#misery

I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. ↗

— Martha Washington

#depends #dispositions #experience #greater #happiness

The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die. ↗

— Michel Houellebecq

#death #inspirational #life #misery #death

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#artist #miserable #misery #write #writer

To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings. ↗

— Zhang Yimou

#art #deep #meanings #misery #one thing

I cut an inch off of every straw I see, just to make the world suck a little less.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#change #chivalrous #hope #miserable #misery

Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#depression #hardship #misery #change

Should the king in exile pretend he is happy there? Should he not seek his own country? His miseries are his ally; they urge him on. Let them grow, if need be. But do not forsake the secret of life; do not despise those kingly desires. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent self – it’s not worth it. ↗

— John Eldredge

#hope #misery #trouble #dreams

He is wretched indeed, who goes up and down in the world, without a God to take care of him, to be his guide and protector, and to bless him in his affairs [. . .] That unconverted men are without God shows that they are liable to all manner of evil [. . .] liable to the power of the devil, to the power of all manner of temptation [. . .] to be deceived and seduced into erroneous opinions [. . .] to embrace damnable doctrines [. . .] to be given up of God to judicial hardness of heart [. . .] to commit all manner of sin, and even the unpardonable sin itself. They cannot be sure they shall not commit that sin. They are liable to build up a false hope of heaven, and so to go hoping to hell [. . .] to die senseless and stupid, as many have died [. . .] to die in such a case as Saul and Judas did, fearless of hell. They have no security from it. They are liable to all manner of mischief, since they are without God. They cannot tell what shall befall them, nor when they are secure from anything. They are not safe one moment. Ten thousand fatal mischiefs may befall them, that may make them miserable forever. They, who have God for their God, are safe from all such evils. It is not possible that they should befall them. God is their covenant God, and they have his faithful promise to be their refuge. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#peril #the-unconverted #faith

And then, a strangely comforting thought trickled through me—I had nothing, so I could do anything now. Anything I wanted. I had nothing left to lose. ↗

— Rachel Ward

#end #freedom #life #misery #nothing

An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kunti, such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them. ↗

— Bhagavad Gita

#happiness #intelligence #misery #intelligence