Misfortunes Quotes

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls. ~ Victor Hugo

Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you. ~ Pittacus Of Mytilene

We are the directors of our own life, creating our own version of truth, which can be humorous, pleasurable, miserable, brutal, or stupid. Reconciling loss and misfortune can provide a sense of sublimity or catharsis. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it. ~ Susie Orbach

The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention. ~ Franz Schubert

It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. ~ Haruki Murakami

Somewhere I'd heard, or invented perhaps, that the only pleasures found during a waning moon are misfortunes in disguise. Superstition aside, I avoid pleasure during the waning or absent moon out of respect for the bounty this world offers me. I profit from great harvests in life and believe in the importance of seasons. ~ Roman Payne

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza. ~ Franz Kafka

It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality. ~ Susanna Kaysen

One of the advantages or disadvantages of the way in which we live in these modern days is that we are ceasing to feel. That is to say we do not permit ourselves to be affected by either death or misfortune, provided these natural calamities leave our own persons unscathed. ~ Marie Corelli

Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why so many fail to recognize opportunity. ~ Napoleon Hill

And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon have to say about the human record so far? He said, "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." The same can be said about this morning's issue of The New York Times. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Ignorance actually limits God from intervening in the misfortunes of our personal lives and that of our society. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true. ~ Honore De Balzac

Let us be of cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. ~ Amy Lowell

I have never been able to be so allured by the prospect of advantages or so terrified by misfortunes, swayed by honours or fettered by affection, nay not even so smitten by the fear of death, as to enter upon marriage. ~ Elizabeth I

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. ~ Alexander Pope

You see how people get through their misfortunes, if they have but a heart to bear up against them, and do nothing that can lie on their conscience afterwards; and how suddenly one comes to be happy, just when one is beginning to think one never is to be happy again! ... who would have thought we should ever know what it is to be happy! Yet here we are all abroad once more! All at liberty! And may run, if we will, straight forward, from one end of the earth to the other, and back again without being stopped! May fly in the sea, or swim in the sky, or tumble over head and heels into the moon! For remember, my good friends, we have no lead in our consciences to keep us down! ~ Ann Radcliffe

To be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off; for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt. SECTION ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them. ~ Washington Irving

They say: misfortunes and sufferings,' remarked Pierre, 'yes, but if right now, right this minute they asked me: "Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through this all again?" For God's sake let me again have captivity and horse flesh! We imagine that when we are thrown out of our familiar rut all is lost, but that is only when something new and good can begin. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,' he added, turning to Natasha. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Let others be afraid, but the soul is not afraid of anything. It lives according to its own laws. It is bigger than space and older than time. It gives courage against all the misfortunes of life. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON ~ Leo Tolstoy

I can go through life as a victim, blaming others for my misfortunes, and experiencing frustration over my condition. Or I can choose to be an active agent and do what I can do to bring about a positive change in my life. ~ Tal Ben-Shahar

We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen. ~ Marcus Aurelius

No man can say whether you are happy or not until you die, for no man knows misfortunes may overtake you or what misery may be yours in place of all this slendor. ~ James Baldwin

If Gladstone fell in the Thames, that would be a misfortune. But if someone fished him out again, that would be a calamity. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Turning oneself to the misfortunes of others is the best way to dispense with personal troubles. Hadn't Lord Byron himself said, "The busy have no time for tears"? ~ Martha Hall Kelly

Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life. ~ Thomas Sowell

One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others. ~ Alexander Smith

Failure in life does not matter; the greatest misfortune is standing still. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has crowned the issue with her approval. ~ Boethius

To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness. ~ Samuel Johnson

I have always lived in the present, accepted the misfortunes, made peace with the disappointments, delighted in its little blessings, found happiness in whatever the present moment has offered and sat in the shade of sadness to let the dark moments pass by. ~ Balroop Singh

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, ~ Kahlil Gibran

All my misfortunes come of having thought too well of my fellows. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

See your misfortunes as blessings. ~ Marshall Sylver

I wasn't raised to celebrate the misfortune of others. ~ Nikki Gil

The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of nothing attempted, nothing gained and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed. ~ Bill Vaughan

Men are prostrated by misfortune; women bend, but do not break, and martyr-like live on. ~ Anna Cora Mowatt

The artist, to my way of thinking, is a monstrosity, something outside nature. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic. ~ Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune? ~ William Graham Sumner

My great treasure is that I am my own master, that I am not dependent upon anyone, and that I am not afraid of misfortunes. ~ Giacomo Casanova

As a rule, I don't like to laugh at the misfortune of others. The exception to that rule is if it's really, really funny. ~ Scott Adams

Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God. ~ Victor Hugo

The twisty nature of psychic attack - are you being attacked, or did you bring this attack on yourself? - speaks to me of an American cultural paradox we all grapple with. There's the rampant litigiousness of our society, and the desire to blame others for our misfortunes. ~ Heidi Julavits

May your life be rich in blessings and poor in misfortunes. May you see your children's children grow up and make you proud. May your fights be short, your laughter loud, and your passion hot. May you live long and die happy. ~ Ilona Andrews

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day. ~ Seneca.

Gossipers derive pleasure from other people's misfortunes. It might be fun to peer into somebody else's personal or professional faux pas at first, but over time, it gets tiring, makes you feel gross, and hurts other people. ~ Travis Bradberry

Despite what you might think, NORMAL people do NOT cause problems, misfortunes, conflicts, distress or accidents. And when they do, they CAN apologize and recognize their negative influence. A person that causes these things and can't assume any responsibility for them is, apart from showing the cognitive and moral level of a child, deserving nothing more than abandonment, because she is dangerous at all levels and can hurt, or even kill, someone BY ACCIDENT, including herself and whoever is with her. A person like this DOES NOT deserve any TRUST for ANYTHING, ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. ~ Robin Sacredfire

It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude. ~ Bruce Lee

There are misfortunes one can overcome only through indifference ~ Marty Rubin

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

It is much easier to believe lies than the truth."
"Why?" asked Janna.
"Because lies are manufactured to satisfy the emotions. A mother would rather believe her pretty girl lazy than accept the fact that she's a dumb cluck. Germans would rather believe they were stabbed in the back than that they lost a fair fight. And anyone would rather blame someone else for his misfortunes. The truth is hard. Don't fool with it unless you realize that. ~ Hilda Van Stockum

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on ... He who, without friends to encourage or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

The greatest misfortune that can come to a human being is to lose his inner peace. No outer force can rob him of it. It is his own thoughts, his own actions, that rob him of it. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Each time my mother sank to the bottom of cold despair, she would always find a break in the ice above, to breathe new air, to find new purpose. She never indulged in self-pity, nor did she point the finger of blame for her misfortunes. Her heart was clear of bitterness. I believe that if a person's strength of character is measured at the end of his or her life, it is by these qualities - qualities that allow a life to be lived, free of those restraints we place upon ourselves. But that doesn't mean we should forget. ~ Gemma Liviero

Nothing is as heady as the wine of misfortune. ~ Honore De Balzac

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate. ~ Agnes Repplier

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. ~ Edward Gibbon

We are taught to believe that having deep passions is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. We live in a cultural moment that is suspicious of ardent desires and strong commitments, propagating the idea that few things in life matter, that we have outlived ideals and ethical principles, and that comprehensive cultural change is impossible. Many of us have adopted the view that because we cannot remedy the enormous inequalities of the social world, we should not even bother to try. We have resigned ourselves to the idea that in the long haul nothing we do has any real impact and that caring too much is consequently a waste of our energies. By the same token, our (postmodern and sophisticated) recognition that meaning is inherently relative at times causes us to stop looking for meaning altogether. Though we are surrounded by a multitude of objects, artifacts, cultural icons, and shimmering images, few of these items manage to affect us on a deep level. In some ways, we are increasingly reconciled to the idea that the best we can do is to avoid the more crushing disillusionments of life–that the less we invest ourselves, the more inoculated we are against the misfortunes of the world. ~ Mari Ruti

History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times. ~ Voltaire

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. ~ Henry David Thoreau

If pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the misery of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. ~ Thomas More

Lady Catherine quoting Lizzie Bennet:
She had the impudence to reply that, whilst these would be heavy misfortunes, your wife must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine. ~ Janet Aylmer

Transformation isn't a butterfly. It's the thing before you get to be a pretty bug flying away. It's huddling in the dark cocoon and then pushing your way out. It's the messy work of making sense of your fortunes and misfortunes, desires and doubts, hang-ups and sorrows, actions and accidents, mistakes and successes, so you can go on and become the person you must next become. ~ Cheryl Strayed

The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Just as Daniel Balalcazar said, it makes no sense to suffer in advance a misfortune that may never occur. ~ Isabel Allende

Falsehood is the jockey of misfortune. ~ Jean Giraudoux

Moderation: a median with no means, praised by those with no misfortunes, practiced by those with no merits. ~ Bauvard

It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it. ~ James Madison

Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes. ~ Victor Hugo

The shimmering night does not stay for mortals, not misfortunes, nor wealth, but in a moment it is gone, and to the turn of another comes joy and loss. ~ Sophocles

But misfortunes do not last forever (this they have in common with joys) but pass away or are at least diminished and become lost in oblivion. Life on the kapia always renews itself despite everything and the bridge does not change with the years or with the centuries or with the most painful turns in human affairs. All these pass over it, even as the unquiet waters pass beneath its smooth and perfect arches. ~ Ivo Andric

Our way of thinking causes us more pain than all our misfortunes. ~ Marty Rubin

There is a sort of natural instinct of human dignity in the heart of man which steels his very nerves not to bend beneath the heavy blows of a great adversity. The palm-tree grows best beneath a ponderous weight, even so the character of man. There is no merit in it, it is a law of psychology. The petty pangs of small daily cares have often bent the character of men, but great misfortunes seldom. There is less danger in this than in great good luck. ~ Lajos Kossuth

And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Wealth is an engine that can be used for power, if you are an engineer; but to be tied to the fly wheel of an engine is rather a misfortune. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it. ~ Samuel Johnson

This is an illustrious example which reminds us that good and saintly men sometimes run into the greatest of misfortunes and dangers not through their own but by someone else's fault. To the others, indeed, who are involved in the same danger no way of salvation or liberation appears, but they think that all is lost. But because there are some godly men, or only one godly man, in the same ship, the ship must reach port safe and sound, however much it has been tossed about by a heavy storm, even though a thousand devils have been fighting in opposition and causing tumult in the same ship. ~ Martin Luther

Those who have never been ill are incapable of real sympathy for a great many misfortunes ~ Andre Gide

Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh. ~ Quentin Crisp

Do whatever you want, but don't lose that child," she said. "There's no greater misfortune than dying alone. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The mayor informed General Petronio San Roman of the episode, down to the last literal phrase, in an alarming telegram. General San Roman must have followed his son's wishes to the letter, because he didn't come for him, but sent his wife with their daughters and two other older women who seemed to be her sisters. They came on a cargo boat, locked in mourning up to their necks because of Bayardo San Roman's misfortunes, and with their hair hanging loose in grief. Before stepping onto land, they took off their shoes and went barefoot through the streets up to the hilltop in the burning dust of noon, pulling out strands of hair by the roots and wailing loudly with such high-pitched shrieks that they seemed to be shouts of joy. I watched them pass from Magdalena Oliver's balcony, and I remember thinking that distress like theirs could only be put on in order to hide other, greater shames. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Man is subject to all kinds of hardships and misfortunes. ~ Chandrasekharendra Saraswati

A man endures misfortune without complaint. ~ Franz Schubert

She mock shudders the way you do when you talk about someone's misfortunes that have nothing to do with you, that don't touch you, and never will. I've never hit a woman in my life, but for one minute I want to punch her in the face, give her a taste of the pain she's so casually describing. ~ Gayle Forman

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune. ~ Laurence Sterne

How would you feel if you had no fear? Feel like that. How would you behave toward other people if you realized their powerlessness to hurt you? Behave like that. How would your react to so-called misfortune if you saw its inability to bother you? React like that. How would you think toward yourself if you knew you were really all right? Think like that. ~ Vernon Howard

Don't lament over your lost misfortunes. Move on. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The man who procrastinates is always struggling with misfortunes. ~ Hesiod

Sometimes I wonder about depression, is it the fear of life or the fear of death?"

"Depression is the fear of senses and thoughts, only the prolonged passion can beat it, be it.. passion for life, life after death, or anything else which is something.. in particular!"

"But depression is not a fear, it gives you courage to end your life or to live hopelessly."

"Ending one's life is the easiest way to end a battle. Going with the flow is not an achievement, though. But leading a life with all of its fortunes, aspirations, ambitions, defeats, losses, and misfortunes is the real courage.. Only because you are eligible to live, you are granted the grace of life… You have it, you can manage it; that's the secret people refuse to believe. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

Perverted pride is a great misfortune in men; but pride in its original function, for which God created it, is indispensable to a proper manhood. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

They say: misfortunes, sufferings...well, if someone said to me right now, this minute: do you want to remain the way you were before captivity, or live through it all over again? For God's sake, captivity again and horsemeat! Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it's only here that the new and the good begins. As long as there's life, there's happiness. There's much, much still to come. ~ Leo Tolstoy