c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
We say we want revival . . . but on our terms. We don’t pray this way, but this is what our hearts are saying to God: “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you promise in advance to do things the way we have always done them in our church.” “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if I have some sort of prior guarantee that when you show up you won’t embarrass me.” “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if your work of revival is one that I can still control, one that preserves intact the traditions with which I am comfortable.” “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if your work of revival is neat and tidy and dignified and understandable and above all else socially acceptable.” “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you plan to change others; only if you make them to be like me; only if you convict their hearts so they will live and dress and talk like I do.” “Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you let us preserve our distinctives and retain our differences from others whom we find offensive.
— Sam Storms, Practicing the Power
...we must be careful to avoid the error of reductionism, as if the whole of the Spirit’s ministry can be reduced to Christology, as if the Spirit does nothing but glorify Christ. It’s the mistake of arguing that the primary purpose of the Spirit’s coming is the sole purpose of his coming. The principal aim of the Spirit in what he does is to awaken us to the glory, splendor, and centrality of the work of Christ Jesus. But this does not mean that it is less than the Spirit at work when he awakens us also to his own glory and power and abiding presence.
— Sam Storms, Practicing the Power
The Holy Spirit does not intervene a posteriori within the framework of Christology, as a help in overcoming the distance between an objectively existing Christ and ourselves; he is the one who gives birth to Christ and to the whole activity of salvation, by anointing Him and making him Χριστὸς (Luke 4.13). If it is truly possible to confess Christ as the truth, this is only because of the Holy Spirit (I For. 12.3). And as a careful study of I Cor. 12 shows, for St. Paul the body of Christ is literally composed of the charismata of the Spirit (charisma = membership of the body). So we can say without risk of exaggeration that Christ exists only pneumatologically, whether in His distinct personal particularity or in His capacity as the body of the Church and the recapitulation of all things.
— John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church
It is a good rule of thumb for spiritual directors to ask themselves, What truly constitutes our spiritual concern here? Am I really being attentive to the Lord in this? What things are getting in the way of our simple, humble intention towards the working of the Holy Spirit in this person's life? All human experience can be said to be spiritual in the largest sense, but spiritual direction should deal primarily with those qualities that seem most clearly and specifically spiritual, those that reveal the presence or leadings of God, or evidence of grace, working most directly in a person's life. This becomes increasingly important as spiritual direction progresses over time with any given individual. In the course of spiritual maturation, concern with superficial psychological experience must give way to a much more basic concern for the discernment of good and evil.
— Gerald G. May, Care of Mind/Care of Spirit: A Psychiatrist Explores Spirtual Direction
As we mature in faith, our willingness is tested, expanded, and refined. We become more conscious of our limitations and turn to God. The necessity of God's grace becomes clearer as we become more attuned and accurate in our recognition of our dependence on God and less sure of anything that causes us to describe ourselves self-righteously. At times, when confronted by the less-than-ideal behavior of others, we may recognize that we are capable of similar actions and give thankds to God for helping us avoid unwelcome pitfalls. Scripture instructs us to be holy as God is holy, yet we increasingly realize the impossibility of holy behavior unless it is brought about by the Spirit's empowerment and our willing responsiveness and cooperation. Many people use spiritual direction as a window through which to notice and attend to their own expectations of willingness and willfulness.
— Jeannette A. Bakke, Holy Invitations: Exploring Spiritual Direction
...if a person remains in a state of unforgiveness the Spirit of the Lord will allow tormentors to enter him. That's what Christ told Peter when the disciple asked, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" (Matt. 18:21).
— Benny Hinn, Good Morning, Holy Spirit
If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself. That's why God cannot fill you with His Spirit. But if you will empty yourself, if you will die to self, you'll be a different person by the time you reach the last page of this book.
— Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life
[The Holy Spirit] is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is portioned out impassably and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to the one who enjoys him as if he were present to such a one alone, and still he illuminates land and sea and is mixed with the air. Just so, indeed, the Spirit is present to each one who is fit to receive him, as if he were present to him alone, and still he sends out his grace that is complete and sufficient for all. The things that participate in him enjoy him to the extent that their nature allows, not to the extent that his power allows.
— Basil the Great
Neither the Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple, Mount Gerizim, nor Jerusalem itself replace the existential awareness of God within the soul. Likewise, the ornate sanctuaries of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, neither Westminster Abbey in London, nor Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York contain the Holy Spirit without the faith of their congregants.
— James Mikołajczyk, Jesus the Jew, Christ the King: Exploring the Hypostatic Union Between the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith
God begins the process of perfecting us from the moment we are converted from unbelief to faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit regenerates us. He give us a new heart with a new set of holy desires (Ezek. 36:26). He transforms our stubborn wills. He opens our hearts to embrace the truth rather than reject it. He enables us to believe rather than doubt. He gives us a hunger for righteousness an a desire for Him. And thus the new birth transforms the inner person. From that point on, everything that occurs in our lives - good or bad - God uses to move us toward being like Christ (Rom. 8:28-30).
— John MacArthur, Jr.
Put your hand inside the hat, search with your fingers. He is the light wrapped inside the darkness. That’s the wonder of Rabbit. We think he’s not in the hat. But he is.
— Mark Andrew Poe
We cannot effectively pursue holiness without the Word of God stored up in our minds where it can be used by the Holy Spirit to transform us. Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, 180
— Jerry Bridges
Are you destitute for the Fire of God? Nothing else matters! Possess ye God's Fire! All else is void!
— Pazaria Smith
God shines! God is light! God is life! God is good! God is kind! God is love! I will take time to be Holy because He is Holy. I will be still and know that He is God. I will rest in the light of God. God is faithful
—  He cannot lie. His Holy Spirit lives in my heart.
Are you full of the Holy Spirit? Then you will be full of mercy, kindness and love.
— Greg  Gordon
Our success depends on the Holy Spirit, who lives and acts through us.
— Sunday Adelaja
The one surefire key to victory as a Christian in this fallen world is to be filled with the Holy Spirit—that is, to be completely submitted to and empowered by him.
— Pedro Okoro, The Ultimate Guide to Spiritual Warfare: Learn to Fight from Victory, Not for Victory!
Christianity through the operation of the Holy Spirit affirms unity as well as variety (diversity) in the Body of Christ.
— Sunday Adelaja
The main duty of ministers is to be obedient to God, following the Holy Spirit to obey everything that He instructs them to do.
— Sunday Adelaja
Unless you are led and directed by the Holy Spirit, you will never be truely successful in your ministry.
— Sunday Adelaja
To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable.
— Pope Francis, Encountering Truth: Meeting God in the Everyday
When spirituality becomes spiritualization, life in the body becomes carnality. When ministers and priests live their ministry mostly in their heads and relate to the Gospel as a set of valuable ideas to be announced, the body quickly takes revenge by screaming loudly for affection and intimacy. Christian leaders are called to live the Incarnation, that is, to live in the body, not only in their own bodies but also in the corporate body of the community, and to discover there the presence of the Holy Spirit.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
Did you know we carry perfume around?It’s a special fragrance that cannot be bought at any store.It is more precious than any fragrance ever.We carry the fragrance of Christ wherever we go.The Holy Spirit has it’s own distinct scent.We are God’s Special Bottle of Perfume.And both believers and unbelievers can ‘smell’ it!
— Diana Rasmussen of Prayers and Promises
A platform without the Holy Spirit is like land without a spring. If we gain our Promise Land without Living Water, it will become desolate.
— Alisa Hope Wagner
The Holy Spirit is the most influential mentor in your life. He is always willing to teach and guide you in all Truth.
— Alisa Hope Wagner
Flowing from this union, source of a plenitude of joy, the love of the couple reveals itself through the daily acceptance of the limits and faults of each other and in mutual openness. It is this acceptance in and through gentleness, kindness, forgiveness, confidence and the desire to see shining in the other the warm light of the Spirit of God that becomes the great sign of the merciful love of God for man and His incessant forgiveness.
— Jean Vanier, Eruption to Hope
The manifestation of miracles without the maturity of saints through the teaching of God's word is a sign of deception but where there is the constant teaching of the truth of God's word the move of God's Spirit will never be lacking.
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
I am convinced that in the present time, in spite of the difficulties man has to meet another in a state of oblation, communion and gift of self, there are latent hidden forces in him which can be awakened in order to enable him to discover and live this reality of love and fidelity. In order to really penetrate into this mystery of the union of the couple, it is essential that each one acquire an interior maturity, a maturity that is perhaps rare. I would add that in order to be truly united and to remain truly faithful to one another, the couple must listen and be open to the Spirit of God who has reserved for Himself the science of the heart. The heart of man is satisfied only by the Infinite and to discover this Infinite in union he must open himself to the Spirit of God, a spirit of giving, of receiving. The union between the two spouses can thus deepen to such an extent that they enter in a mystical manner into the very life of God Himself.
— Jean Vanier, Eruption to Hope
Faith in Christ leaped from person to person like some divine epidemic, not of disease but of spiritual health.
— John Charles Pollock, The Apostle: The Life of Paul
a burning light(light having oil) will burn to a glowing light which will grow into a shining light to become an illuminator
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Unlocking Closed Doors
The author nicely encapsulates Paul's overarching intent in his letter to Corinth, to impress upon those in the church infatuated with the gifts of the Spirit a greater awestruck awareness of His presence in and among them. The author then illustrates thusly: if we have but a few coins, we may carry them lightly with little concern as to whether we lose them. But if we are aware that we carry a great sum, we will carry it with great care. How much more the Treasure of the Holy Spirit within the earthen vessel of our bodies?
— Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life
We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled; and are carried upwards; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go; because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem: for gladdened was I in those who said unto me, We will go up to the house of the Lord. There hath Thy good pleasure placed us, that we may desire nothing else, but to abide there for ever.
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
It’s hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.
— Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
You need the Spirit of the Lord to come mightily upon you. When He is in charge, your troubles are in trouble.
— Theophilus Ajadi, The Influence of the Holy Spirit on your Destiny
You can spend all your life looking for things. The truth is that those things will elude you. Change your approach. Begin to seek God and you will see things running after you.
— Theophilus Ajadi, The Influence of the Holy Spirit on your Destiny
In the deepest sense, the Bible is not meant to be interpreted, but rather revealed!
— Eli Of Kittim, The Little Book of Revelation: The First Coming of Jesus at the End of Days
I want you to lock an image of these falls into your mind. I want you to consider it every time you press into the Spirit.'Reece stooped and picked up a leaf lying on the platform, held it up, and pointed to a drop of dew that hung from the end. 'This is the amount of water most people who follow Jesus tap into. But that'--Reece pointed at the falls--'is the kind of power available when we fully tap into the Spirit.
— James L. Rubart, Soul's Gate
The Holy Spirit is like the wind. It can be gentle enough to stroke a leaf but hard enough to bend a tree. God provides us rest, but He'll also bring us an inch away from our breaking point. Both are done in love.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
I pray that the Holy Spirit puts His Words in my mouth, His movement in my heart and His direction in my path.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
Peace comes by knowing you’re dearly loved by the Lord, Who gives to His children the Holy Spirit to dwell within, to make their witness strong, so that one day they will be as a tree, fruitful and blessed with the wisdom of the forest.
— Calvin W. Allison, A Sunset Rising
Hook your audience with a tiny snag of truth, and the Holy Spirit will unravel the rest.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.
— Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People
We must be careful to let the Holy Spirit do this searching. If we try to search our own hearts, we are apt to fall into one or both of two traps. The first is the trap of morbid introspection. Introspection can easily become the tool of Satan, who is called the "accuser" (Revelation 12:10). One of his chief weapons is discouragement. He knows that if he can make us discouraged and dispirited, we will not fight the battle for holiness. The second trap is that of missing the real issues in our lives.
— Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness
God can accomplish more through one message in the fulness of the Spirit than through hundreds given in the energy of the flesh.
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being sense its kinship to God and leaps us in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God.
— A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
The three representative men of the Bible, the natural, the carnal, and the spiritual - Which are you? Are you living in Egypt, the world and home of the natural man, or in the wilderness, the abode of the carnal? ... Are you already through the wilderness, and dwelling in Canaan, the land of the spiritual?
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
The fulness of the Spirit is not a question of our getting more of the Holy Spirit, but rather of the Holy Spirit getting more of us.
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
The word "Christian" means 'like Christ'! We are to reflect His beauty, do His deeds, think His thoughts, and speak His words. This is what it means to become conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Do we really understand to what we are committing ourselves when we sing the song 'To be like Jesus...All I ask, to be like Him'? Actually, we are asking for everything that Jesus is: His character, His work, His mind, His word, His beauty, power, wisdom, and will. This is a big order, but it is our destiny! This is what life is all about. To miss this is to miss everything. To gain this is to possess the answer to life's biggest question. Christ is the answer! God planned it so. The will of God the Father for you centers in His Son!
— Robert C. Frost, Aglow with the Spirit
Oh come, ‘though you have broken your promises a hundred times…Come home, stranger and alien, come home to me….Come home, space traveler, lover of leaving for I am here...
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, The Address Of Happiness
And they continued steadfastly (Acts 2:42) - That is to say, they did not backslide. The real reason there are so many backsliders is because there are so many who have never had a forward slide to Jesus Christ.
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women (Acts 5:14)- So not only was there Holy Ghost boldness and Holy Ghost power and Holy Ghost conviction, but also Holy Ghost conversions.
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
In attitude, faith is "restful", but in action, it is "powerful". Praying in tongues has both a restful and powerful effect upon our lives because it is an active expression of our faith.
— Robert C. Frost, Aglow With The Spirit
Power in Service - The carnal man can never be used in spiritual service. There is so much of the self life about him that God cannot gain control. The Spirit-filled life is necessary for fruitful Christian service.
— Oswald J. Smith, The Enduement Of Power: Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
The Music blows wherever Music pleases, you hear it’s sound, but you cannot tell where the Music comes from or where the Music is going.
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, The Address Of Happiness
While the Holy Spirit is hidden, He is never, ever absent
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, Breakfast in the temple
Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death.
— Karl Marlantes, What It is Like to Go to War
I want to live so that I am truly submitted to the Spirit's leading on a daily basis. Christ said its better for us that the Spirit came and I want to live like that is true. I don't want to keep crawling when I have the ability to fly.
— Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit
The Spirit and theWord must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusionsalso. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.
— Answers To Prayer
If Thou canst do something with us and through us, then please, God, do something without us! Bypass us and take up a people who now know Thee not!
— Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries: A Classic on Revival
Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts
— J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.
— Ignatius of Loyola
I was all the time tugging and carrying water. But now I have a river that carries me.
— Dwight L. Moody
These are people who accept the fire of the Holy Spirit,' he said, 'the fire that is left behind but that is used by so few people to light their candles.
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
The touchstone of the Holy Spirit’s work in us is the answer to our Lord’s question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” Our Lord makes human destiny depend on that one thing, Who men say He is, because the revelation of Who Jesus is is only given by the Holy Spirit.
— Oswald Chambers, Bringing Sons Into Glory and Making All Things New
If you will have patience in difficulties you know the Holy Spirit is within you, if you will also have the strength to be thankful in troubles than is when the Holy Spirit shines through you.
— Arsenie Boca
The Theology of The Holy Trinity has been well established for 1700 years. In my opinion, it is hyper-evident by the New Testament manuscripts in conjunction with the writings and ensuing Theologies of The Early & Later Church fathers that The Father,The Son, and The Holy Spirit are Objectively Real and True".~R. Alan Woods [2012]
— R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is the Destination: A Book of Quotes With Commentaries
And, yes we are much like kites when the image is one of spirituality and the winds of the Holy Spirit shaping, directing, instructing, and otherwise affecting our lives."~R. Alan Woods [2012]
— R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is the Destination: A Book of Quotes With Commentaries
It is easy to use the phrase 'God's will for my life' as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. ... My hope is that instead of searching for 'God's will for my life' each of us would learn to seek hard after 'the Spirit's leading in my life today.' May we learn to pray for an open and willing heart, to surrender to the Spirit's leading with that friend, child, spouse, circumstance, or decision in our lives right now.
— Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit
This is the tragedy and woe of the hour--that we neglect the most important One who could possibly be in our midst--the Holy Spirit of God. Then, in order to make up for His absence, we have to do something to keep up our own spirits.
— A.W. Tozer, Tozer Pulpit
It is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.
— Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
And now I'm right back where I started. Sober and miserable.
— Alyson Noel, Evermore
People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.
— Franz Kafka, Diaries of Franz Kafka
And then there are always clever people about to promise you that everything will be all right if only you put yourself out a bit... And you get carried away, you suffer so much from the things that exist that you ask for what can't ever exist. Now look at me, I was well away dreaming like a fool and seeing visions of a nice friendly life on good terms with everybody, and off I went, up into the clouds. And when you fall back into the mud it hurts a lot. No! None of it was true, none of those things we thought we could see existed at all. All that was really there was still more misery-- oh yes! as much of that as you like-- and bullets into the bargain!
— Émile Zola
Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.
— Emil M. Cioran, All Gall Is Divided: Aphorisms
I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world.
— Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores
But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
When you share your misery, it will not diminish. When you fail to share your joy, it diminishes. Share your problems only with the Divine, not with anyone else, as that will only increase the problems. Share your joy with everyone.Listen to others; yet do not listen. If your mind gets stuck in their problems, not only are they miserable, but you also become miserable.
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000
There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.
— Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.
— Charles Bukowski, South of No North
You are young, and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
When we our betters see bearing our woes,We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
— William Shakespeare, King Lear
She would be one of those who kneel to their own shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down on their hands till their hands grow into feet; then lay their faces on the ground till they grow into snouts; when at last they are a hideous sort of lizards, each of which believes himself the best, wisest, and loveliest being in the world, yea, the very centre of the universe. And so they run about for ever looking for their own shadows that they may worship them, and miserable because they cannot find them, being themselves too near the ground to have any shadows; and what becomes of them at last, there is but one who knows.
— George MacDonald, The Wise Woman and Other Stories
Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.
— Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape & Embers
As I railed on and on, I became increasingly energied and excited by my own misery and misanthropy until I reached a kind of orgasm of negativity.'... The Brits don't merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.
— Eric    Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
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, The Works of Jonathan Edwards
A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.
— Joseph Addison
Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of all colors. I suppose life must be one or the other. On the whole, though, I think I would prefer color to its absence. But then black does add depth and texture to color. Perhaps certain shades of gray are necessary to a complete palette. Even unrelieved black. Ah, a deep philosophical question. Is black necessary to life, even a happy life? Could we ever be happy if we did not at least occasionally experience misery?
— Mary Balogh, Then Comes Seduction
I never realized that life could be as difficult for a beautiful woman as it is for a plain one,” he said.“Life can be difficult for everyone,” she replied.“Misery makes no distinction between prince and pauper.
— Patricia Grasso, To Love a Princess
Misery loved company, but damnation needed it.
— John Connolly, The Wolf in Winter
Understand this first and foremost that you are the center of your existence; nobody else is responsible. No matter how burdensome it feels, but you alone are responsible. If you accept this truth all sorrow will soon disappear. Because once it is clear that I am making this game, how long will it take you to destroy it?
— Osho, Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
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, While I Was Gone
The most baffling about the human psyche is that even after seeing the misery and suffering all around. He is convinced that these would befall only to others and not on to him.
— Gian Kumar
When Annie's treatin, you best be eatin.
— Stephen King
From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.
— Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
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
Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.
— George Orwell, Animal Farm
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, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Man cannot cherish his existence any longer than life holds out charms to him: when he is wrought upon by painful sensations, or drawn by contrary impulsions, his natural tendency is deranged; he is under the necessity to follow a new route; this conducts him to his end, which it even displays to him as the most desirable good.
— Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach
With certainty, I can predict that there will never be a cure to cancer. The only hope for any of us is to concentrate on cause and prevent the misery.
— Richard Diaz
A face on him as long as a hare's back leg.
— Myles na gCopaleen
It was never for you, Annie, or all the other people out there who sign their letters “Your number-one fan.” The minute you start to write all those people are at the other end of the galaxy, or something. It was never for my ex-wives, or my mother, or for my father. The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book, Annie, is because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end.
— Stephen King
Maybe misery begins everywhere.
— Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing
If you try to convert someone, it will never be toeffect his salvation but to make him suffer like yourself,to be sure he is exposed to the same ordeals andendures them with the same impatience. You keepwatch, you pray, you agonize-provided he does too,sighing, groaning, beset by the same tortures that areracking you. Intolerance is the work of ravaged soulswhose faith comes down to a more or less deliberatetorment they would like to see generalized, instituted.The happiness of others never having been a motiveor principle of action, it is invoked only to appeaseconscience or to parade noble excuses: whenever wedetermine upon an action, the impulse leading to itand forcing us to complete it is almost always inadmissible.No one saves anyone; for we save only ourselves,and do so all the better if we disguise asconvictions the misery we want to share, to lavish onothers. However glamorous its appearances, proselytismnonetheless derives from a suspect generosity,worse in its effects than a patent aggression. No oneis willing to endure alone the discipline he may evenhave assented to, nor the yoke he has shouldered.Vindication reverberates beneath the missionary'sbonhomie, the apostle's joy. We convert not to liberatebut to enchain.Once someone is shackled by a certainty, he enviesyour vague opinions, your resistance to dogmas orslogans, your blissful incapacity to commit yourself.
— Emil M. Cioran, The Fall into Time
I'm awful at hiding it when I'm miserable. Sometimes I think if I were better at it maybe I'd be able to fool myself. Trick the misery right out of me.
— Kara Lee Corthron, The Truth of Right Now
I looked around the barroom. Someone else might have seen nothing more than a random crowd of drinkers, but I saw my people. Kith and kin. Every sort of person was there – stockbrokers and safecrackers, athletes and invalids, mothers and supermodels – but we were as one. We’d all been hurt by something, or somebody, and so we’d all come to Publicans, because misery loves company, but what it really craves is a crowd.
— J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar
Misery suffered did not justify misery to come.
— Stephen King, Wizard and Glass
To Operate In Misery Is To Disregard The Original Intention Of God
— Sunday Adelaja
My daughter showed us the key: misery gives way to fun when you take an object, event, situation, or scenario that wasn't designed for you, that isn't invested in you, that isn't concerned in the slightest for your experience of it, and then treat it as if it were. ...this is what play means.
— Ian Bogost, Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games
I will forgive, but I will never trust again the person whom I considered a friend but unexpectedly push me down to misery.
— Bradley B. Dalina
If Iona's heart were to burst and his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world, it seems, but yet it is not seen. It has found a hiding-place in such an insignificant shell that one would not have found it with a candle by daylight....
— Anton Chekhov, Misery
Alecto… what do you think would happen if people found out about you? Your abilities, your life, Mearth’s super 8 films, those powers of yours… how would they react?”“I don’t know,” said Alecto, “but ordinary people like a show, especially when it’s a disturbing one. They enjoy seeing misery… probably because it allows them to pretend that they themselves are not so miserable, too. Also, they would probably find out about you, how you know about Personifications, how you saw the films… they would put us in cages and throw peanuts at us, I guess.”“All joking aside, Alecto.…”“Who is joking, Mandy Valems?
— Rebecca McNutt, Mandy and Alecto: The Collected Smog City Book Series
After all, life is never so jolly or so miserable as people seem to think.
— Guy de Maupassant, Une vie
He started to draw. He drew from memory. He had a good memory, something which, all things considered, was far from a blessing.The pencils moved quickly across the paper, scratching back and forth in deepening shades of grey. He leaned low over the paper, concentrating all his energy on his work. The candles flickered and dripped wax, having nothing better to do.Eventually he lifted his head and looked at his creation. The face of a young woman stared back at him from the paper, a slight smile playing on her lips. She looked as if she was about to say something, and that once she had you would laugh. She looked happy.Seven stared at the picture, his strange eyes unreadable – eyes that, now he made no effort to mask them, were from edge to edge only the deep blue of the dead ocean. He swallowed hard, as if he was trying to imbibe something foul tasting but necessary, like a child sipping medicine, and pulled another sheet of paper from his desk.
— F.D.  Lee, The Fairy's Tale
The leading lady had a large and saving sense of humor. But there is nothing that blunts the sense of humor more quickly than a few months of one-night stands. Even O. Henry could have seen nothing funny about that room.
— Edna Ferber
... 'Many waters cannot quench love' was said of divine, not human, love, which the Dean knew was not always tough enough to survive the indifference of misery. That was one of the chief reasons why he struggled to do away with misery.
— Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch
...the pleasure of finally making a clean break into misery after always dangling above it's canyon...
— Liz Moore
He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words.
— Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations of misery.
— Aldous Huxley
All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.
— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein
Against Self-PityIt gets you nowhere but deeper intoyour own shit--pure misery a luxuryone never learns to enjoy.
— Rita Dove, On the Bus With Rosa Parks
There is something deeply attractive, at least to quite a lot of people, about squalor, misery, and vice. They are regarded as more authentic, and certainly more exciting, than cleanliness, happiness, and virtue.
— Theodore Dalrymple
You shall not leave me in that temper.I should be miserable all night, and I won’t be miserable for you!
— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
We see her go through dangerous mood-swings, but I tried never to come right out and say "Annie was depressed and possibly suicidal that day" or "Annie seemed particularly happy that day."If I have to tell you, I lose. If, on the other hand, I can show you a silent, dirty-haired woman who compulsively gobbles cake and candy, then have you draw the conclusion that Annie is in the depressive part of a manic-depressive cycle, I win.
— Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
We are in misery because we are creatures of self - the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no light, that is blind to the infinite. Our self is loud with its own discordant clamour - it is not the tuned harp whose chords vibrate with the music of the eternal. Sighs of discontent and weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been manifest within us. Hence our cry.
— Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana
She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course between the beginning of a passion and its end.
— Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native
When I left, they were stuck with the burden of finding someone else to blame for their life... Pointing their anger everywhere, but never looking in the mirror... Continuing the cycle that led to their misery.
— Steve Maraboli
War, misery, and death spared no soul, and took pity on no family.
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Born of Betrayal
He was pinched perspinngly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope.
— Joseph Heller
Men in the vehement pursuit of happiness grasp at the first object which offers to them any prospect of satisfaction, but immediately they turn an introspective eye and ask, ‘Am I happy?’ and at once from their innermost being a voice answers distinctly, ‘No, you are as poor and as miserable as before.' Then they think it was the object that deceived them and turn precipitately to another. But the second holds as little satisfaction as the first…Wandering then through life restless and tormented, at each successive station they think that happiness dwells at the next, but when they reach it happiness is no longer there. In whatever position they may find themselves there is always another one which they discern from afar, and which but to touch, they think, is to find the wished delight, but when the goal is reached discontent has followed on the way stands in haunting constancy before them.
— Johann Gottlieb Fichte
You're like a man who loves nothing better than a thick steak but wouldn't last an hour in a slaughterhouse.
— Stephen King
Once you are miserable you are miserable there's no getting out of misery even if you'll be succeeded to get out of it,once again it will hunt you down and conquer it will conquer your heart once again best way to deal with it is to enjoy it.
— Fahad Hassan
We both know that I will not come. We both know that he won't be in Canada. There will be another earthquake, another flood, another war, another reason to not go where we think we are going. It is a strange life, this. Chasing human misery around the planet. We are not the sort of people who go where we say we are going.
— Kelsey Hoppe, Chasing Misery: an anthology of essays by women in humanitarian responses
Misery is a heart that can never be content with what it has and, by always craving something more, brings about its own destruction. And desolation is a heart so fearful of losing what it hoards that it never knows the richness that comes from being able to give.
— Anne Bishop
Some of my favorite songs: 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Neil Young; 'Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me' by the Smiths; 'Call Me' by Aretha Franklin; 'I Don't Want to Talk About It' by anybody. And then there's 'Love Hurts' and 'When Love Breaks Down' and 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and 'The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness' and 'She's Gone' and 'I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself 'and . . . some of these songs I have listened to around once a week, on average (three hundred times in the first month, every now and again thereafter), since I was sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one. How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can that not turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong? What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person? People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Those of us who have the luck to enjoy good health forget about this vast parallel universe of the unwell-their daily miseries, their banal ordeals. Only when you cross that frontier into the world of ill-health do you recognize its quiet, massive presence, its brooding permanence.
— William  Boyd, Any Human Heart
My misery was too deep to speak any more. I scanned the page; I was having trouble breathing, as though the oxygen were leaving the room. Amid its devastation my mind flashed from thought to thought, despairingly in search of something left which it could rely on. Not rely on absolutely, that was obliterated as a possibility, just rely on a little,some solace, something surviving in the ruin.
— John Knowles, A Separate Peace
If happiness shouldn't make you so miserable, misery shouldn't make you so happy.
— Deb Caletti, The Six Rules of Maybe
Pain and misery are two different words, which both hurt.
— Auliq Ice
You are too kind, and I am unused to it. For your own sake, do not stroke my misery. It knows not how to respond, but with a vicious bite.
— Anne Fortier, The Lost Sisterhood
I am a very unhappy human being and you, dearest, simply had to be summoned to create an equilibrium for all this misery.
— Franz Kafka
Always doubting and questioning everything strikes me as a very miserable way to live.
— Marty Rubin
A woman wearing a half hijab sat on a dirty rag. I could see her toes through her ripped shoes. A baby cried in her arms. She opened her palm to me, saying, “We have no home. Please help me and my baby. God will bless you.” I noticed her broken teeth. My heart sank; I turned my face to the other side. My God! If I turned to every misery around me, I would be crying rivers on the street.
— Sarah Salem, Twisted Forms of Love
What rent do you pay here?" I inquired. "I don’t know,—what is it, Sam?" "All we make," answered Sam. It is a depressing place,—bare, unshaded, with no charm of past association, only a memory of forced human toil,—now, then, and before the war. They are not happy, these black men whom we meet throughout this region. There is little of the joyous abandon and playfulness which we are wont to associate with the plantation Negro.
— W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Ferranti's thoughts had been his. As before he had understood his remorse so now he understood the mental chains that had imprisoned him. The poor wretch could not move. Misery had become apathy and apathy had brought the inevitable paralysis of the will.
— Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells
Misery is wasted on the miserable.
— Louis C.K.
If your life is a miserable disaster, you might want to consider, that it's because you are doing something wrong.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Then he took the pages, smoothed them with the palm of his hand, and fixed them with pins to the walls. So that now, if he sat looking down upon Grape Street, the letters and images encircled him. And it was while he sat here, scarcely moving, that he was in hell and no one knew it. At such times the future became so clear that it was as if he were remembering it, remembering it in place of the past which he could no longer describe. But there was in any case no future and no past, only the unspeakable misery of his own self.
— Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor