Burden of life

“ Do we indeed suffer all the sorrows and uncertainties of life,—do we indeed strive, and endure, and struggle,—do we, indeed, learn to labour and to wait, to bear the burden of the day and the torture of the night, for no other purpose, with no other prospect, than when the brief fever is over, to pass away into nothingness? ”

“ And thus, without any mortal disease, or any disease of equivalent seriousness, I am thrown out of life, out of the ordinary sphere of its enjoyment and activity, and made a burden to myself and to others. ”

“ The measure of our miseries is already full; our condition begins to be insupportable, and the life we lead is worse than that of beasts of burden. When these have gone their day's journey, their load is taken off, food is given them, and they are allowed to take rest; we, on the contrary, are always under arms, nor do we ever take our clothes off. ”

“ How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! We wonder that the sinner does not confess his sin. When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of earth. ”

“ An end should be put to the burden which weighs upon the higher classes—the burden, I mean, of having to be ready every moment to expose life and limb to the mercy of anyone who takes it into his rascally head to be coarse, rude, foolish or malicious. ”

“ But if ever—in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant, whatever burden heaviest—you should require a life to be given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! ”

“ Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him. ”

“ If you live, it is as certain as fate that you will come to the second and the third. Your 'eyes will grow dim,' your 'natural force' will be 'abated,' your body will become a burden, your years that are full of buoyancy will be changed for years of heaviness and weariness, strength will decay, 'and the young men'—that is you—'shall utterly fall.'
And the text points also to another fact, that, long before your natural life shall have begun to tend towards decay, hard work and occasional sorrows and responsibilities and burdens of all sorts will very often make you wearied and ready to faint. ”

“ Is it not clear that the physical sins—partly our forefathers' and partly our own—which produce this ill-health, deduct more from complete living than anything else? and to a great extent make life a failure and a burden instead of a benefaction and a pleasure? ”

“ They have accepted the burden of eternal life. They have taken the agony from birth; and their life does not fail them even in the hour of their destruction. ”

“ It come to be a natural rule of life with him that no one should add to the burden of the world, but that each should try to lighten it. ”

“ I am so weary of the Curse of Living The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears. Surely, if life were any God's free giving, He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears. Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying, Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past. ”

“ The sovereign people determines life and death and happiness under conditions where experience and experiment alike show thought to be most difficult. "The intolerable burden of thought" is a burden when the conditions make it burdensome. ”

“ Suffering, struggle, work, and death are raised as objections against life, they make life questionable, unnatural—something that must cease, and for which one not only requires but also has—remedies! ”

“ I know not what unholy thoughts shot through my worn and weakened brain. I saw in the gloomiest colours a future of ceaseless struggle, of dependence, and of humiliation, which I was approaching by the dark gate of hunger; I felt a profound and utter disgust of life ”

“ Therefore let us examine alone by ourselves the weight of our misfortunes, as if they were burdens. For the body is weighed down by the burden of what presses on it, but the soul often adds to the real load a burden of its own. ”

“ We speak in terms of "having lived too long," "being tired of living," "life not worth living," etc., as if life were a prison sentence, and, often, rather than continue the servitude, we surmount and overcome the deterrent of pain and destroy the life. ”

“ Looking at the turmoil of life, we find all occupied with its want and misery, exerting all their strength in order to satisfy its endless needs and avert manifold suffering, without daring to expect anything else in return than merely the preservation of this tormented individual existence, full of want and misery, toil and moil, strife and struggle, sorrow and trouble, anguish and fear—from the cradle to the grave. ”

“ In poverty such as this a serious infirmity, fear of death, influence of circumstances and people would have been enough to overthrow and shatter all that I formerly considered as my conception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of my life. ”

“ But to live,—to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman. ”

“ Some we see hearty, brisk and cheerful perpetually, while others are constantly burden’d with a heavy ‘Load of Maladies and Misfortunes, remaining for Years perhaps in Poverty, Disgrace, or Pain, and die at last without any Appearance of Recompence.’... ”

“ No! in those fearful exigencies, where, in the full vigour of health, strength, and life's freshest resources, we seem destined to abruptly quit this mortal coil, we need no spur—all is spontaneous; and the soul is unshackled. ”

“ But after all life is but a span, "an inch or two of time," hung upon a slender cord that is momentarily in danger of breaking and in the end-the inevitable end-sure to be cut asunder by the ever-busy hand of man's universal enemy, the dread of all mankind - Death, Death, pitiless, cruel and relentless Death. Sickness, sorrow, pain and death are realities alike in the experience of young and old, rich and poor, great and small, in every land and in every clime. ”

“ She learned then to see and to feel that the sorrows of life fall uniformly; that few, indeed, are singled out for especial suffering; and that the load is apportioned to the strength that is to bear it. She saw, besides, how the hard necessities of existence formed in themselves a barrier against the wearing influence of grief: the hands that must labor for daily bread are not wrung in the wild transports of misery! It is the law of human nature, and the claims of the living are the counterpoise to the memory of the dead. ”

“ Work, torment, pain, and misery are held to be the unavoidable lot of nearly every one, and the work, torment, pain, and misery of life are considered as necessary to mankind as the keel to the ship. Indeed, were it otherwise, were wishes, when formed, fulfilled, in what manner would the time be employed? ”

“ These words but reflect the thoughts of thousands, who, wearily struggling along the path of life, ask themselves wonderingly, “Why existence, if this is all it brings?” Many a tired and saddened soul has lain itself down to die, with the undefined feeling that the wasted life left behind might not have been if only—only—ay, if only what? ”

“ Poverty, care, anger, coldness, and indifference, the rage of passion, the obstinate retention of narrow purposes, indications of change and division in the spiritual world, entire dependence on that of Nature—in one word all that is implied in the transitory condition of human life—leaves its indelible, if quite incalculable, expression on the varied surface of the faces of mankind. ”

“ That grim presence shadows our lives, but who can deny that in that shadow the sense of duty, the feeling of sobriety and responsibility, the appreciation of the gravity and of the objects of life, the earnest desire to develop and improve, have grown and become real with us to a degree that has leavened our whole society from end to end? ”

“ You carry a burden on your back whether you realise the fact or no, a burden that clogs all your efforts, and that will sink you deeper into the darkness and the mire. 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' and with noble, but, at bottom, vain, efforts have striven after right and truth. 'Come unto Me all ye that are burdened,' and bear, sometimes forgetting it, but often reminded of its pressure by galled shoulders and wearied limbs, the burden of sin on your bent backs. ”

“ You, perhaps, may say, that you endure the cares and anxieties inseparable from your state of life: that solicitude for the present and future well-being of yourselves and families embitters your days: that you labour from morning till night, and that, in spite of all your endeavours, you are frequently the victims of want, of wretchedness, of infirmities, and of other numberless evils. ”

“ For the discharge of labours and the endurance of pain are neither of them intrinsically tempting; nor is patience, nor diligence, nor watchfulness, nor industry which is so much extolled, nor even courage itself: but we cultivate these habits in order that we may live without care and fear, and may be able, as far as is in our power, to release our minds and bodies from annoyance. For as the whole condition of tranquil life is thrown into confusion by the fear of death, and as it is a miserable thing to yield to pain and to bear it with a humble and imbecile mind ”

“ It has been simply that, ill, weak, worn, and suffering, I have been lost to the work of the world, and to the friends I honored and loved. Four long years have found and held me powerless to strike a blow on the great anvil of humanity, or labor one day in its vineyards, and for the most part too weak even to hear of those who did. ”

“ But when the scourge of deadly sickness has passed over the land, the effect has almost always been to slacken this tie; the inherent love of life, natural to human beings, turning to an almost incredible selfishness, and inducing men to abandon their nearest and dearest in the hour of peril, leaving them, if stricken, to die alone, or turning them, sick to death though they might be, away from their doors, to perish untended and without shelter. ”

“ We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity: we have laboured hard: we have sweated blood: we have led a life full of misery, of gall, and of poison. And why? To bring ourselves to a still more wretched life in this pit of fire. ”

“ And then, perhaps, we are brought into a state of darkness and despondency, to show us our utter helplessness and unworthiness, and the need there is for every one of us to "keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.".... ”

“ True, by such deportment they unquestionably harm themselves; but consider of how little value life is from their stand-point. They grope in the darkness of this transition period, and rarely find any sure stay for the weary arm and the fainting heart. ”

“ Not bodily suffering wholly, or chiefly; but that which is much harder to bear,—the hardest of all,—a sense of helplessness and the increasing fear of uselessness; the conviction, in the very prime of life, that life's work must be left undone, a calling which he dearly loved be relinquished, and he either remain abroad a wanderer in search of health, or return home with only the capacity of projecting numerous plans and labors, not one of which would be ever accomplished. ”

“ Delicate health, unceasing toil, bodily suffering, constant privations, long journeys by sea and land, long imprisonments, cruel scourgings, vexations and disappointments, and the ever-present danger of death—such were the experiences of that life. We, as we read the record, wonder at the steadfastness and endurance which made such a life possible. And while we admire the set purpose and the unflinching courage of the man, we pity him for the things which made up the experiences of his life. But he does not for a moment pity himself. ”

“ She had early in life been brought up in indulgence; and poverty had come upon her at an age, when the sensibility of the heart are most alive. There can hardly, indeed, be a suffering more acute to a feeling mind, that has experienced the pleasure of bestowing, than to find its means of benevolence cut off, and all its powers necessarily turned into a weary, wasting struggle for self-preservation. ”

“ Often as I pass by the dwelling of some suffering mortal I am tempted to stop and banish the poor thing's misery. Yet suffering, in moderation, is the natural lot of mortals, and it is not our place to interfere with the laws of Nature. ”

“ THE longer I live, and the more I see the misery of life—the more my desire of living is extinguished. What I formerly esteemed trifles, and would not deign to term misfortunes, now appear with a formidable aspect—though I once thought them harmless, and innoxious to my peace, they assume new terrours every day.—But is not this observation general? It is—It is thus every son of human nature, gradually wishes for death, and neglects to seek for, and improve those comforts, which by diligent search there is a possibility of attaining. ”

“ Suppose this awfully majestic form should call out to you, and say, ‘I ask you to give up health and drag yourself, not dead, but half alive, through a miserable existence for long years, until you perish and die in your crippled and hopeless condition. ”

“ The burdens that are hard to bear are those we lay upon ourselves. What a 320 burden to themselves, and to every one around them, are the lazy and the unemployed! If it is a man, prayers should be offered up for his family and his dependents,—for who is so morbid and melancholy, so pettish and fretful, so devoured by spleen and ennui, as the man with nothing to do? ”