#miser

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom. ↗

— Voltaire

#life #meaning #misery #life

The next day he woke up feeling like he'd been unshackled from his fat, like he'd been washed clean from his misery, and for a long time he couldn't remember why he felt this way, and then he said her name. ↗

— Junot Díaz

#her-name #love #misery #life

A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#life #phantom #shadow #struggle #life

But then he returned and our life went on. Three days gone. A week. I measured the time in the faint waning of my consciousness of my misery, and wondered if this would one day be enough: simply not to be consciously miserable anymore. ↗

— Sue Miller

#life

Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. ↗

— George Orwell

#misery #life

Are you what is called a lucky man? Well, you are sad every day. Each day has its great grief or its little care... Hardly one day in a hundred of unbroken joy and sunshine. And you are of that small number who at lucky! As for the other men, stagnant night is upon them. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#life #lucky #misery #life

Only you could be more important than what I wanted...what I needed. What I want and what I need is to be with you, and I know I'll never be strong enough to leave again. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#misery #love

He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds. On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman's heart it was misery; in the soul of St John it was perfect blessedness. ↗

— George MacDonald

#heart #love #misery #thunder #voice

Nobody wants to be alone in misery. Cara experienced no shame in admitting that need. Not only did she not want to suffer alone, she demanded co-suffering from all who dared love her. ↗

— Christa Parravani

#suffering #love

In my own shire, if I was sad Homely comforters I had: The earth, because my heart was sore, Sorrowed for the son she bore; And standing hills, long to remain, Shared their short-lived comrade's pain. And bound for the same bourn as I, On every road I wandered by, Trod beside me, close and dear, The beautiful and death-struck year: Whether in the woodland brown I heard the beechnut rustle down, And saw the purple crocus pale Flower about the autumn dale; Or littering far the fields of May Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay, And like a skylit water stood The bluebells in the azured wood. Yonder, lightening other loads, The season range the country roads, But here in London streets I ken No such helpmates, only men; And these are not in plight to bear, If they would, another's care. They have enough as 'tis: I see In many an eye that measures me The mortal sickness of a mind Too unhappy to be kind. Undone with misery, all they can Is to hate their fellow man; And till they drop they needs must still Look at you and wish you ill. ↗

— A.E. Housman

#city #compassion #country #hate #home