#misery

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#extreme #hopes #misery

If there's one thing I've discovered, it's that stifling yourself will only lead to more misery. [...] I polluted all other happiness because I was afraid to let myself create and change. You have to have courage. Real courage to explore, to fail, and to pick yourself back up again. ↗

— Siobhan Vivian

#creativity #misery #change

He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#misery #obsession #romance #love

You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history. ↗

— Albert Camus

#happiness #history #misery #death

Love is responsible for nearly every kind of insanity in the world though greed, vanity, and pure meanness contribute their portion to general misery. ↗

— P.N. Elrod

#insanity #life #love #meanness #misery

I have a dream my life would be. So different from this hell I'm living. So different now from what it seem. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." *Fantine ↗

— Victor Hugo

#life #misery #musical #dreams

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"] ↗

— William Matthews

#poetry #teenagers #experience

The misery of other people is only an abstraction [...] something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#experiences #loneliness #misery #experience

Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance (about eight hundred and fifty to one) that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping, and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be. ↗

— T.H. White

#faith #happiness #hope #life #love

Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#freedom #misery #obstacle #freedom