c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Why does it hurt so much? Why does it have to hurt?
— Zoë Marriott, FrostFire
...it's always somebody's fault - I blame you for my helpless love - do you think I chose this? Your beauty compelled me...
— John Geddes, A Familiar Rain
This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those oozing walls, --what declaimers!
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
...you can't rationalize suffering - it's indeterminate - the real unknowable variable God substitutes in...
— John Geddes, A Familiar Rain
Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.
— A.W. Tozer
I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.
— Charlotte Brontë, Villette
I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one... That is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.
— Mother Teresa
When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.
— Oswald Chambers
After all, what is suffering but an awareness of suffering?
— Nancy Farmer, The House of the Scorpion
As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it’s only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying, once gone, what is left is only an object.
— Diana Gabaldon, Outlander
This last week has been a little hell for both of us simply because I didn't understand my own feelings. And because I can't understand them, I blame her for provoking in me feelings that make my world seem suddenly unsafe.
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of "mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indication that one is starting to realize that life lived outside unity consciousness is ultimately painful, distressing, and sorrowful. The life of boundaries is a life of battles—of fear, anxiety, pain, and finally death. It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions, and enchantments that we agree not to question our illusory boundaries, the root cause of the endless wheel of agony. But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail their soothing and concealing purpose. As a consequence, we begin to suffer in one way or another, because our awareness is finally directed toward the conflict-ridden nature of our false boundaries and the fragmented life supported by them.
— Ken Wilber, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth
It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God actually rises up storms of conflict in relationships at times in order to accomplish that deeper work in our character. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength. This is graduate-level grace. Are you willing to enter this school? Are you willing to take the test? If you pass, you can expect to be elevated to a new level in the Kingdom. For He brings us through these tests as preparation for greater use in the Kingdom. You must pass the test first.
— A.W. Tozer
The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.
— Ally Condie, Reached
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way un which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity -even under the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not".
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
We are breeding creatures incapable of surviving in any place other than the most artificial settings. We have focused the awesome power of modern genetic knowledge to bring into being animals that suffer more.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
What is heroic is not making life any harder that it has to be.
— Marty Rubin
Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life.
— Rachel Naomi Remen
I know that suffering is one place where He ministers to us the most. So to think that we've had our quota would be foolish. I am just longing for the day when all the pain stops.
— Mary Beth Chapman, Choosing to SEE
It's hard to know, isn't it, whether the things we face are just because the world is full of sin and sinful people, or if God is working out a plan,' Grandma continued. 'I happen to think it's both. There's sin, but through it all, He takes the mess we make and paints a masterpiece. In fact, I'm quite certain that before God can ever bless a woman—and use her to impact many—He uses the hammer, the file, and the furnace to do a holy work.
— Tricia Goyer, Love Finds You in Glacier Bay, Alaska
God pours out his choicest blessings on those who are anxious that nothing shall stick to their hands. Individuals who value the rainy day above the present agony of the world will get no blessing from God.
— William MacDonald, True Discipleship
By looking to the Source, to the Creator of nature, we can remember how to navigate life organically, with less struggle, and less suffering.
— Jeffrey R. Anderson, The Nature of Things - Navigating Everyday Life with Grace
You are enjoying the gift of genius. When ordinary people are confronted with multiple tragedies, the pain scarcely increases. They simple can't feel the extra burdens. But you have a greater capacity for suffering.
— Vernor Vinge, The Children of the Sky
But they both agreed that it's always nice to know that your wife is desired by another man, although they wouldn't go any further than that.
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
Maybe awful things is how God speaks to us, Vernon thought, trudging up the lightless tunnel. Maybe folks don’t trust in good things no more. Maybe awful things is all God’s got to remind us he’s alive. Maybe war is God come to life in men. Vernon pushed on toward the light of day. He stepped out onto the ledge and into the heat, and it felt like leaving a theater after the matinee had shown a sad film, the glare of sunshine after the darkness far too real to suffer.
— Alan Heathcock, Volt
Happiness and goodness, according to canting moralists, stand in the relation of effect and cause. There was never anything less proved or less probable: our happiness is never in our own hands; we inherit our constitution; we stand buffet among friends and enemies; we may be so built as to feel a sneer or an aspersion with unusual keenness and so circumstanced as to be unusually exposed to them; we may have nerves very sensitive to pain, and be afflicted with a disease very painful. Virtue will not help us, and it is not meant to help us.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, A Christmas Sermon
He's been through so much and to watch that boy suffer makes me wish this world wasn't so cruel.
— Shannon A. Thompson, November Snow
One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain…is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
The words were pulled from her, agonizing, like a disembowelment.
— Dawn Jayne, Uprising
Breaking a sweat through our difficulties minimized the likelihood of a crippling injury to our faith.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
Ann: How does God’s character fit into things that seem totally against his character?
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
Together we learned why God has given us His name as "I AM" (Exodus 3:14). His grace always proved itself sufficient in the moment of need, but never before the necessary time, and rarely afterwards. As I anticipated suffering in my imagination and thought of what these cruel soldiers would do next, I quivered with fear. I broke out in a cold sweat of horror. As I heard them drive into our village, day or night, my mouth would go dry: my heart would miss a beat. Fear gripped me in an awful vice. But when the moment came for action, He gave me a quiet, cool exterior that He used to give others courage too: He filled me with a peace and an assurance about what to say or do that amazed me and often defeated the immediate tactics of the enemy.
— Helen Roseveare, Living Sacrifice: Willing to Be Whittled as an Arrow
That morning set in motion a series of events that caused me to wrestle with questions of God’s goodness.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering.
— Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms
That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self — struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence — you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself. The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
— Ted Hughes, Letters of Ted Hughes
I don't feel like I can change the world. I don't even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering.
— Somaly Mam, The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine
The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.
— Gary Snyder, Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft
I saw that she didn't want to answer that question and so I asked again: when mouths close it's because there's something important to be said.
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch Of Portobello
The undisciplined mind confuses misfortune with mistakes.
— Mark Caney, Dolphin Way: Rise of the Guardians
When you come to a place where you have to left or right,' says Sister Ruth, 'go straight ahead.
— Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've run out of chances for happiness
— Orhan Pamuk, Snow
You are certainly unique. Everyone is unique. Nobody has ever suffered quite like you before because nobody has ever been you before.
— Robertson Davies, The Manticore
Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas
— Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey
Conversion can also occur among those who already have the faith. Christians will become real Christians, with less façade and more foundation. Catastrophe will divide them from the world, force them to declare their basic loyalties; it will revive shepherds who shepherd rather than administrate, reverse the proportion of saints and scholars in favor of saints, create more reapers for the harvest, more pillars of fire for the lukewarm; it will make the rich see that real wealth is in the service of the needy; and, above all else, it will make the glory of Christ’s Cross shine out in a love of the brethren for one another as true and loyal sons of God.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop
Sometimes salvation is found in agony.
— Alexandre Dumas, One Thousand and One Ghosts
Illness especially, may be a blessed forerunner of the individual’s conversion. Not only does it prevent him from realizing his desires; it even reduces his capacity for sin, his opportunities for vice. In that enforced detachment from evil, which is a Mercy of God, he has time to search himself, to appraise his life, to interpret it in terms of larger reality. He considers God, and, at that moment, there is a sense of duality, a confronting of personality with Divinity, a comparison of the facts of his life with the ideal from which he fell. The soul is forced to look inside itself, to inquire whether there is more peace in this suffering than in sinning. Once a sick man, in his passivity, begins to ask, “What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?” the crisis has already begun. Conversion becomes possible the very moment a man ceases to blame God or life and begins to blame himself; by doing so, he becomes able to distinguish between his sinful barnacles and the ship of his soul. A crack has appeared in the armor of his egotism; now the sunlight of God’s grace can pour in. But until that happens, catastrophes can teach us nothing but despair.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop
But how to explain suffering because of a man? It's not explainable. With that kind of suffering, a person feels as if they're in hell, because there is no nobility, no greatness - only misery.
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
When a soul in sin, under the impetus of grace, turns to God, there is penance; but when a soul in sin refuses to change, God sends chastisement. This chastisement need not be external, and certainly it is never arbitrary; it comes as an inevitable result of breaking God’s moral law. But the entrenched forces of the modern world are irrational, men nowadays do not always interpret disasters as the moral events they are. When calamity strikes the flint of human hearts, sparks of sacred fire are kindled and men will normally begin to make an estimate of their true worth. In previous ages this was usual: a disordered individual could find his way back to peace because he lived in an objective world inspired by Christian order. But the frustrated man of today, having lost his faith in God, living as he does, in a disordered chaotic world, has no beacon to guide him. In times of trouble he sometimes turns in upon himself, like a serpent devouring its own tail. Given such a man, who worships the false trinity of (1) his own pride, which acknowledges no law; (2) his own sensuality, which makes earthly comfort it goal; (3) his license, which interprets liberty as the absences of all restraint and law—then a cancer is created which is impossible to cure except through an operation or calamity unmistakable as God’s action in history. It is always through sweat and blood and tears that the soul is purged of its animal egotism and laid open to the Spirit … Catastrophe can be to a world that has forgotten God what a sickness can be to a sinner; in the midst of it millions might be brought not to a voluntary, but to an enforced crisis. Such a calamity would put an end to Godlessness and make vast numbers of men, who might otherwise lose their souls, turn to God.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop
Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.
— Thorton Wilder
Encounter Jesus. Suffer with him to experience his life more fully. Be holy in your love for God and his church as God is holy in his love for you and his church. Imagine what awaits those who now walk by faith, when faith and hope give way to the fullness of love when Jesus appears, when faith becomes sight at the consummation of Jesus' union with his people at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
— Paul Louis Metzger, Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths
It was not sympathy in the ordinary sense which he [Adolf Hitler] felt for the disinherited. That would not have been sufficient. He not only suffered with them, he lived for them and devoted all his thoughts to the salvation of those people from distress and poverty... his noble and grandiose work, which was intended 'for everybody'...
— August Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew
At any rate, they were strange fellows, these bohemians. They lounged around doing nothing and told you they were working; they were frightfully miserable and yet would tell you that they were perfectly happy. They had more troubles than others but seemed to bear them better, as if they fed on suffering.
— Dezső Kosztolányi, Skylark
That's the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they're suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That's why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster.
— Ted Hughes
Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self created suffering comes to an end.
— Eckhart Tolle
People never remember happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.
— Edward St. Aubyn
If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.
— Ignatius of Loyola
We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
I'm an alien in my own world, a writer without words, a musician without a piano, a magician without a wand. I am fooled by infinite words that rush in my blood, yet imprisoned by the very thoughts of silence. I'm a gray green fallow leaf on trees and abandoned on the streets, a never-ending spring season and an eternal autumn. I'm the golden of the sun and the silver of the moon, the fog of dawn and the amber of dusk. I'm the white and the red flag , the obedient and the rebel. I am the coward in the brave, and the child in the man. I am, but a writer.
— Nema Al-Araby, Remnants and Ashes
There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking. To paraphrase several sages: 'Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.
— Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other.
— Sigmund Freud
In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures on earth, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.
— Mother Teresa
Suffering needs time. It cannot survive in the now.
— Eckhart Tolle
Man is born unto the trouble as the sparks fly upwards.' In other words suffering is germane to our existence; indeed, how without it, should we be able to 'fly upwards
— Andrei Tarkovsky
Hell had been his Vietnam. It had stamped its mark on him for all eternity, and no amount of denial or self-imposed ignorance was going to change it. Ever.
— Joe Schreiber, The Unholy Cause
He understood then that neither time nor distance had lessened his love for her.But was love that made him ache with suffering truly worth fighting for?
— Guillaume Musso, Que serais-je sans toi?
Some live for their own joy and pleasure. Some live to ease the burdens of others.  Then there are those who seem to exist for pain's sake only, that in the end the wrathful fire sent to consume their oppressors will be justified."~ In loving memory of Miss Annabelle Fancher
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Secrets of a Noble Key Keeper
What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans — small and large, crude and multifaceted — that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
One of my biggest problems in dealing with the breakdown of my body is that I keep looking in the wrong direction. I look to the past and the capabilities I once had, instead of looking to the future and what I will someday become in the presence and by the grace of God. Perhaps that is the strongest temptation for you too. Our culture reinforces that mistake by its refusal to talk about heaven, as if it were an old-fashioned and outdated notion. We also intensify the problem by craving present health (as limited as it can be) more than we desire God.A friend once said to me. "This is so hard getting old—there are so many things we can‘t do any more. I guess the Lord wants to teach us something." Indeed, our bodies will never be what they previously were, and we find that difficult because we miss our former activities. But God wants to teach us to hunger for Him, our greatest treasure. Instead of rejecting the notion of heaven, we genuinely ache in our deepest self to fill that concept with a larger landscape of the Joy of basking in God‘s presence.
— Marva J. Dawn, Being Well When We're Ill: Wholeness and Hope in Spite of Infirmity
Alas! we must suffer ourselves before we can feel for others.
— Émile Gaboriau, File No. 113
The first question we must address deals with optimism, the possibility of achieving our goal. Are we in a position where we can actually hope to effect change? Assuming we become convinced that there are reasons for optimism, we move to the next question. Are we cetain that we want change? The stories about EHMs, jackals, and suffering around the globe strike raw nerves, but now we demand absolute proof that our grievances justify the efforts change will demand. Third: Is there a unifying principle that will validate our efforts? We look to ascertain that we are not merely seeking to impose our moral, religious, or philosophical values on others but instead are intent on creating something of true and lasting universal benefit. And finally: What can we each do? You and I personally need to evaluate our talents and passions. What are our individual options and desires? How do they fit into the bigger picture?
— John Perkins, The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals & the Truth about Global Corruption
On feeling guilty about lack of 'productivity':"In a time of infirmity, the illness IS one's work. Taking care of all the disciplines that our health problems require IS the other part of the small daily fidelity to which we are called, beside the faithfulness of being attentive to God. We can be well simply by our diligence in being who we are at the moment."--Marva Dawn, Being Well When We're Ill pg 137
— Marva J. Dawn
How many of us suffered to death?How many of them gained more wealth?How many of us mourned?How many of them earned?How many times we suffered such a pain?How many times they will do this again?They are Cruelbut…We don’t have to be.
— Rixa White
In the light of His example we can see, in the faith of His power we too can prove, that suffering is to God’s child the token of the Father’s love, and the channel of His richest blessing. [. . .]Suffering is the way of the rent veil, the new and living way Jesus walked in and opened for us.
— Andrew Murray, Holy in Christ
Without hope, there is no despair. There is only meaningless suffering.
— D. Morgenstern
That alone would be Eddie's triumph in all this
—  that she had taught the kelpie suffering.
Excessive suffering brings with it a kind of dull insensibility and stupor....
— Émile Gaboriau, File No. 113
And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.
— Dalai Lama XIV
Everywhere I looked, hope existed - but only as some kind of green shoot in the midst of struggle. It was a theological concept, not a spiritual practice. Hope, I began to realize, was not a state of life. It was at best a gift of life.
— Joan D. Chittister
No words are adequate for the suffering caused by hunger. To this day I have to show hunger that I escaped his grasp. Ever since I stopped having to go hungry, I literally eat life itself. And when I eat, I am locked up inside the taste of eating. For sixty years, ever since I came back from the camp, I have been eating against starvation.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.
— Pope Benedict XVI
One is always alone in suffering; the fact is depressing when one happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the world.
— Aldous Huxley
The spiritual response is too often a simplistic one: we abandon God or we blame God for abandoning us.
— Joan D. Chittister
‎Kalganov ran back into the front hall, sat down in a corner, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. He sat like that and cried for a long time--cried as though he were still a little boy and not a man of twenty... 'What are these people, what sort of people can there be after this!' he kept exclaiming incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. At that moment he did not even want to live in the world. 'Is it worth it, is it worth it!' the grieved young man kept exclaiming.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Maybe if people can't have an end to their suffering, the next thing they seek for is to know why they suffer. Suffering is a part of life in this world, part of a cycle....Stories give you a way to see things. A way to understand the events of your life. Even if you don't realize it while you're hearing the tale.
— Matthew J. Kirby
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.
— Bernard M. Baruch
If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.
— A.A. Milne
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Accept who you are
—  and revel in it.
The eyes of others our prisons
—  their thoughts our cages.
A great man is always willing to be little.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
— Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?
— Eleanor Roosevelt
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves.
— Marianne Williamson
Let others determine your worth and you're already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves.
— Peter V. Brett, The Warded Man
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
— Marianne Williamson
You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
— Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People
There are two circumstances that lead to arrogance: one is when you're wrong and you can't face it
—  the other is when you're right and nobody else can face it.
Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.
— Erma Bombeck
Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.
— Leo Tolstoy, Война и мир
The only power that exists is inside ourselves.
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.
— Sophia Loren
You are the community now. Be a lamp for yourselves. Be your own refuge. Seek for no other. All things must pass. Strive on diligently. Don’t give up.
— Gautama Buddha
The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn't that he was unusually attractive, or ambitious, or even charming. He was partly those things, but more important, he seemed to live life on his own terms.
— Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.
— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera.
— Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth
Hard to feel confident when you’re surrounded by horse-sized wolves. - Emmett Cullen
— Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn
Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.
— David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big
Walk amongst the natives by day, but in your heart be Superman.
— Gene Simmons
I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, " he explained. "I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals - true equals - only when they both have equal confidence.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Trying to build myself up with the fact that I have done things right that were even good and have had moments that were excellent but the bad is heavier to carry around and feel have no confidence.
— Marilyn Monroe, Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters
You can't make yourself feel positive, but you can choose how to act, and if you choose right, it builds your confidence.
— Julien Smith, The Flinch
I love the confidence that makeup gives me.
— Tyra Banks
Play to your strengths.""I haven’t got any," said Harry, before he could stop himself."Excuse me," growled Moody, "you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them. Think now. What are you best at?
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I know that mirrors give us a false sense of confidence.” I continued. “The reflection that we see everyday has nothing to do with how others see us. The glass lies.
— Rasmenia Massoud, Human Detritus
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
— Thomas Merton
Confidence turns into pride only when you are in denial of your mistakes.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
There are certain people who will always seek to criticize. This has nothing to do with you. It must be hard to be inside their head, you know? I mean if they find so much fault in everyone around them... then one can only imagine the faults they must see in themselves.
— Hannah Hart, My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut
Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success...whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.
— Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
I'm young as morningand fresh as dew.Everybody loves meand so do you.
— Maya Angelou, I Shall Not Be Moved
We don’t need self-confidence we need God-confidence
— Joyce Meyer
Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.
— Zig Ziglar
Her grandmother had once told her that one of life's best lessons was not being afraid to look foolish -- to just ask the question.
— Melissa Senate
His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
— Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling
Whever I came into the room, she'd light up, so happy to see me. No one ever in the course of my entire life was ever as happy to see me as she was. Looking back, now, I realize that you only ever need one person who lights up that way when you enter a room. One person is all it takes to give a kid confidence.
— Adriana Trigiani, Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers
When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there's either something wrong with your skills or something wrong with your world. And there's nothing wrong with my skills.
— Jonathan Maberry, Patient Zero
Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre
— Robert Hughes
The groove is so mysterious. We're born with it and we lose it and the world seems to split apart before our eyes into stupid and cool. When we get it back, the world unifies around us, and both stupid and cool fall away.I am grateful to those who are keepers of the groove. The babies and the grandmas who hang on to it and help us remember when we forget that any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all.
— Lynda Barry, One Hundred Demons
It's all very well going round with two fingers stuck up at the world, but what happens when the world turns round and sticks them back up at you?The world's a lot bigger than I am.
— Liz Kessler, Read Me Like a Book
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If youwant to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
— Dale Carnegie
Don't overestimate everyone else and underestimate yourself
— Tanya Burr
I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that - the ghosts you chase you never catch.
— John Malkovich
I'm not exactly Miss Confidence. I busy myself with all kinds of activities and I do well in school and I try to look pretty but I still need someone to tell me I'm worthwhile. To show me attention. I don't like it. I don't like it at all...
— Stephen Emond, Happyface
If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.
— Carl Lewis
I recognized him then; that is, I finally comprehended what I had known but had never been able to formulate: he had always been complete. He had finished the work of becoming himself, long before any of us could even imagine such a feat was possible. 
— Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
Be you, love you. All ways, always.
— Alexandra Elle
If we feel secureIn the depths of our heart,We shall not challenge anybody,For inner confidenceIs nothing short ofComplete satisfaction.
— Sri Chinmoy, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace
My face seems too square and my eyes too big, like I'm perpetually surprised, but there's nothing wrong with me that I can fix.
— David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Please do make your decisions in life and feel confident that they are right.However, if fate is involved, feel just as confident even if they aren’t.
— C. Elizabeth, Absolute Obsession
My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I'm luckier than other mortals, and they sure don't come from visualizing victory. They're the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it. Like most astronauts, I'm pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I've thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking.
— Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
There had been a time when I owned my life and now I felt like I was coming around to myself again. It's like I've finally discovered bones in myself I never knew I had. I discovered that it takes bravery to be one's self. I now know that the only thing I needed to be afraid of was of not finding my true self and having the courage to be me.
— Benilde Little, Acting Out
It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.
— Neal Shusterman, Bruiser
My confidence was of the hothouse variety, carefully cultivated under highly regulated conditions. One wrong look, one mean comment, and my facade would wither.
— Justina Chen, North of Beautiful
Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the Midol.
— Denise Jaden, Losing Faith
For in some ways the world was like a shopping centre, and he himself was a doubtful customer, often ineffectual, being talked into buying things he didn't want, things indeed which nobody in their right mind would want to buy.
— Margaret Mahy, The Catalogue of the Universe
People admire my confidence, but they never see me when I'm alone. That's when I'm the most raw because I'm not trying to sell myself to anybody.
— J. Merridew, Teenage Idol
When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you?
— Epictetus, Enchiridion and Selections from the Discourses
Most people just want to see you fall, that's more reason to stand tall.
— Emma Michelle
I feel my fear moving away in rings through time for a million years.
— Breece D'J Pancake, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
Role models are only of limited use. For no-one is as important, potentially powerful and as key in your life and world as you.
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
I thought we were celebrating being richer and cleverer than everyone else!
— Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
What is it about wearing a tuxedo or that little black dress, that makes us feel confident, beautiful, splendid, even invincible?We put on formal wear and suddenly we become extraordinary.On the days when you feel low and invisible, why not try this on for size: imagine you are wearing a fantastic tailored tuxedo or a stunning formal gown.And then proceed with your day.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Nothing builds confidence like live ammo.
— Tim Dorsey, Atomic Lobster
There is nothing left but the attempt and not trying is the same as failing.
— Mark  Miller, The Fourth Queen
Your appearance, attitude, and confidence define you as a person.A professional, well-dressed golfer, like a businessperson, gives the impression that he thinks that the golf course and/or workplace and the people there are important.
— Lorii Myers, Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace
He thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
Cheapskates...are too self-confident - and frankly too smart - to spend money on things they don't need and probably don't even want, simply to impress others or just because they can.
— Jeff Yeager, The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means
You can be confident and secure and know that you do a good job at what you do but you don't have to be arrogant about it.
— Ruben Studdard
Well i am just going to try!" she thought confidently!
— Carollynn Lemky, The Musical Mermaid
One of life's sorest tragedies is that the people who brim with confidence are always the wrong people.
— Charlie Brooker, I Can Make You Hate
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.
— Lao Tzu
The rose has toldIn one simplicityThat never lifeRelinquishes a bloomBut to bestowAn ancient confidence.
— Nathalia Crane, Venus Invisible and Other Poems
Confidence is a fine trait. Over-confidence isn't.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Obsidian Butterfly
He was grand in his convictions. He would stride forward to meet his own destruction.
— Sōseki Natsume
Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.
— Arnold Palmer
My personal definition of confidence is to keep believing that the stars in the solar system are actually watching and applauding you.
— Johnnie Dent Jr.
If you have confidence you have patience. Confidence, that is everything.
— Ilie Nastase
To country people Cows are mild,And flee from any stick they throw;But I’m a timid town bred child,And all the cattle seem to know.
— T.S. Eliot
Pride in office without competence is as much a sin as competence without confidence.
— Peter Tremayne, Shroud for the Archbishop
If You believe in yourself you can reach everything you want.
— Kees Broos, Dutch Graphic Design: A Century
Don't be so damned discouraging," said Wimsey. "I have already carefully explained to you that this time I am investigating this business. Anybody would think you had no confidence in me.""People have been wrongly condemned before now.""Exactly; simply because I wasn't there.""I never thought of that.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
Surely it is the one who fears he is wrong who avoids criticism. The one who is sure he is right invites it. It only illuminates the strength of beliefs and makes them more available to others.
— David L. Wolfe, Epistemology: The Justification Of Belief