Suffering

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Job 7:6, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Job 5:7, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

The joys Springing from sense-life are but quickening wombs Which breed sure griefs: those joys begin and end! The wise mind takes no pleasure, Kunti's Son! In such as those!

— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 5, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗

Not in the sky, not in the midst of the sea, not if we enter into the clefts of the mountains, is there known a spot in the whole world where death could not overcome (the mortal).

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 9.v.128, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Every soul shall taste of death: and for trial will we prove you with evil and with good; and unto Us shall ye be brought back.

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 21:35, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

"These sons belong to me, and this wealth belongs to me," with such thoughts a fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how much less sons and wealth?

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 5.v.62, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Difficult (to obtain) is the conception of men, difficult is the life of mortals, difficult is the hearing of the True Law, difficult is the birth of the Awakened (the attainment of Buddhahood).

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 14.v.182, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Surely in trouble have we created man.

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 90-80.90:4, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?

— Taoism · Tao Te Ching, 9-16.13, tr. James Legge, 1891 ↗

The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from life to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 24.v.334, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Before long, alas! this body will lie on the earth, despised, without understanding, like a useless log.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 3.v.41, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Him cause we to stoop through age whose days we lengthen. Will they not understand?

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 36:68, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

Pleasures destroy the foolish, if they look not for the other shore; the foolish by his thirst for pleasures destroys himself, as if he were his own enemy.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 24.v.355, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Black Belt, 1903 ↗

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, 1903 ↗

It is one of the damning characteristics of the slave system, that it robs its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God, and the hope of heaven, are found sufficient to sustain many slave-women, amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot; but, this side of God and heaven, a slave-woman is at the mercy of the power, caprice and passion of her owner.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter V, 1855 ↗

How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real!

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Meaning of Progress, 1903 ↗

Not until this last separation, dear reader, had I touched those profounder depths of desolation, which it is the lot of slaves often to reach. I was solitary in the world, and alone within the walls of a stone prison, left to a fate of life-long misery.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter (solitary imprisonment), 1855 ↗

notwithstanding the ten thousand discouragements and the powerful hinderances, which beset their existence in this country—notwithstanding the blood-written history of Africa, and her children, from whom we have descended, or the clouds and darkness now overshadowing them—progress is yet possible, and bright skies shall yet shine upon their pathway.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter: Prejudice Against Color, 1855 ↗

Their ears are made quite familiar with the agonizing cry of outraged and woe-smitted humanity. Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter (slave-traders in jail section), 1855 ↗

Thirty-nine lashes on my naked and bleeding back, would have been joyfully borne, in preference to this separation from these, the friends of my youth.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter (separation from companions), 1855 ↗

From the double life every American Negro must live, as a Negro and as an American, as swept on by the current of the nineteenth while yet struggling in the eddies of the fifteenth century,—from this must arise a painful self-consciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Faith of the Fathers, 1903 ↗

Every new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence, to make war on slavery. The heart of pity, which would melt in due time over the brutal chastisements it sees inflicted on the helpless, must be hardened.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Closing chapter, 1855 ↗

from my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and this conviction, like a word of living faith, strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter IX (preceding Chapter X), 1855 ↗

But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom 'discouragement' is an unwritten word.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, 1903 ↗

If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a grand aggregation of human horrors.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Excerpt 9, 'silent dead' passage, 1855 ↗

Merely a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen's sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers' fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, 1903 ↗

Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live,—a Negro and a Negro's son. Holding in that little head—ah, bitterly!—the unbowed pride of a hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand—ah, wearily!—to a hope not hopeless but unhopeful, and seeing with those bright wondering eyes that peer into my soul a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty a lie.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Passing of the First-Born, 1903 ↗

The old doctrine that submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the first, becomes, in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the formal relation of a slave.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter VI, 1855 ↗

Three centuries' thought has been the raising and unveiling of that bowed human heart, and now behold a century new for the duty and the deed. The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Dawn of Freedom, 1903 ↗

"You can shoot me but you can't whip me," said a slave to Rigby Hopkins; and the result was that he was neither whipped nor shot. If the latter had been his fate, it would have been less deplorable than the living and lingering death to which cowardly and slavish souls are subjected.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter VI, 1855 ↗

To-day the young Negro of the South who would succeed cannot be frank and outspoken, honest and self-assertive, but rather he is daily tempted to be silent and wary, politic and sly; he must flatter and be pleasant, endure petty insults with a smile, shut his eyes to wrong; in too many cases he sees positive personal advantage in deception and lying. His real thoughts, his real aspirations, must be guarded in whispers; he must not criticise, he must not complain. Patience, humility, and adroitness must, in these growing black youth, replace impulse, manliness, and courage.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Faith of the Fathers, 1903 ↗

He can only understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself incurred something, hazarded something, in repelling the unjust and cruel aggressions of a tyrant.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter XVII, 1855 ↗

These holidays are conductors or safety valves to carry off the explosive elements inseparable from the human mind, when reduced to the condition of slavery. But for these, the rigors of bondage would become too severe for endurance, and the slave would be forced up to dangerous desperation.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter XVIII, 1855 ↗

Though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman. That spirit will rise and walk abroad, despite of whips and chains, and extract from the cup of nature occasional drops of joy and gladness.

— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Excerpt 9, contentment passage, 1855 ↗

Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Sorrow Songs, 1903 ↗

What is wickedness? It is that which many time and often thou hast already seen and known in the world. So oft as anything doth happen that might otherwise trouble thee, let this memento presently come to thy mind, that it is that which thou hast already often seen and known. Generally, above and below, thou shalt find but the same things. There is nothing that is new. All things that are, are both usual and of little continuance.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.I, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

What if knowledge, trying to arm us with new defences against natural inconveniences, has more imprinted in our fancies their weight and greatness, than her reasons and subtleties to secure us from them?

— Renaissance humanism · Michel de Montaigne, Essays, early paragraph, tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877 ↗

'They kill me, they cut my flesh; they persecute my person with curses.' What then? May not thy mind for all this continue pure, prudent, temperate, just? As a fountain of sweet and clear water, though she be cursed by some stander by, yet do her springs nevertheless still run as sweet and clear as before; yea though either dirt or dung be thrown in, yet is it no sooner thrown, than dispersed, and she cleared. She cannot be dyed or infected by it.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.L, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

When we are under the greatest bodily pain, he observed, we shall always find, if we attend to it, that it is not the suffering of the present instant which chiefly torments us, but either the agonizing remembrance of the past, or the yet more horrible dread of the future. The pain of each instant, considered by itself, and cut off from all that goes before and all that comes after it, is a trifle, not worth the regarding.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Ch. II (Epicurus section), 1759 ↗

Since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them, it is the ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.

— The turn of the century · William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture on Healthy-Mindedness, 1902 ↗

We are only ingenious in using ourselves ill: 'tis the real quarry our intellects fly at; and intellect, when misapplied, is a dangerous tool!

— Renaissance humanism · Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, On Some Verses of Virgil, tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877 ↗

As smoke blots the white fire, as clinging rust Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds The babe unborn, so is the world of things Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh. The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms, Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame.

— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 3, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗

Many of those things that trouble and straiten thee, it is in thy power to cut off, as wholly depending from mere conceit and opinion; and then thou shalt have room enough.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.XXX, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Remember that all is but opinion, and all opinion depends of the mind. Take thine opinion away, and then as a ship that hath stricken in within the arms and mouth of the harbour, a present calm; all things safe and steady: a bay, not capable of any storms and tempests.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.XVI, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Doth any man offend? It is against himself that he doth offend: why should it trouble thee? Hath anything happened unto thee? It is well, whatsoever it be, it is that which of all the common chances of the world from the very beginning in the series of all other things that have, or shall happen, was destinated and appointed unto thee. To comprehend all in a few words, our life is short; we must endeavour to gain the present time with best discretion and justice.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.XXI, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

And if it be so, that he only, of all the animals, has this liberty of imagination and irregularity of thoughts, representing to him that which is, that which is not, and that he would have, the false and the true, 'tis an advantage dearly bought, and of which he has very little reason to be proud; for thence springs the principal and original fountain of all the evils that befal him,--sin, sickness, irresolution, affliction, despair.

— Renaissance humanism · Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Apology for Raymond Sebond (Book II), tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877 ↗

Alas, poor man! thou hast enough inconveniences that are inevitable, without increasing them by thine own invention; and art miserable enough by nature, without being so by art; thou hast real and essential deformities enough, without forging those that are imaginary.

— Renaissance humanism · Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, On Some Verses of Virgil, tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877 ↗

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its sting so often departs and turns into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it cheerfully, that a man is simply bound in honor, with reference to many of the facts that seem at first to disconcert his peace, to adopt this way of escape.

— The turn of the century · William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture on Healthy-Mindedness, 1902 ↗

A man's soul doth wrong and disrespect itself first and especially, when as much as in itself lies it becomes an aposteme, and as it were an excrescency of the world, for to be grieved and displeased with anything that happens in the world, is direct apostacy from the nature of the universe; part of which, all particular natures of the world, are.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.XIV, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly on the mind, if this part of our nature was well disposed, if our thoughts and opinions were as they should be, it was of little importance in what manner our body was affected. Though under great bodily pain, we might still enjoy a considerable share of happiness, if our reason and judgment maintained their superiority.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Ch. II (Epicurus section), 1759 ↗

It is in my power concerning this thing that is happened, what soever it be, to conceit that which is right and true. If it be, why then am I troubled? Those things that are without my understanding, are nothing to it at all: and that is it only, which doth properly concern me.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.II, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

It should never be forgotten that misfortune, be it great or small, is the element in which we live. But that is no reason why a man should indulge in fretful complaints. Our aim should be to look well about us, to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life that, like a clever fox, we may slip out of the way of every mishap, great or small; remembering that a mishap is generally only our own awkwardness in disguise.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 51, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

The officer may not be without breadth of mind and vigorous endurance. His burden is heavy and his course is long. Perfect virtue is the burden which he considers it is his to sustain;-- is it not heavy? Only with death does his course stop;-- is it not long?

— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 8.7, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗

Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.XL, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always, whether in the sharpest pains, or after the loss of a child, or in long diseases, to be still the same man.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1.V, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Patiently then await the judgment of thy Lord, and be not like him who was in the fish, when in deep distress he cried to God. Had not favour from his Lord reached him, cast forth would he have been on the naked shore, overwhelmed with shame: But his Lord chose him and made him of the just.

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 68:48-50, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

Like a well-trained horse when touched by the whip, be ye active and lively, and by faith, by virtue, by energy, by meditation, by discernment of the law you will overcome this great pain (of reproof), perfect in knowledge and in behaviour, and never forgetful.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 10.v.144, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Silently shall I endure abuse as the elephant in battle endures the arrow sent from the bow: for the world is ill-natured.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 23.v.320, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Suffer not that excellent part to be brought in subjection, and to become slavish: suffer it not to be drawn up and down with unreasonable and unsociable lusts and motions, as it were with wires and nerves; suffer it not any more, either to repine at anything now present, or to fear and fly anything to come, which the destiny hath appointed thee.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1.XVI, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Whatsoever doth happen unto thee, thou art naturally by thy natural constitution either able, or not able to bear. If thou beest able, be not offended, but bear it according to thy natural constitution, or as nature hath enabled thee. If thou beest not able, be not offended. For it will soon make an end of thee, and itself, (whatsoever it be) at the same time end with thee.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 10.III, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

If he remembers this, a man will not expect very much from life, but learn to accommodate himself to a world where all is relative and no perfect state exists;--always looking misfortune in the face, and if he cannot avoid it, meeting it with courage.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 51, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

The art of true living in this world is more like a wrestler's, than a dancer's practice. For in this they both agree, to teach a man whatsoever falls upon him, that he may be ready for it, and that nothing may cast him down.

— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.XXXIII, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, though he has committed no offence, endures reproach, bonds, and stripes, who has endurance for his force, and strength for his army.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 26.v.399, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of Fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness; they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 3, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

Good people walk on whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people never appear elated or depressed.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 6.v.83, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

The superior man may indeed have to endure want, but the mean man, when he is in want, gives way to unbridled license.

— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 15.1, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗

Whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great rejoicings or great lamentations; partly because all things are full of change, and your fortune may turn at any moment; partly because men are so apt to be deceived in their judgment as to what is good or bad for them.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 51, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, James 1:12, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I, Sec. I, Ch. I — Of Sympathy, 1759 ↗

'Is it excessive?' said he. 'If I am not to mourn bitterly for this man, for whom should I mourn?'

— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 11.9, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗

So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Job 2:13, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

Joy is a pleasant emotion, and we gladly abandon ourselves to it upon the slightest occasion... But grief is painful, and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune, naturally resists and recoils from it.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, CHAP. V, 1759 ↗

No man is absolutely indifferent to the happiness and misery of others. The first has a natural tendency to give pleasure; the second, pain. This every one may find in himself.

— The Enlightenment · David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Part II (footnote), 1751 ↗

In general, it is certain, that, wherever we go, whatever we reflect on or converse about, everything still presents us with the view of human happiness or misery, and excites in our breast a sympathetic movement of pleasure or uneasiness.

— The Enlightenment · David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Part II, 1751 ↗

Do not try to appease your friend during his hour of anger; Nor comfort him at the hour while his dead still lies before him; Nor question him at the hour of his vow; Nor strive to see him in the hour of his disgrace.

— Rabbinic Judaism · Pirkei Avot, 4:18, tr. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit (Sefaria, CC-BY) ↗

Humanity consists merely in the exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator entertains with the sentiments of the persons principally concerned, so as to grieve for their sufferings, to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at their good fortune. The most humane actions require no self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense of propriety. They consist only in doing what this exquisite sympathy would of its own accord prompt us to do.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part IV (preceding Part V), 1759 ↗

To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Job 6:14, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

if by some extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into disgrace and disappointment; even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occasion, yet you may generally depend upon the sincerest sympathy of all your friends, and, as far as interest and honour will permit, upon their kindest assistance too.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, CHAP. V, 1759 ↗

In solitude, we are apt to feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves: we are apt to over-rate the good offices we may have done, and the injuries we may have suffered: we are apt to be too much elated by our own good, and too much dejected by our own bad fortune. The conversation of a friend brings us to a better, that of a stranger to a still better, temper.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III, Ch. 3 (seventh paragraph), 1759 ↗

I very much doubt whether any knowledge can be attained without labour and sorrow; and those who wish to spare their children both, should not complain if they are neither wise nor virtuous. They only aimed at making them prudent; and prudence, early in life, is but the cautious craft of ignorant self-love.

— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 5 (pre-Ch.6 section), 1792 ↗

Do not omit to sacrifice to evil spirits. What I mean is, that a man should not hesitate about spending time, trouble, and money, or giving up his comfort, or restricting his aims and denying himself, if he can thereby shut the door on the possibility of misfortune.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 50, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

Whole generations and epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism, seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself--at the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 189, tr. Helen Zimmern, 1907 ↗

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

— Renaissance humanism · Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Adversity, 1625 ↗

The virtue of prosperity, is temperance; the virtue of adversity, is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue.

— Renaissance humanism · Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Adversity, 1625 ↗

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, "and lo! creation widens to our view."

— Transcendentalism · Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Conclusion, 1854 ↗

Every moment instructs and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long time.

— Transcendentalism · Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Experience (section 16), 1844 ↗

Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself--still ardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience: how it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges itself for its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntary blindness!

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 31, tr. Helen Zimmern, 1907 ↗

When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves.

— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 9.27, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗

Hardships, dangers, injuries, misfortunes, are the only masters under whom we can learn the exercise of this virtue. But these are all masters to whom nobody willingly puts himself to school.

— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III, Ch. 3 (fifth paragraph), 1759 ↗

Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of Fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness; they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 3, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗

A species originates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions.

— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 262, tr. Helen Zimmern, 1907 ↗

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

— Renaissance humanism · Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Adversity, 1625 ↗

Then verily along with trouble cometh ease. Verily along with trouble cometh ease. But when thou art set at liberty, then prosecute thy toil. And seek thy Lord with fervour.

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 93-104.94:5-8, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

The Soul, Thus passing forth from the Three Qualities-- Whereby arise all bodies--overcomes Birth, Death, Sorrow, and Age; and drinketh deep The undying wine of Amrit.

— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 14, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗

Emerson always held fast to the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of which Good did not or could not come.

— Transcendentalism · Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Footnote 714, 1844 ↗

And surely the Future shall be better for thee than the Past, And in the end shall thy Lord be bounteous to thee and thou be satisfied.

— Qur’an · Qur'an, 93-104.93:4-5, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Proverbs 13:12, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

Good Pleasure is the pleasure that endures, Banishing pain for aye; bitter at first As poison to the soul, but afterward Sweet as the taste of Amrit.

— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 18, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗

There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.

— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 7.v.90, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Psalms 23:4, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

When a man is ill, he devotes himself to curing his disease, without insisting that he must first learn how he came to have it.

— The turn of the century · Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Section IV (before 'ONE EXISTENCE APPEARING AS MANY'), 1907 ↗

The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order, beauty and joy, goodness and love. The idea of God that man has in his being is the wonder of all wonders.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, III — The Problem of Evil, 1913 ↗

Life as a whole never takes death seriously. It laughs, dances and plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death's face. Only when we detach one individual fact of death do we see its blankness and become dismayed. We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of which death is part.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, III — The Problem of Evil, 1913 ↗

I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Psalms 27:13, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗

But whereso any doeth all his deeds Renouncing self for Me, full of Me, fixed To serve only the Highest, night and day Musing on Me--him will I swiftly lift Forth from life's ocean of distress and death, Whose soul clings fast to Me.

— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 12, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗

Only he has attained the final truth who knows that the whole world is a creation of joy.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, V, 1913 ↗

Pain, which is the feeling of our finiteness, is not a fixture in our life. It is not an end in itself, as joy is. To meet with it is to know that it has no part in the true permanence of creation.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, III — The Problem of Evil, 1913 ↗

The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation at all. We must take it for granted that it could not be otherwise; that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and that it is futile to ask the question, Why we are? But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, III — The Problem of Evil (opening), 1913 ↗

True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and advancing.

— Transcendentalism · Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Circles, 1844 ↗

When a man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a prison-house whose walls are alien to him. When he meets the eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony with the all is established.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE, 1913 ↗

Those who have fully realised the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the sorrowfulness of life or of the bondage of action. Pain and sorrow dismay them not, they are not bowed down to the dust by the weight of their own heart. With the erect head of the victorious hero they march through life seeing themselves and showing themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys and sorrows.

— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, VI, 1913 ↗

Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.

— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Sorrow Songs, 1903 ↗