Top 100 What Is Suffering Quotes
#1. After all, what is suffering but an awareness of suffering?
Nancy Farmer
#2. What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans - small and large, crude and multifaceted - that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#3. We suffer because we want life to be different from what it is. We suffer because we try to make pleasurable what is painful, to make solid what is fluid, to make permanent what is always changing.
Sakyong Mipham
#4. Some people say: "There is no God; because, if there was a God, God would stop all the suffering." Nonsense! God is oblivious to suffering. God is beyond suffering. That's what makes God, God, by definition.
Frederick Lenz
#5. It is not our difficulties or our suffering alone that makes us wise. It is what we add to them
patience, perseverance, compassion, courage, love. From this combination, our priceless pearls of wisdom grow.
Barbara De Angelis
#6. Suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his submission to the will of God, and, for the spectators, the compassion aroused and the acts of mercy to which it leads.
C.S. Lewis
#7. Nothing is altered and in spite of God's mercy I am still alone. Though my suffering seems senseless I am still in agony. There is no explanation of my life. Indeed there was not, nor was this what he'd meant to convey.
Malcolm Lowry
#8. The pain on the inside is what keeps you human,' she said. 'Never forget that.
Taylor Stevens
#9. Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas. It is true that every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality will eventually disclose its falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it is seen for what it is, it will be replaced by others.
Eckhart Tolle
#10. What is the greatest deficiency among human Chrsitians? They have an inadequate view of human suffering.
Helmut Thielicke
#11. O, what I owe to the file, the hammer, and the furnace of the Lord Jesus! I know that he is no idle husbandman - he purposes a crop.
Samuel Rutherford
#12. Oh, my Lord! How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles! And what a precious price to those who love you if we understand its value.
Teresa Of Avila
#13. We need to make a very clear distinction between what is in our ego's self-interest and what is in our ultimate interest; it is from mistaking one for the other that all our suffering comes.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#14. The whole of what we know is a system of compensation. Every defect in one manner is made up in another. Every suffering is rewarded; every sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#15. At an emotional level, we feel that things should be happy and when things are difficult or painful, something is wrong. According to the Buddhist teachings this is what causes suffering.
Krissy Pozatek
#16. What is marriage now, or what has it ever been? - just a painful suffering, a long suffering, with false smiling faces. It has simply proved to be a misery. At the most it can be just a convenience.
Rajneesh
#17. Love hurts because we think that's what love is.
Marty Rubin
#18. You see, what I want is life. A real life, full of moments of joy, of anguish, of irritation, of fun. A life with an end point, which makes each second important. A life that is full of love, that doesn't cause suffering and pain.
Gemma Malley
#19. No man suffers injustice without learning,
vaguely but surely, what justice is.
Isaac Rosenfeld
#20. What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#21. [W]hat suffers in the atmosphere of immediacy is analysis. What suffers in this search for speed is depth. The media in the wealthy world are becoming increasingly simplistic, superficial, and celebrity-focused.
Laurie Garrett
#22. I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine. I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I've known for some time what my life's work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.
Kayla Mueller
#23. I was struck after 9/11 by what seemed the assumption that everyone bereaved by that event was suffering the same thing. I wanted to explore how individual grief is, how complicated, how colored by the complexity of the mourner's relationship with the person who's died.
Sue Miller
#24. When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.
Lucy Grealy
#25. Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman's life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne.
Brit Bennett
#26. Suffering is how Life tells you that you are resisting or misperceiving what is real and true. It is the way Life suggests that you are not in harmony with what is.
Adyashanti
#27. There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, 'Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children.' The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this: its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance.
Olive Schreiner
#28. So-called 'realist' photography does not capture the 'what is.' Instead, it is preoccupied with what should not be, like the reality of suffering for example.
Jean Baudrillard
#29. If God is what people say there can be no one in the universe so unhappy as He; for He sees unceasingly myriads of His creatures suffering unspeakable miseries
and besides this foresees how they are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might as well say, "As unhappy as God."
Mark Twain
#30. To "learn from experience" is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence.
John Dewey
#31. Sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue at all.
Ouida
#32. What distinguishes man from his innocent brothers, the animals, ... is not language, nor reason, nor even civilization ... it is man's enormous appetite for suffering.
Georges Duhamel
#33. The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader's charisma. What matters is the leader's mission.
Peter F. Drucker
#34. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have.
Pema Chodron
#35. What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.
Bernard Malamud
#36. The second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
Pema Chodron
#37. If somebody says what they want or what they need it gives the person the chance to say yes or no, instead of suffering in silence or depravation or whatever it is.
David Duchovny
#38. For me, motivation is easy. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm lucky to play tennis. I enjoy the suffering. It's something quite natural for me to go on the court and suffer, and to go in the gym and to suffer, and to know the only way to get better is to work out - that's what I like.
Stanislas Wawrinka
#39. And what if one of the gods does wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and painful experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more.
Homer
#41. I may not be able to fix what is wrong, but if I stand with someone who is suffering, it may give them the courage to stand up to what is wrong.
Karlyle Tomms
#42. But what is it that makes a person want to stay here on this earth anyway, and go on suffering the most awful pain just for the sake of getting to stay? I used to think it was because people fear death. But now I think it is because people can't bear saying goodbye.
Cynthia Rylant
#43. Endurance is the prerogative of woman, enabling the gentlest to suffer what would cause terror to manhood.
Christoph Martin Wieland
#44. In reality, in love there is a permanent suffering which joy neutralizes, renders virtual delays, but which can at any moment become what it would have become long earlier if one had not obtained what one wanted
atrocious.
Marcel Proust
#45. Ah, but depression - that is what we all hate. We the afflicted. Whereas the relatives and shrinks, the tribal ring, they rather welcome it: you are quiet and you suffer.
Kate Millett
#46. My work as a human being is to quiet my mind, open my heart and do what I can to relieve the suffering with as much wisdom, skill, whatever I got.
Ram Dass
#47. To go to prison because of your convictions and be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, is something worthwhile. It is an achievement for a man to do his duty on earth irrespective of the consequences.
Nelson Mandela
#48. I suffer so much in this life. That is what they [the audience] are feeling when I sing, that is why they cry. People who felt nothing in this life cannot sing.
Enrico Caruso
#49. A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.
Cesare Pavese
#50. Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.
Adalbert Stifter
#51. The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.
Byron Katie
#52. Suffering is an essential component of life. No person escapes suffering, which is indivisible from life itself. Suffering is what places in in contact with the self; it is what allows us to understand the spiritual nature behind our existence.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#53. Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
#54. Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It's what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don't let them take that from you.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#55. If you weren't built for this life, you'd be dead by now. i think the problem is people don't share enough of their pain with the world, so they never know who else is in pain, too, and what others are going through. we're never really alone in anything.
Darnell Lamont Walker
#56. I'm Phoenix. The mythical bird that rises from the ashes. I've risen from fear and grief, from scandal and suffering, and from the crushing loneliness of walking with a purpose that is outside myself, but not within me. I know what's within me now, and I'm ready to fly again.
Heidi Joy Tretheway
#57. An action from a confused and suffering being in the past doesn't represent what that being is forever; it is only an expression of that being's suffering. And if we cling to resentment over past hurts, we simply increase our own suffering.
Noah Levine
#58. I am from the poor people; I represent the poor people. I like workers. I like people that suffer because these people have a different approach to life from the people that have everything and don't know what suffering is.
Roberto Clemente
#59. It is God who enables us to return to life after tragedy-not by eradicating all suffering but by giving us the strength and the courage to heal what we can heal.
Naomi Levy
#60. In an almost totally insentient cosmos only human feeling is interesting or relevant to what the soul searches for...suffering is the most expensive of human emotions, but it is the most intense and precious of them, because suffering most efficiently humanizes the unfeeling universe.
Fred Chappell
#61. Do you know what passion is?"
I blink, confused.
"Most people think it only means desire. Arousal. Wild abandon. But that's not all. The word derives from the Latin. It means suffering. Submission. Pain and pleasure, Nikki. Passion.
J. Kenner
#62. We simply prefer to deny death or tragedy at all costs and, with it, a fundamental aspect of life. We do this instead of acknowledging that suffering represents one of the strongest incentives of life, which is the base of human solidarity and what brings intensity to happiness.
Claudia Llosa
#63. Longing is the core of mystery. Longing itself brings the cure. The only rule is, suffer the pain. Your desires must be disciplined And what you want to happen in time, sacrificed.
Rumi
#64. Because what's perplexing is not that you and I encounter suffering in this life; what's really perplexing is that He suffered in our place. Why did the innocent One suffer for our sins?
C.J. Mahaney
#65. Whoever has the mind stuffed with theories and more theories, suffers horribly because he is unable to realize nothing of what they have read..
Samael Aun Weor
#66. What is a holy person? The one who is aware of others' suffering.
Kabir
#67. This is what it means to be a slave; to be abused and bear it; compelled by violence to suffer wrong.
Euripides
#68. People are never helped in their suffering by what they think for themselves, but only by revelation of a wisdom greater than their own. It is this which lifts them out of their distress.
Carl Jung
#69. When you are at unease with 'what is,' you experience suffering; when you are at ease with 'what is,' you experience peace; and when you are in love with 'what is,' you experience bliss.
Yogi Kanna
#70. As far as I am concerned, the greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved. The greatest suffering is also having no one, forgetting what an intimate, truly human relationship is, not knowing what it means to be loved, not having a family or friends.
Mother Teresa
#71. It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.
Jonathan Swift
#72. 1Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; 2hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught 3because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked; for they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger.
Anonymous
#73. Before making a snap judgment, ask yourself if it really is something that has hurt you or simply just made you angry at yourself for allowing it to happen. It's amazing what 'sleeping on it' can do. A new day sees a new beginning.
Stephen Richards
#74. True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#75. Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.
Jon Evans
#76. Delay gratification is what will give us patience and long suffering.
Sunday Adelaja
#77. Don't Take Anything Personally Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
Nikki Sixx
#78. O child of suffering, be thou patient; God has not passed thee over in his providence. He who is the feeder of sparrows, will also furnish you with what you need.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#79. A large portion of Christ's miracles of love were wrought at the urgent request of parents for their suffering children. Is that ear gone deaf to-day? Will He not do for our children's souls what He did for the bodies of the ruler's daughter, and the dead youth at Nain?
Theodore L. Cuyler
#80. If you are willing to take an instant to withdraw attention from whatever your internal dialogue is, to withdraw energy from whatever the latest point of view about your suffering is, it is immediately obvious what is here: the fullness, the richness and the love of oneself as conscious life.
Gangaji
#81. Without ducking responsibility, what's wrong with medicine today is that it is predicated on providing treatment, not on reducing suffering. Not on solving problems.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
#82. Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering,
Pema Chodron
#83. If you keep people down so they dont become better than you, you gotta stay there to keep them down so you dont progress yourself.
What kind of wahala (Suffering) is that ?
Leave them to progress so you can expand.
Myles Munroe
#84. How in the world
when what is such knowledge but suffering?
Henry James
#85. That's what Buddhism has been trying to unravel - the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind.
Matthieu Ricard
#86. What happened?"
"During the kiss?"
"No, with you and Caroline."
"Oh," he said. And then after a second, "Caroline is no longer suffering from personhood.
John Green
#87. People don't really care all that much about their own death. What they really worry about, their one real fixation, is how to avoid physical suffering as much as possible.
Michel Houellebecq
#88. I am in a profession that has succeeded because of its ability to fix. If your problem is fixable, we know just what to do. But if it's not? The fact that we have had no adequate answers to this question is troubling and has caused callousness, inhumanity, and extraordinary suffering.
Atul Gawande
#89. We should even go beyond doing what is required in order to avoid scandal.
Saint Basil
#90. What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak ... it was born in the moments when we accumulated silent things within us.
Gaston Bachelard
#91. Once self-killing is an acceptable answer, how do you logically limit it to the dying? What about the disabled, who may live longer and suffer more?
Wesley J. Smith
#92. We make a picture," he said, "of how we want the world to be, and most of the time it isn't like that. Holding on to that image causes the suffering. Not the world, not the truth. Our disappointment is what makes us hurt.
M.L.N. Hanover
#93. Neither harsh reviews, the contempt of equals nor the indifference of superiors can affect those who have once tapped the great heart of suffering humanity and found out what a goldmine it is.
Cyril Connolly
#94. I was in a lot of pain, you see. But it had been caused by an abstract blade. What I mean is, the pain was physical, the cause wasn't. I suppose some people would just say I was suffering from a broken heart. Or you might say it's just life.
Anonymous
#95. I suspect that a huge amount of the anxiety and suffering that we see around can be closely traced to our wanton misuse of our resources. Just look at any garbage dump and see what is wasted. In a sense, we've wasted our souls.
Jay Parini
#96. I'm afraid to be on this shore a trunk without limbs, and what I most regret is not to have flower, pulp, or clay for the worm of my suffering.
Federico Garcia Lorca
#97. Every man or woman who loves [God], they hate Him too, because He's a hard God, a jealous God, He Is, what He Is, and in this world He's apt to repay service with pain while those who do evil ride over the roads in Cadillac cars. Even the joy of serving Him is a bitter joy.
Stephen King
#98. Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life, and continue chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, no matter what happens. How could this be anything other than the boundless joy of the Law?
Nichiren
#99. I believe in hope, in what is something called "radical hope." I believe there is hope for all of us, even amid the suffering. And that's why I write fiction, probaby. It's my attempt to keep that fragile strand of radical hope, to buld a fire in the darkness.r
John Green
#100. What is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering and sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering.
Gautama Buddha
