Miserable

“ I am the most miserable being under the sun because our happiness has been interrupted, and is it likely that such misery should be cured by violent words and gestures? If your heart is wrung for her, so is mine. ”

“ Miserable in the midst of perfection, desolate in the heart of plenty, and wretched is he, even in the moment of enjoyment. What is he but a mixture of clay rendered sensible to pain, and affections destined to be quelled in death? And yet this animated mass of earthly sorrow vainly pictures to himself a Being whom he calls all good, who sees his misery, yet will not alleviate it, and who gave him being but to render him unhappy. ”

“ But as I understand the word miserable, it either has no meaning at all, or else signifies only a painful privation of something, or a state of suffering either in body or soul. I should be glad to have explained to me, what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease and whose body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would ask also, whether a social or a natural life is most likely to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. ”

“ I have made you suffer so much, and you deny me this little thing that can never balance any pain, but is all I can dot? Why are you so unwise? Why should we make ourselves more miserable than we need be? ”

“ Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil, on the credit side of the account. ”

“ I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? ”

“ Suddenly, or perhaps gradually, the change comes; self-feeling drops into an abyss. "I am the most miserable of persons, the vilest sinner, hated and rightly by God and man, cause of suffering and misery. ”

“ Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling. ”

“ Who utter the deepest complaints against the evils of life? They who are most distinguished by its blessings. Youth and genius are amongst the most clamorous of the complainants. I hope and believe that misery is not so miserable as it appears. I have suffered, and I know the alleviations which attend each species of suffering I have endured ”

“ The more we suppressed these sentiments, the more would they fester and rankle within us; till the mind became all over tenderness and sensibility, and felt equal pain from its own groundless surmises, as from real substantial injuries. In a word, we should have no relish of conversation, no sincere enjoyment of any thing, we should only be miserable in, and from ourselves. ”

“ IT is one of life's little ironies, I suppose, that man's surest escape from misery should be through the contemplation of people more miserable than himself. Such, however, happens to be the case. And prompted by this genial cross between a stoic and a cynic philosophy, I had formed the habit of periodically submerging myself in a bath of cleansing depravity. ”

“ And now you are content to be as miserable as most people. To go on year after year, dragging at each other, quarreling, making up, hating, despising, driven sometimes, by a force beyond you—to—to—mocking Love. ”

“ You might when racked with gout, in solitude, the fear of death before your eyes, the doctor having cut off your bottle of claret, and ordered arrowroot and a little sherry,—you might then be humiliated, and acknowledge your own shortcomings, and the vanity of things in general; but, in high health, sunshine, spirits, that word miserable is only a form. You can't think in your heart that you are to be pitied much for the present. ”

“ Virtue, then, alone can effect the cure of these evils.
XVI. For what is not only more miserable, but more base and sordid, than a man afflicted, weakened, and oppressed with grief? And little short of this misery is one who dreads some approaching evil, and who, through faintheartedness, is under continual suspense. ”

“ When I staggered and fell to the ground beneath the weight of my misery, you thought only of yourself; your gentlest word to me was 'miserable man.' Let me tell you, however, that the weakness of an ailing man is not so repulsive as the rude strength of a coarse woman. ”

“ Let not misery find place in your heart, as there is no such thing as absolute pain. Pleasure and pain are equal, or rather the wise consider them to be equal. If you make any distinction, then those who are known as virtuous or happy will be found miserable all their lives. ”

“ The faith of what man can we invoke? What complaints, what lamentations can be devised adequate to so great a calamity.
31 It is a miserable thing to be despoiled of all one's fortunes; it is more miserable still to be so unjustly. ”

“ Bowed down by shame and remorse, the unhappy man slunk back to his hermitage, miserable and degraded, bitterly lamenting his folly and infatuation, but resolved to atone for it by deep repentance and severe penance. ”

“ This was the height of folly and madness, for a happy creature to invent how to make itself miserable and all others. Indeed, he intended another thing—to be more happy, but pride and ambition got a deserved fall, the result of all is sin and misery. ”

“ You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving—I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. ”

“ Never was there a more miserable being than I was for the last six months previous to my coming of age, and to drown my misery I plunged into every excess, and seldom, if ever, went to bed but in a state of intoxication. ”

“ It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable. ”

“ Perhaps, however, this was but his imagining, a sort of reflection of his own misery. For he was miserable—miserable, pessimistic and pretty thoroughly disgusted with life. His health and strength were gaining always, but he found little consolation in this. ”

“ “I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied.” ”

“ That I couldn’t conceive a position in which life would not be a misery, that we are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. ”

“ I’ve neither beauty, money, nor rank, yet every foolish boy mistakes my frank interest for something warmer, and makes me miserable. It is my misfortune. Think of me what you will, but beware of me in time, for against my will I may do you harm.” ”

“ "If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable."
"Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven." ”

“ But the drama culminated unforeseen and violent on their return, when I was impelled by my miserable flesh that still lives.... Ah! what misery, what wretchedness is that of the man who is alone and disdains debasing liaisons! Not old enough to do without women, and not young enough to go and look for one without shame. Misery? It's worse than misery; it's a horror; for no woman can any longer give him love; and when a man feels this ... ”

“ But what aggravates my sufferings yet more, is, that we began to be miserable at a time when we seemed the least to deserve it. While we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of a criminal love, nothing opposed our vicious pleasures. ”

“ And vice is necessarily misery: for that fluctuation of principle, that diseased craving for excitement, that weakness out of which springs falsehood, that suspicion of others, that discord with ourselves, with the absence of the benevolent propensities,—these constitute misery as a state of being. The most miserable person I ever met with in my life had 12,000l. a year; a cunning mind, dexterous to compass its own ends; very little conscience, not enough, one would have thought, to vex with any retributive pang ”

“ "I'm perfectly miserable, but if you consider me presentable, I die happy." ”

“ “Get away out of my country at once, and for ever, miserable creature, lest I take your life, and so rid myself of your malice.” ”

“ Why, I esteem the injury far less, To take the lives of miserable men Than be the causers of their misery. ”

“ What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else." ”

“ It became a pity for the very scheme of things, for man in the abstract, born perhaps, through no fault of his own, to sin and misery, both miserable and causing misery throughout his life, and then to end in the grave, and vanish from the sight and minds of other men. ”

“ There is no just impression in regard to the real poverty and wretchedness of your condition. ¶ That thou art wretched. The word wretched we now use to denote the actual consciousness of being miserable, as applicable to one who is sunk into deep distress or affliction. ”

“ The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable. ”

“ And as some people are very glad to be miserable for the sake of the pathos and sentimentality thereof, we will tell these people, though perhaps they could find it out without our assistance, how they might make themselves truly wretched under similar circumstances. ”

“ Not 'cause he's troubled, but 'tis sweet to see Those Cares and Fears, from which ourselves are free. Creech.
If we are in Affliction, the Representation of the like Miseries makes our own more supportable. In both these Cases, the Pleasure arises from the Comparison, a Principle to which great Part of the Misery and Felicity of human Life is owing. It is commonly said, that no Body is miserable but by Comparison; and it may be as truly said, that no Body is happy but by Comparison. ”

“ I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched. ”

“ The present amusements that arise from the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, from whence the sinner concludes himself to be happy, is the most miserable instance of self-deceit, and will appear to be so, if we consider the end thereof, or that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment, Job xx. 5. and after that, nothing shall remain but what wounds his spirit, and makes his misery intolerable. ”

“ Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. ”

“ so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. ”

“ Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all!" ”

“ People might love themselves with the most entire and unbounded affection, and yet be extremely miserable. ”

“ Thou who alone wieldest the lightnings of thy father, wield them to strike me dead, if thou wilt; only do something!—something to prove thine own existence— something to make me sure that anything exists beside this gross miserable matter, and my miserable soul. I stand alone in the centre of the universe! I fall and sicken down the abyss of ignorance, and doubt, and boundless blank and darkness! ”