Lord Byron - Christopher Hitchens - Carl Sagan - James Garfield - Jeremy Taylor - William Shakespeare - Sigmund Freud - Woody Allen - Rab C Nesbitt TV - Paul Foot - Charles Darwin - Adam Smith - Matthew Arnold - W Somerset Maugham - Thomas Browne - Vincent van Gogh - Gone With The Wind 1939 - Star Trek: Voyager TV - Robert Lowe - Albert Schweitzer - William Blake - William James - Samuel Johnson - Boethius - Christopher Marlowe - Lloyd George -
I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. Lord Byron, letter to Francis Hodgson 3 September 1811
There’s no expiation for the generations of misery and suffering that religion has inflicted in this way and continues to inflict and I still haven’t heard enough apology for it. Christopher Hitchens
Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. James A Garfield
As our life is very short, so it is very miserable, and therefore it is well it is short. Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying, 1651
Just Death, kind umpire of men’s miseries. William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixth II v 29
My heart is drowned with grief,
Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes,
My body round engirt with misery;
For what’s more miserable than discontent? William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention 2 Henry VI III i 142-144, King Henry
O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death! William Shakespeare, Richard III IV i 33-34, Duchess of York
If there were reason for these miseries,
Then into limits could I bind thy woes.
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow? William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus III i 218-220, Titus to Marcus
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar IV iii 217
Jaques: Will you sit down with me, and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery?
Orlando: I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults. William Shakespeare, As You Like It III ii 271-275
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope. William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure III i 2-3, Claudio
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor, Trinculo
For misery is trodden on by many,
And, being low, never relieved by any. William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
What good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, as if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer? Sigmund Freud
Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering – it’s all over much too soon. Woody Allen
If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job. Woody Allen
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. Annie Hall 1977 starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton & Tony Roberts & Carol Kane & Paul Simon & Janet Margolin & Shelley Duvall & Christopher Walken & Colleen Dewhurst & Donald Symington & Joan Newman et al, director Woody Allen, him to her
The world is a veil of hopeless misery. Marriage nothing but institutionalised boredom. Rab C Nesbitt s6e3: Growth, BBC 1997
Why, son, we hope you’re happy here. I mean, I’m not happy here. I’m as miserable as sin here. This house is nothing but a pit of misery and despair. A coffin with windows. Anyway enjoy. Rab C Nesbitt s7e1: New, BBC 1998
The subjection of human beings by the organisation of productive labour has increased a hundredfold since Engels wrote that passage. The greater the exploitation, the more miserable the lot of so many workers, and the greater the case for socialism. The worst crime of capitalism is its enslavement and corruption of the human spirit. It binds that spirit to the yoke of productive labour, lobs it back and forth between boom and slump, insults and degrades it as if it were no more than part of the machinery. ‘We are,’ says the Guatemalan peasant in the film El Norte, ‘just arms and legs for them.’ Paul Foot, The Case for Socialism chapter 5
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable. Adam Smith
Resolve to be thyself: and know that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery. Matthew Arnold, Self-Dependence, 1852
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. W Somerset Maugham, Books and You
He forgets that he can die who complains of misery, we are in the power of no calamity, which death is in our own. Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. Vincent van Gogh, letter to brother Theo
Most of the miseries of the world were caused by wars. Gone with the Wind 1939 starring Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh & Leslie Howard & Olivia de Haviland & Thomas Mitchell & Barbara Mitchell & Evelyn Keyes & Ann Rutherford & George Reeves & Fred Crane & Hattie McDaniel & Alicia Rhett et al, director Victor Fleming, Ashley
Leave us alone in our misery. Star Trek: Voyager s1e12: Heroes and Demons, Viking dude
You’ve got something on your mind. What tells me that it’s making you miserable is that cloud of doom that’s rising from you like a ground fog. Star Trek: Voyager s1e16: Learning Curve, Neelix to Tuvok
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man whose duties make him more or less of a taxing machine. He is entrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can. Robert Lowe, speech House of Commons 11th April 1870
The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats. Albert Schweitzer
And because I am happy, and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King
Who make up a heaven of our misery. William Blake, Songs of Experience
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James, the Principles of Philosophy, 1890