Suffering Quotes

Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life: with its own torment it increases its own knowledge. Did you already know that?

To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities-I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not-that one endures.

He divines remedies against injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage.

For those who need consolation - no means of consolation is so effective as the assertion that in their case no consolation is possible: it implies so great a degree of distinction that they at once hold up their heads again.

One must never have spared oneself, one must have acquired hardness as a habit to be cheerful and in good spirits in the midst of nothing but hard truths.

We imagine that hardness, violence, slavery, peril in the street and in the heart, concealment, Stoicism, temptation, and deviltry of every sort, everything evil, frightful, tyrannical, raptor- and snake-like in man, serves as well for the advancement of the species "man" as their opposite.

Tragedy sits in sublime rapture amidst this abundance of life, suffering and delight, listening to a far-off, melancholy song which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are Delusion, Will, Woe.

Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it-so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world.

To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something which must be abolished is the greatest nonsense on earth; having the most disastrous consequences, fatally stupid - almost as stupid as a wish to abolish bad weather - out of pity for the poor.

Fortunately the Italian people has not yet accustomed itself to eat many times a day, and possessing a modest level of living, it feels deficiency and suffering less.

Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, 'What are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing.

Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.

The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion that results in indifference to others; indeed, it even leads to the globalization of indifference.

May the Lord grant the deserved reward to those who have wished me well and will continue to pray for me. The suffering that marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and brotherhood among peoples.

Tomorrow will be the third anniversary of the large-scale war against Ukraine: a painful and shameful occasion for the whole of humanity! As I reiterate my closeness to the suffering Ukrainian people, I invite you to remember the victims of all armed conflicts, and to pray for the gift of peace in Palestine, Israel and throughout the Middle East, Myanmar, Kivu and Sudan.

The Jubilee invites us to renew the gift of hope within us, to surrender our sufferings and our concerns to hope, to share it with those whom we meet along our journey and to entrust to hope the future of our lives and the destiny of the human family. And so we cannot settle for the fleeting things of this world or give in to sadness; we must run, filled with joy. Let us run towards Jesus, let us rediscover the inestimable grace of being his friends. Let us allow his Word of life and truth to shine in our life.

Suffering is a call to conversion: it reminds us of our frailty and vulnerability.

There is so much indifference in the face of suffering. May we overcome indifference with concrete acts of charity.

Auschwitz cries out with the pain of immense suffering and pleads for a future of respect, peace and encounter among peoples.