Peace Activist
Do you want to be right more than you want to know the truth? It’s the truth that set me free. Acceptance, peace, and less attachment to a world of suffering are all effects of doing The Work. They’re not the goals. Do The Work for the love of freedom, for the love of truth.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.
—Ben Okri (b.1959) Nigerian Novelist, Poet, Short-Story Writer
As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Oh, fear not in a world like this, and thou shalt know erelong, know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Take heart. Suffering, when it climbs the highest, lasts but a little time.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Playwright
To become a spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of life.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
We learn from our mistakes, and the amount we learn is in direct proportion to the amount we suffer from having made the mistakes.
—Tommy Prothro (1920–95) American Football Coach
If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming.
—Dorothy Day (1897–1980) American Journalist, Christian Activist
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life—knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
To bear other people’s afflictions, everyone has courage and enough to spare.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
What is deservedly suffered must be borne with calmness, but when the pain is unmerited, the grief is resistless.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
—John Tillotson
Pain is never permanent.
—Teresa of Avila (1515–82) Spanish Carmelite Nun, Mystic
Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.
—Herodotus (c.485–425 BCE) Ancient Greek Historian
You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, you exceed the normal level, and it is for this that men refuse to forgive you, you poison their peace of mind, you undermine their stability. You have irrepressible pains whose essence is to be inadaptable to any known state, indescribable in words. You have repeated and shifting pains, incurable pains, pains beyond imagining, pains which are neither of the body nor of the soul, but which partake of both. And I share your suffering, and I ask you: who dares to ration our relief? We are not going to kill ourselves just yet. In the meantime, leave us the hell alone.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.
—Les Brown
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 (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Without out suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty, but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed. And we must share it, for only by being one with them can we redeem them by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith