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Quotes about Suffering

    “I’d say, ‘But I’m not happy.’ And [my grandmother] would say, ‘Where is it written that you’re supposed to be happy all the time?’ And I actually think it was the beginning of my spiritual practice—that life is difficult. Then 40 years later, I learned that the buddhists said the same thing, that life is inevitably challenging and how are we going to do it in a way that’s wise and doesn’t complicate it more than it is just by itself?”

    Sylvia Boorstein, via Becoming Wise (Page 218)

      “Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

      Helen Keller, via Sunbeams (Page 102)

        “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided.”

        Franz Kafka, via Sunbeams (Page 102)

          “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”

          Yoda, Star Wars | Read Matt’s Blog on this quote ➜

            “In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, he comes first. His very suffering gives him priority… To watch over a man who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.”

            Elie Wiesel, via Sunbeams (Page 66)

              “I may wish to be free from torture, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I’ll wish to bear it courageously with bravery and honor. Wouldn’t I prefer not to fall into war? But if war does befall me, I’ll wish to carry nobly the wounds, starvation, and other necessities of war. Neither am I so crazy as to desire illness, but if I must suffer illness, I’ll wish to do nothing rash or dishonorable. The point is not to wish for these adversities, but for the virtue to make adversities bearable.”

              Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 90)

                “Go with the pain, let it take you… Open your palms and your body to the pain. It comes in waves like a tide, and you must be open as a vessel lying on the beach, letting it fill you up and then, retreating, leaving you empty and clear… With a deep breath—it has to be as deep as the pain—one reaches a kind of inner freedom from pain, as though the pain were not yours but your body’s. The spirit lays the body on the alter.”

                Anne Morrow Lindbergh, War Within And Without, via Sunbeams (Page 57)

                  “Part of the reason we fight against the things that happen is that we’re so focused on our plan that we forget that there might be a bigger plan we don’t know about. Is it not the case that plenty of times something we thought was a disaster turned out to be, with the passage of time, a lucky break? We also forget that we’re not the only people who matter and that our loss might be someone else’s gain.”

                  Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 83)

                    “At one time or another, we all try to silence painful emotions. But when we succeed in feeling nothing we lose the only means we have of knowing what hurts us, and why.”

                    Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life (Page 27)

                      “You are here to aid in the great expansion of consciousness. You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition but to change them when you do not find them to your liking through the joy, strength, and vitality that is within you; to create the spirit as faithfully and beautifully as you can in flesh.”

                      Jane Roberts, The Nature Of Personal Reality, via Sunbeams (Page 52)

                        “They say all the energy that has ever been is still here now and will always be here. That means there is a totality and I am part of it. When I have an opinion on suffering, it is only that, an opinion. I do not and cannot understand the full context of events that occur in an infinite and eternal universe. It’s as if within my finite lifetime I glimpse a second of a three-hour movie and try to understand the entire plot. All I must do is engage with this idea: I will become open to the idea that my conceptions, beliefs and experiences are limited. I will become open to new beliefs and new possibilities. I will become open to the idea that I can live a better, more loving and useful life, even if I don’t fully understand how I will do it or what it will be like.”

                        Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 47)

                          “There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.”

                          Mother Teresa, Sunbeams (Page 29)