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misery quotes

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“HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“I am malicious because I am miserable.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“It is vain to recount further the catalogue of miseries. In earlier ages such horrors remain unknown because unrecorded. Just enough flickering light plays upon this infernal scene to give us the sense of its utter desolation and hopeless...” Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
“To prevent the perpetuation of poverty is necessary if the benefits of machine production are to accrue in any degree to those most in need of them; but what is the use of making everybody rich if the rich themselves are miserable?” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.” Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
“They seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.” Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there's always something to be thankful for.” Albert Camus, The Stranger
“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with the one than happiness with the other.” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
“he who sings scares away his woes.” Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
“There is a way out of a forest, there is none out of a cloister; a man is free in the forest but he is a slave in the cloister. It may well be that greater strength of character is needed for standing up to solitude than to poverty, for if...” Denis Diderot, The Nun
“We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography
“The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“Boys enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity.” Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
“In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.” Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.” Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
“Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, since riches point to misery and contempt?” William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
“Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars
“There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
“You are young, and in love . . . Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.” Neil Gaiman, Stardust
“Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, 'So what.'” Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
“The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
“Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.” George Orwell, Animal Farm
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
“How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
“Is it worth the name of freedom to be at liberty to play the fool, and draw shame and misery upon a man's self?” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“But with the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
“As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against...” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“Must it ever be thus,—that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery?” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
“Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
“But kings and mightiest potentates must die, for that's the end of human misery.” William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1
“At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains.” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
“If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mother, your Dad, your priest, to some guy on television, to any of the people telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
“For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery.” Sophocles, Antigone
“The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the cause of Man's error and misery.” Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
“The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“All sinners would be miserable in heaven.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Related topics

happiness love unhappiness death life wealth pride foolishness freedom boredom virtue sorrow others beauty stupidity listening attachment greatness writing evil

Related authors

Mary Shelley (4)
William Shakespeare (3)
Charles Dickens (3)
Bertrand Russell (2)
Blaise Pascal (2)
W. Somerset Maugham (1)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Frank Zappa (1)
Anne Frank (1)
John Milton (1)
Albert Camus (1)
Jane Austen (1)
George Orwell (1)
Neil Gaiman (1)
Carl Sagan (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Benjamin Franklin (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)

Related sources

Frankenstein (4)
The Conquest of Happiness (2)
Pensées (2)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
Brave New World (1)
My Autobiography (1)
Oliver Twist (1)
Paradise Lost (1)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1)
The Tempest (1)
Wuthering Heights (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
The Demon-Haunted World (1)
Great Expectations (1)
Of Human Bondage (1)
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1)
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1)
The Wealth of Nations (1)