Unnecessary Suffering Quotes

The purpose of revolution is to abolish unnecessary suffering. ~ Ted Rall

There is nothing extreme about ethical veganism.

What is extreme is eating decomposing flesh and animal secretions.

What is extreme is that we regard some animals as members of our family while, at the same time, we stick forks into the corpses of other animals.

What is extreme is thinking that it is morally acceptable to inflict suffering and death on other sentient creatures simply because we enjoy the taste of animal products or because we like the look of clothes made from animals.

What is extreme is that we say that we recognize that "unnecessary" suffering and death cannot be morally justified and then we proceed to engage in exploitation on a daily basis that is completely unnecessary.

What is extreme is pretending to embrace peace while we make violence, suffering, torture and death a daily part of our lives.

What is extreme is that we excoriate people like Michael Vick, Mary Bale and Sarah Palin as villains while we continue to eat, use, and consume animal products.

What is extreme is that we say that we care about animals and that we believe that they are members of the moral community, but we sponsor, support, encourage and promote "happy" meat/dairy labeling schemes. (see 1, 2, 3)

What is extreme is not eating flesh but continuing to consume dairy when there is absolutely no rational distinction between meat and dairy (or other animal products). There is as much suffering and d ~ Gary L. Francione

The reason for the emphasis on shamanism and on other techniques is, you will need techniques if you go into the deep water. And they can make your life very simple and save you from unnecessary suffering. Not all suffering is necessary. Maybe no suffering is necessary. ~ Terence McKenna

When the logs in the fireplace crackle merrily, the corpse of a beech or oak is going up in flames. The paper in the book you are holding in your hands right now is made from the shavings of spruce, and birches were expressly felled (that is to say, killed) for this purpose. Does that sound over the top? I don't think so. For if we keep in mind all we have learned in the previous chapters, parallels can definitely be drawn to pigs and pork. Not to put too fine a point on it, we use living things killed for our purposes. Does that make our behavior reprehensible? Not necessarily. After all, we are also part of Nature, and we are made in such a way that we can survive only with the help of organic substances from other species. We share this necessity with all other animals. The real question is whether we help ourselves only to what we need from the forest ecosystem, and-analogous to our treatment of animals-whether we spare the trees unnecessary suffering when we do this.

That means it is okay to use wood as long as trees are allowed to live in a way that is appropriate to their species. And that means that they should be allowed to fulfill their social needs, to grow in a true forest environment on undisturbed ground, and to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. And at least some of them should be allowed to grow old with dignity and finally die a natural death. ~ Peter Wohlleben

The first truth, Buddha taught his disciples, is that suffering is part of the human condition. If we simply try to avoid confronting painful experiences, there is no way to begin the healing process. In fact, this denial creates the very conditions that promote and prolong unnecessary suffering. ~ Peter A. Levine

To be a human being is to suffer. But it's the unnecessary suffering, it's the suffering that we visit upon one another, that really should be stopped. ~ Bill Ayers

Cruelty: Not only the willful causing of unnecessary suffering, but the indifference to it. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Luckily, we humans evolved not only mental habits that lead us into emotional difficulty but also faculties through which we can free ourselves from them. The same skills we have used for millennia to understand and thrive in our environment can help us understand how our minds create unnecessary suffering and how to free ourselves from it. ~ Ronald D. Siegel

There are a great many ways in which, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. ~ Bertrand Russell

There is simply too much unnecessary suffering in our world. And we should see that as a national security risk, by the way. Given enough time, desperate people will tend to do desperate things. At a certain point you won't be able to build enough prisons or enough bombs to eradicate the effects of all that violence inside so many hearts. ~ Marianne Williamson

To bear witness to all the unnecessary suffering on the planet and make ourselves available to service - whatever that means for each of us. We go deep in our personal relationships in America, but we need to go deep in our public relationships as well. ~ Marianne Williamson

No matter how many people you kill, using a machine gun in battle is not a war crime because it does not cause unnecessary suffering; it simply performs its job horrifyingly well. ~ Sebastian Junger

Life is suffering
Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated
Truth is the handmaiden of love
Dialogue is the pathway to truth
Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn
To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small
So speech must be untrammeled
So that dialogue can take place
So that we can all humbly learn
So that truth can serve love
So that suffering can be ameliorated
So that we can all stumble forward to the Kingdom of God ~ Jordan B. Peterson

The great religions are also, and tragically, sources of ceaseless and unnecessary suffering. They are impediments to the grasp of reality needed to solve most social problems in the real world. ~ Edward O. Wilson

Reducing the price of AIDS drugs gave me so much satisfaction that I've been thinking what else I could do. One day, I thought, 'Let's look at cancer and see how we can spare cancer patients' unnecessary suffering.' ~ Yusuf Hamied

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual 'magic' causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience. ~ Christopher Dines

Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes you know it. You know it as the truth. Of course it's right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger and injustice, as the social organism does. But no society can change the nature of its existence. We can't prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can only relieve social suffering - unnecessary suffering. The rest remains. The root, the reality. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The real question is whether we help ourselves only to what we need from the forest ecosystem, and - analogous to our treatment of animals - whether we spare the trees unnecessary suffering when we do this. T ~ Peter Wohlleben

Whether or not we have personality disturbances, whether or not we have the ability to overcome deficiencies of early environment, is like the answer to the question whether or not we shall be struck down by a dread disease: "it's all a matter of luck." It is important to keep this in mind, for people almost always forget it, with consequences in human intolerance and unnecessary suffering that are incalculable. ~ John Hospers

What the American public thinks is very important to the future of global health. Many people are moved by the idea that there is unnecessary suffering in the world, and we could do a lot to stop it. We have the technologies necessary to stop most of the suffering. ~ Paul Farmer

To help us bring benefit to others through our words and actions, it is useful to cultivate an attitude of sympathetic joy in others' achievements and good fortune. This attitude is a powerful antidote against envy, which is not only a source of unnecessary suffering on the individual level but also an obstacle to our ability to reach out and engage with others. ~ Dalai Lama

True love is that which manages to avoid unnecessary suffering. ~ Paulo Coelho

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

The precondition for thinking politically on a global scale is to see the unity of the unnecessary suffering taking place. * ~ John Berger

The man who sees me in everything
and everything within me
will not be lost to me, nor
will I ever be lost to him.
He who is rooted in oneness
realizes that I am
in every being; wherever
he goes, he remains in me.
When he sees all being as equal
in suffering or in joy
because they are like himself,
that man has grown perfect in yoga. ~ Anonymous

And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection. ~ Hermann Hesse

Her brothers assured her that as much as they wished to demonstrate the appropriate acts of worship, they were currently suffering from very painful knee ailments caused by chasing their troublesome sister around the countryside, so would she mind very much if, instead of genuflecting, they just cussed each time she entered a room and cheered every time she exited? ~ Jane Carter Barrett

And I could not see them, not from this height, but I knew they were out there, hundreds of Persons Bound to Labor too small to be seen, lost in among the long white lines of cotton. For a second or two I stared out into those distant fields, stared at the fact that when this was over, once I talked to that driver and he pointed me to the next place I had to go, I would walk out of here, and those people I could not seen but knew to be suffering, they all would be here forever. What do you do with that fact? Do you hold it like a stone in your hand? Pitch it away from this great height and watch it fall? Do you swallow it and feel it in your throat till the day you die? ~ Ben H. Winters

I told you stories to give you wings, Raami, so that you would never be trapped by anything-your name, your title, the limits of your body, this world's suffering ~ Vaddey Ratner

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's. ~ Liz Smith

I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves in it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be. ~ Wendell Berry

No writer ever puts into words which he or she thinks is unnecessary; learning how to discover that some are is one of the chief challenges in learning to write. ~ Anne E. Berthoff

To complete your daily mental hygiene, observe any part of you that is upset or anxious, and offer that part of yourself the following simple wishes: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' Repeat this until you actually mean it. ~ Martha Beck

I came to recognise that, apart from her [Françoise's] own kinsfolk, the sufferings of humanity inspired in her a pity which increased in direct ratio to the distance separating the sufferers from herself. ~ Marcel Proust

I am not a pessimist. I suffer and I complain, but I don't know if suffering is the general rule or if it is human to suffer... I am not a pessimist, I am merely sad. ~ Fernando Pessoa

From suffering that has been/ Decreed no man will ever find escape ~ Sophocles

The received image of a writer is that of an unproductive sensitive who suffers from the vapors, is enslaved by his gonads, falls victim to romantic swoons and passes out at deadlines. ~ George V. Higgins

There were so many times that the sorrow and agony of a particular moment was punctuated by something intensely wonderful and beautiful. Laughter was always sweeter through tears, and joy was more potent when born out of suffering. ~ Laura Sobiech

There are certain pictures I can never take. We turn on the TV and are smothered with cruelty and suffering and I don't need to add to it. So I just photograph peaceful things. A vase of flowers, a beautiful girl. Sometimes, through a peaceful face, I can bring something important into the world. ~ Edouard Boubat

As I took up life as a minister, I tried to understand why so many people resisted and rejected God, I soon realized that perhaps that main reason was affliction and suffering. ~ Timothy Keller

This isn't animal experimentation, where you an imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our sense, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other sense? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person has as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it? ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

For many of us, especially being so fortunate to live in a first-world country, the vast majority of pain we experience is due to the seriousness with which we identify with our thoughts. ~ Chris Matakas

To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism ... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will ... ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The country is suffering from musical-chairs syndrome. We all dance around for a bit and then when we try to sit down again, somebody doesn't have a chair. We're running scared; we want ours. ~ Cynthia Heimel

Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul. ~ John Flavel

There are too many coming from different countries. When we started, foreign players were in the minority. All the best players from Spain, France, Brazil, Argentina are going to England. And Ireland is bound to suffer. ~ Kevin Kilbane

Suffering begins when you mentally label a situation as bad. That causes an emotional contraction. When you let it be, without naming it, enormous power is available to you. The contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of life itself. ~ Eckhart Tolle

It is my plan to create a city that is direct and simple ... To leave out all that is ugly, to eliminate the unnecessary, and to give Florida and the nation a resort city as perfect as study and ideals can make it. ~ Addison Mizner

They didn't realize that if you take away the possibility of pain, and suffering, failure…you also take away the possibility of happiness, success, and joy." -The Old Man: DOMINATUS ~ D.W. Ulsterman

Like books, the Internet has saved my life. It helped me recognize that so many people I adore suffer from the same things I do. ~ Jenny Lawson

Make a little bouquet of the sufferings of Jesus and carry them in the bosom of the soul. ~ Paul Of The Cross

When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for them is there. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Life is an enduring faith. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

[Men] suffer, of course... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? ... But what about me [Satan]? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Love

You asked if love makes one happy.
His promise's yes, be it for a day.
Ah, who wouldn't want to live one day for love
Then die? For life does live in love.

As lover full of gentleness and fear,
With his fires I painted his suffering,
On his portrait I shed so many tears
That his image became much less charming.

If smile, that unexpected gleam,
Broke out sometimes amidst my tears,
It was love, unarmed, it was him,
And heaven with him disappears.

Deprived of love, the heart's icy.
Yet he burns all, and poisons all.
He sure knows how to rend a soul.
Ask him if he makes one happy!

You'll know, whatever may occur,
That love will win by force or grace;
And in the slow-healing fever he made
You will suffer and make others suffer.

Once found, his absence is torture,
And when he's back, one shakes every hour.
Often it's death that lives in love.
And yet, love does make one happy. ~ Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple. ~ Edward De Bono

Freud put it beautifully: the aim of psychoanalysis is to help the patient let go of the delusional suffering of his neuroses and experience the misery of actual reality. ~ Tim Farrington

But I have no idea what I did last night as - as that creature." Her voice shook. Abby was sure she was suffering a nervous breakdown. They would haul her to the insane asylum and wrap her in a nice white jacket then throw her in one of those pillow rooms - until they decided to strap her to a chair and make her sizzle as if she were a bug in a zapper. Oh my God. ~ Bonnie Gill

I am aware of the sufferings of women in India, which is also the suffering of women in many, many countries on our planet. My heart is filled with empathy and love for them. ~ Yoko Ono

I thought about the terrible uselessness of suffering. Love leaves behind its creation-the next generation coming into the world; the continuation of humanity. But suffering? Such a great part of human experience, the most difficult and painful, passes leaving no trace. If one were to collect the energy of suffering emitted by the millions of people here [Magadan, Russia] and transform it into the power of creation, one could turn our planet into a flowering garden. But what would remain?
Rusty carcasses of ships, rotting watchtowers, deep holes which some kind of ore was once extracted. A dismal, lifeless emptiness. Not a soul anywhere, for the exhausted columns have already passed and vanished in the cold eternal fog. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

On the floors above Delivery, in flowerless rooms, women lay recovering from hysterectomies and mastectomies. Teenage girls with burst ovarian cysts nodded out on morphine. It was all around me from the beginning, the weight of female suffering, with its biblical justification and vanishing acts. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

For those who have learned what suffering is early on, you have prepared ahead of the pack so that you can take care of the pack. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

2.3.06.02.087: Unnecessary sharpening of pencils constitutes a waste of public resources, and will be punished as appropriate. ~ Jasper Fforde

And with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all. ~ Anton Chekhov

It is a sign of the frailty of contemporary Christianity, rather than its strength, that we often do not begin to question until the megaphone of suffering has awakened us from our sleep. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality. ~ Plato