#misery

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#nature

Man cannot cherish his existence any longer than life holds out charms to him: when he is wrought upon by painful sensations, or drawn by contrary impulsions, his natural tendency is deranged; he is under the necessity to follow a new route; this conducts him to his end, which it even displays to him as the most desirable good. ↗

— Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach

#nature-of-man #nature

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. ↗

— Jeremy Bentham

#misery #misery

I'm tired of being responsible for other people's misery. I can't even put up with my own. ↗

— Katja Millay

#misery

I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness. ↗

— Hugh Laurie

#misery #misery

I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, exam results, illnesses, friendships, kinships—gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar and notebook. I think of this every time I hear of the callow ambition to 'make a new start' or to be 'born again': Do those who talk this way truly wish for the slate to be wiped? Genocide means not just mass killing, to the level of extermination, but mass obliteration to the verge of extinction. You wish to have one more reflection on what it is to have been made the object of a 'clean' sweep? Try Vladimir Nabokov's microcosmic miniature story 'Signs and Symbols,' which is about angst and misery in general but also succeeds in placing it in what might be termed a starkly individual perspective. The album of the distraught family contains a faded study of Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#anonymity #born-again #clean-slate #extinction #family

It's my opinion, with some people, just knowing they are alone, living inside of their own miserable, self hating, dysfunctional mind, with their own immature, insecure, self pitying self is its own revenge. Their existence is their karma. ↗

— Colleen Truscott Fry

#dysfunctional #heartbreak #immaturity #karma #misery

Rainy, gloomy, drab, sunless day.  There are times when hope seems entirely clouded over; when looking for the blessings in your circumstances feels like trying to catch a ray of sunshine from six feet under. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#gloom #hopelessness #misery #regret #richelle

There are people who are never content, never appeased, forever dissatisfied; who continually look to what escapes them, convincing themselves that if only they could attain that one desire outside of reach, they would be happy.  It seems almost pointless to give to these people because their eyes immediately shift from the gift to stare miserably at the portion held back.  Their wants, demands, expectations, appetites are never satiated, thus, they refuse to be happy.  And you cannot make them so. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#greed #misery #richelle #richelle-goodrich #unappeasable

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence. ↗

— Aeschylus

#know #many #misery #proper #purifying